Mining Conflict and Opposition – Page 80

Ontario First Nation wins injunction to stop gold drilling – by Tanya Talaga (Toronto Star – February 12, 2012)

February 14, 2012February 12, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

When members of Wahgoshig First Nation spotted a drilling crew on what they say is a sacred burial site, they demanded to know who the strangers were and what they were doing.

The Wahgoshig, whose Algonquin reserve of 19,239 acres is 113 km east of Timmins, running south from Lake Abitibi near the Quebec border, say they were met with silence. But what was happening on the land was anything but silent, according to court records.

The prospecting work involves clearing 25 sq. metre pads, clearing forest, bulldozing access routes to the drilling sites and the transportation and storage of fuel and equipment.

The workers were with Solid Gold Resources Inc., a junior mining firm that has a 200-square-kilometre prospect at Lake Abitibi near the Porcupine Fault zone. The land they were on, says Wahgoshig band chief David Babin, is not part of the reserve itself but does include the traditional lands the Algonquins have lived on for thousands of years.

How First Quantum recouped its seized mine – by Matthew McClearn (Canadian Business Magazine – January 19, 2012)

February 10, 2012

Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada.

In 2007 the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo announced it would autocratically tear up and renegotiate contracts with foreign mining companies. The price Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals paid for resisting: the forcible seizure and resale of its properties in the country, including two operating mines and another on which construction was nearly complete.

The DRC investigated First Quantum for what it called “suspected widescale misconduct.” Its courts, which are not independent, slapped a stinging US$12-billion judgment on the company. The government transferred the properties for nominal sums to close associates of DRC president Joseph Kabila, who promptly flipped them for significant profits; Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC), a large London-based company dominated by Kazakh owners, paid just US$175 million for the Kolwezi project, which cost First Quantum nearly $800 million to purchase and construct.

First Quantum immediately sought redress, but its hand seemed weak. ENRC CEO Felix Vuilis had maintained his company owed nothing to the former owners. “Any dispute that First Quantum has is with the relevant DRC authorities,” he declared shortly after the purchase.

Africa: The Back Story to Cida-Mining Partnerships – by Catherine Coumans (All Africa.com/Mining Watch.com – February 9, 2012)

February 10, 2012

www.allafrica.com

Catherine Coumans is the research co-ordinator and Asia Pacific program co-ordinator for MiningWatch Canada. She is the author of Whose Development? Mining, Local Resistance, and Development Agendas.

Analysis

Mining companies’ branding of themselves as bringers of development needs to be critically examined against the burgeoning ‘resource curse’ literature that links mining to deepening national impoverishment in mining-dependent developing countries

The Canadian International Development Agency’s funding of Corporate Social Responsibility projects mostly near mine sites is intended to help Canadian mining companies compete for access to lucrative ore bodies in developing countries in the face of increasing local opposition to mining.

As I write this, thousands of Cajamarcans in Peru are protesting Newmont Mining Corp.’s proposed Conga mine that will destroy four lakes they depend on for their water supplies and livelihoods.

The Devastating Costs of the Amazon Gold Rush – by Donovan Webster (Smithsonian Magazine – February, 2012)

February 7, 2012

This article is from: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/?ref=home

Spurred by rising global demand for the metal, miners are destroying invaluable rainforest in Peru’s Amazon basin

It’s a few hours before dawn in the Peruvian rainforest, and five bare light bulbs hang from a wire above a 40-foot-deep pit. Gold miners, operating illegally, have worked in this chasm since 11 a.m. yesterday. Standing waist-deep in muddy water, they chew coca leaves to stave off exhaustion and hunger.

In the pit a minivan-size gasoline engine, set on a wooden cargo pallet, powers a pump, which siphons water from a nearby river. A man holding a flexible ribbed-plastic hose aims the water jet at the walls, tearing away chunks of earth and enlarging the pit every minute until it’s now about the size of six football fields laid side by side. The engine also drives an industrial vacuum pump. Another hose suctions the gold-fleck-laced soil torn loose by the water cannon.

At first light, workers hefting huge Stihl chain saws roar into action, cutting down trees that may be 1,200 years old. Red macaws and brilliant-feathered toucans take off, heading deeper into the rainforest. The chain saw crews also set fires, making way for more pits.

