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The Missing Ethics of Mining

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2013

Shefa Siegel
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Extract

In the middle of the 1980s the pastoralists of Essakane, Burkina Faso, were dying. Drought gripped the drylands of West Africa, crippling peoples' semi-nomadic livelihoods of millet farming and goat herding. When rain finally returned after three years, the earth had hardened like concrete and water skimmed across the floodplain, barely penetrating the surface. Without arable land the people faced famine—until they discovered gold. Instead of a disaster area, Essakane transformed into a commercial oasis: a mining town of 10,000 miners and traders where gold is processed and exchanged for food, cloth, spices, and animals.

Type
Essay
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , Spring 2013 , pp. 3 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2013

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References

NOTES

1 See “Minerals Yearbook: Volume I—Metals and Minerals,” U.S. Geological Survey; minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/myb/.

2 Alana Wilson, “Peru's Social Conflict is About More than Mining,” Fraser Forum, September-October, 2012; www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/articles/perus-social-conflict-is-about-more-than-mining.pdf. Also see Fiorella Triscritti, “More Gold or More Water? Corporate-Community Conflicts in Peru,” Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, September 2012 (unpublished).

3 The troy ounce used for gold is 31.1 grams.

4 See Cam Simpson, “Soros Gold Bubble at $1,384 as Miners Push Buttons,” Bloomberg, December 19, 2010; www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-20/soros-gold-bubble-at-1-375-has-miners-push-every-button-in-tale-of-tears.html.

5 Ibid.

6 Oliver, Roland and Fage, J. D., A Short History of Africa (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1962), p. 63Google Scholar.

7 Dumett, Raymond E., El Dorado in West Africa (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

8 Ibid.