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Comments on Shethongmon mining
Saturday, 19 May 2007, 4:26 p.m.
Following report was filed by the Environment and Development Desk of the Department of Information and International Relations, Central Tibetan Administration, on 27 April 2007, at the conclusion a two-day roundtable meeting on Shethongmon mining, held in London, UK.
TIBETAN PARTICIPANTS FROM Dharamsala, India, appreciate the invitation from TibetInfoNet to attend the Shethongmon Roundtable and meet with representatives of HDI / Continental Minerals, which plans to mine gold, copper and silver at Shetongmon in central Tibet.
Tenzin Tsultrim and Dhondup Dolma, researchers from the Environment and Development Desk of Department of Information and International Relations, are glad to discuss related issues with anyone proposing "development" for Tibet that is aimed at directly benefiting the Tibetan people. Our main concerns are the well-being of the Tibetan people and the environmental impacts of a mine that may operate for as long as 40 years or more. We base our response entirely on the evidence.
In this situation, the mining companies Continental Minerals, and its Chinese state-owned major equity partner Jinchuan Nonferrous Metals Corporation, have made information available, enabling us to assess the proposed mine against the Guidelines for International Development Projects and Sustainable Development in Tibet, which was issued by Central Tibetan Administration in 2004 for just such a situation as this.
These Guidelines, framed in accordance with the environmental protection and sustainable development practices across the world, express the will of the Tibetan people as a whole. They establish general principles and specific practices of development suited to the human needs of the Tibetan people and their environment. Tibet’s fragile environment has also global significance. There are strong evidence to prove that a sustainable and healthy environment of Tibet, also known as the Roof of the World, can provide a positive service toward the betterment of the environmental situation of the world in general and Asia in particular.
The Tibetan Guidelines therefore provides a clear guidance to all outside project promoters and investors, and helps to establish standards, which are to be met if projects, such as this mining project, are to be acceptable in Tibet. Our response to this project, which will dig about ten million tons of rock a year out of the Tibetan earth, is based entirely on these well-known Guidelines, and we expect anyone who sincerely wants to benefit Tibet and the Tibetan people to also base their plans on these Guidelines, which could serve as the basis for a mining code governing this project in all aspects.
According to our research study, this project fails to comply with the Tibetan Guidelines for the following reasons:
1. It is on a scale that is too large to be beneficial locally to the Tibetan people.
2. It depletes precious Tibetan resources for the profit of distant Chinese state-owned partners and a Canadian company, with only modest royalties provided at provincial level and inadequate compensation locally.
3. The location is only less than a kilometre from the Yarlung Tsangpo River, which is the great waterway not only of Tibet but also India and Bangladesh. Bangladesh already faces an arsenic crisis in its water. If the highly acid toxic wastes produced by this mine during 40 years of mining, or after mining ceases, should ever seep into the Yarlung Tsangpo, the lives of a hundred million people downstream will be at risk.
4. Mining depletes the heritage of Tibet, with no acknowledgement that all Tibetans, other than some local people, are the losers. There is not even a resource depletion tax.
5. Never before has mining on such a scale happened in Tibet. There is nothing inevitable about a mine that increases China’s copper production by little more than one per cent, but impacts negatively on an area close to one of Tibet’s most historic town, namely Shigatse. The large number of mines in Tibet, on a much smaller scale, invariably caused destruction, and provided opportunities for an uncontrolled influx of Chinese immigrant workers into Tibet, which marginalises the Tibetan people in their own land.
6. Local communities in the areas affected by mining have had no opportunity to seek and obtain independent expert advice on short and long term consequences of mining. There has been no satisfactory program of education, in close cooperation with local communities, establishing a local learning community able to consider carefully the many complexities of mining technologies and techniques. Only after a full process of action research run by local people is it possible to contemplate such a project.
7. The above points, among many others, are only a preliminary listing of our Tibetan concerns.
We look forward to more discussion, clarification and further deepening of our understanding of this project. The companies (Continental and Jinchuan) can show their good faith by not proceeding with obtaining a Mining Licence until all the above matters have been resolved, in accordance with the Guidelines for International Development Projects and Sustainable Development in Tibet.
| --Tenzin Tsultrim & Dhondup Dolma, Environment and Development Desk, DIIR |
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