Congolese citizens will appeal to Supreme Court in suit against Canadian mining – by Sidhartha Banerjee (Winnipeg Free Press – February 2, 2012)

February 2, 2012

This ariticle came from: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

The Canadian Press

MONTREAL – A coalition of human-rights groups say they will make a last-ditch plea to the Supreme Court of Canada in an effort to sue a Canadian mining company on behalf of the victims of a massacre in Congo.

The Canadian Association Against Impunity, a coalition of human-rights groups and non-governmental organizations acting on behalf of Congolese citizens, says it’s imperative that those people have access to justice in Canada. Quebec’s Court of Appeal last week overturned a lower-court ruling from April 2011 that had paved the way for a civil suit to be heard in Canada.

In their claim, the groups had argued that Anvil Mining Limited (TSX:AVM) provided logistical support to the Congolese military as it moved to crush a rebel uprising in 2004.

A Vast Canadian Wilderness Poised for a Uranium Boom – by Ed Struzik (Yale Environment 360.com – January 30, 20120

January 30, 2012

This article is from Yale Environment 360.com: http://e360.yale.edu/

Canadian author and photographer Ed Struzik has been writing on the Arctic for three decades.

Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the largest undisturbed wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere. It also contains large deposits of uranium, generating intense interest from mining companies and raising concerns that a mining boom could harm the caribou at the center of Inuit life.

Until her semi-nomadic family moved into the tiny Inuit community of Baker Lake in the 1950s, Joan Scottie never knew there was a wider world beyond her own on the tundra of the Nunavut Territory in the Canadian Arctic. She didn’t see the inside of a school until she was a teenager and didn’t venture south until she was an adult.

But that all changed in 1978, when a Soviet satellite carrying 100 pounds of enriched uranium for an onboard nuclear reactor crashed into the middle of the wilderness she knew so well, resulting in a military search that recovered some of the radioactive debris. Everything that Scottie learned about uranium after that convinced her she wanted nothing to do with a mineral that had the potential to cause such serious health problems or be used for military purposes.

Descendant of Jack London opposes [Northwest Territory] mine – by By Stephen Hume (Vancouver Sun – January 28, 2012)

January 28, 2012

The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.

Aboriginal opposition to development of silver-zinc deposit in Nahanni National Park Reserve is supported by writer’s great-granddaughter

Celebrated writer Jack London’s great-granddaughter is supporting northern first nations and environmental groups challenging efforts by a Vancouver mining company to redevelop a rich silver-zinc deposit within the Nahanni National Park Reserve.

The park, surrounding the South Nahanni River where it carves through the Mackenzie Mountains about 1,300 kilometres north of Vancouver, has been called Canada’s Grand Canyon.

Last December, the Dehcho First Nations wrote to the federal government saying that a decision by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board dismissing the need for an environmental impact review for the Canadian Zinc Corp.’s Prairie Creek mine was “troubling and disappointing” in its failure to adequately address their concerns about downstream water quality.

What miners should know about the injunction against Solid Gold Resources [Wahgoshig First Nation] – by Nalin Sahni & David Hunter (Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP – January 27, 2012)

January 27, 2012

Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP: http://www.fmc-law.com/Home.aspx

Ontario Court Halts Exploration After Mining Company Refused to Consult First Nation – Nalin Sahni & David Hunter

The Wahgoshig First Nation (“WFN”) in Northern Ontario has obtained an injunction to temporarily stop Solid Gold Resources Corp. (“Solid Gold”), a junior mining company, from drilling on their First Nation Treaty lands. In a decision released last week (2011 ONSC 7708 (CanLII)), Justice Brown of the Ontario Superior Court halted all exploration activities for at least 120 days after finding that Solid Gold had repeatedly failed to respond to consultation requests from both WFN and the Ontario Government.

While this decision should not come as a surprise to knowledgeable observers, it is important for three reasons:

1) It confirms that as yet there is no Aboriginal veto over mining exploration activities;

2) It highlights problems with the Crown’s practice of delegating the consultation to proponents and

Conflict mineral readiness: what companies need to know – by Charlene Easton (Canadian Mining Journal – January, 2012)

January 27, 2012

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Charlene Easton is a Senior Manager and Business Practice Leader in Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services group. She is based in Vancouver.

