JONG CADION
Chief of reporters
COTABATO CITY—The second installment on the book about mining in the country entitled “Mining or Food?” was launched, Jan. 21, at the Diocesan Pastoral Center attended by selected media personalities and Mindanao Pilgrim.
One year in the making, the book's authors, Robert Goodland and Clive Wicks, said they collaborated with the London-based Working Group on Mining in the Philippines (WGMP) in coming up with the data used in their articles.
WGMP is presently chaired by former minister for International Development Clare Short.
“Mining or Food?,” Goodland and Wicks said, is dedicated to all the courageous and dignified people who have been killed while protecting the environment and upholding human rights in the Philippine archipelago.”
It likewise highlights the threat that mining poses to food security with help from many Filipinos whose names they would not mention for safety reasons, the authors added.
A glimpse of the book pictures how food production will be damaged irrepairably if the mining projects on the drawing board go ahead.
Six case studies documented were presented in the book, including that of Midsalip in Zamboanga del Sur; Sibutad in Zamboanga del Norte; Tampakan, South Cotabato and that of Pujada Bay in Davao Oriental.
Also included are the mining, food and environment related issues on the islands of Mindoro and Sibuyan.
In one chapter chapter of the book, it said that once self-sufficient in rice, the Philippines is now the world’s biggest importer and with world rice prices tripping in 2008.
“It has to pay record prices. In a country where two-thirds of the population lives on only $2 a day, this means that more Filipino families are being force into poverty,” the book said.
The likewise book cited the problem is rooted in the failure to maintain the health of its agricultural sector and to conserve vital natural resources, such as tropical forest and water, which contribute to national rice output.
“The loss of watershed, for example, has a direct impact on the water supply for irrigation that is so vital for rice farmers. Yet, the Government seems to regard forests purely as a source of timber and as potential areas for mining,” the book said.
“The stark choices’ facing the Philippines is between a few years of mining and thousands of years of irrigated rice and fisheries production. Mining reduces the options for future generations.”
“The lessons learnt from the 2002-2004 independent World Bank-funded Extractive Industry review have not been heeded in the Philippines,” the book continued.
The report also urges a moratorium on new mining projects in the country and the review of existing projects, pointing to a serious reservation about the practices of the mining companies, many of which have headquarters in Britain and are listed on the London Stock Exchange.
“We are not against mining provided that the source of food will be protected,” Wicks told Mindanao Pilgrim.
Wicks have 48 years of experience of working in engineering, agriculture and environment, specializing in the impact of extractive industries on the environment.
He chairs IUCN’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, and co-chairs IUCN’s Working group on the Social and Environmental Accountability of the Private Sector.
For 24 years, he worked in the international environmental movement, mainly with WWF UK’s African, Asian and Latin America programmes.
He said he is concerned about mining activities failing to meet sustainability criteria.
“You have the best Law in the Philippines regarding the mining and environmental protection but it was not strictly implemented and perhaps violated,” Goodland also said.
Goodland, an environmental scientist and an awardee of the World Conservation Union’s Coolidge, specializes in economic development and is an adviser to the World Bank Group from 1978 through 2001.
A technical director to H.E. Dr. Emil Salim’s independent Extractive Industry Review of the World Bank Groups Portfolio of oil, gas mining projects, he was elected president of the International Association of Impact Assessment, and Metropolis Chair of the Ecological Society of America.
The book, which also reports the clash between the Philippine Government’s rhetoric about supporting agriculture and the crises on the ground will also be launched in Manila on Feb. 4 and in London on Feb. 9.