Canadian mining and metals companies’ corporate social responsibility is about to get a lot more interesting as an uptake in regulations and frameworks for due diligence on mineral supply chains in conflict-affected and high-risk areas emerge around the world. The goal of these newly introduced regulations and frameworks is to ensure responsible supply chain management so that so-called “conflict minerals” do not directly or indirectly contribute to regional conflicts in areas where armed aggression can lead to severe human rights abuses against workers and local people.

In an attempt to prevent mined minerals from fuelling conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the US introduced a conflict mineral requirement in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in July 2010. Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires all US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registrants – including any Canadian company listed on a US stock exchange – to disclose whether the minerals they source contribute to armed conflict.

Solid Gold fights court order – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – January 27, 2012)

January 27, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper

A mineral exploration company that was forced by injunction to halt drilling outside Wahgoshig First Nation has responded with a two-pronged legal attack.

Solid Gold Resource Corporation has filed an appeal against the court’s decision to award an injunction and it is suing the Ontario government.

“We’re appealing the injunction that was awarded to Wahgoshig, ordering the Crown and Solid Gold to enter some kind of consultation,” said company president Darryl Stretch. That appeal is to be heard on Feb. 29 in Toronto.

“We have also just served notice to the Crown for damages that have affected our company as a result of this injunction,” said Stretch. “That claim is for at least $100 million.”

Miner Solid Gold sues Ontario over court ruling halting its operations – by Romina Maurino (Canadian Business – January 25, 2012)

January 26, 2012

This article came from the Canadian Business website: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/

The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Solid Gold Resources Corp. (TSXV:SLD) says it plans to sue the Ontario government for $100 million over a ruling that temporarily prevents the junior mining company from drilling on Crown land near traditional First Nation territory.

The company alleges the province is liable for losses it suffered after a ruling earlier this month sided with the Wahgoshig First Nation in saying Solid Gold failed to consult before beginning its exploration.

Solid Gold has said any duty to consult with First Nations falls to the government, not the mining company, and it’s not something the province can delegate.

Solid Gold president Darryl Stretch, who is appealing the injunction, said the ruling has far-reaching implications because it means it would now be up to companies to get consent from First Nations on any project that runs near their traditional land.

Canadian mining company denies link to shooting death of protester in Mexico – by Peter O’Neil (National Post – Janurary 26, 2012)

May 4, 2015January 26, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

OTTAWA — Vancouver-based mining company Fortuna Silver says it has nothing to do with the shooting death of a protester in a town near the company’s mine site in Mexico.

Police have arrested the alleged shooter implicated in the death of Bernardo Mendez Vazquez, who was shot last week during a protest that news reports have linked to opposition to the gold and silver mine.

The shooting took place in the town of San Jose del Progreso, where the mine is the chief employer. The town and mine in the southwestern state of Oaxaca have been the sites of past conflicts involving groups who say the mine is an environmental threat to the arid region’s scarce water supply.

But Fortuna Silver president Jorge Ganoza said “misinformation” is behind media reports tying his company to the violence, which also left another protester with a leg wound.

Gold junior [Solid Gold Resources] sues Ontario govt for C$100m over ‘precedent-setting’ ruling – by Matthew Hill (Miningweekly.com – Janaury 24, 2012)

January 25, 2012

Mining Weekly is South Africa’s premier source of weekly news on mining developments in Africa’s most important industry. Mining Weekly provides in-depth coverage of mining projects and the personalities reshaping the mining industry.

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Solid Gold Resources, a Toronto-based junior with precious-metals prospects in Ontario, said on Tuesday it is suing the Ontario government for C$100-million, and possibly more.

The company is seeking damages sustained as a result of a January 3 Superior Court of Ontario ruling that prevents it from drilling at its Lake Abitibi property, located east of Timmins in northern Ontario, for 120 days while the TSX-V-listed company consults with the Wahgoshig First Nation.

Judge Carol Brown’s judgement “squarely conflicts with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Haida Nation v. British Columbia, which held that third parties cannot be held liable for failing to discharge the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate,” Solid Gold said in a statement on January 19.

It said it would appeal the decision.