As many of you know, the fellowship program that funds my work in India holds weekly seminars. Each week, one or two speakers talks to us about various issues in India or developing countries or discusses a particular methodology (for example, cost modeling or randomized control trials). At yesterday's seminar, a professor in MIT's Department of Materials Science spoke to us about minerals cost forecasting. Specifically, he talked about rare earth elements.
For those of you who don't know about rare earth elements (I certainly knew nothing before yesterday), they are used in a lot of modern electronics, advanced motors, and other automotive parts. China is pretty much the only player on the rare earths market. China produces 97% of the world's rare earths, and India produces the other 3%. India has the world's second-largest reserves of rare earths, but those reserves have barely been tapped. India has tremendous potential to expand rare earths mining, especially in the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, home also to the largest concentrations of adivasis (indigenous people) and iron ore.
The professor somehow managed to talk about rare earth elements without talking about the sticky politics of mining those elements in India's adivasi heartlands, where a Maoist insurgency has taken root partly due to the perceived illegal exploitation of tribal lands for mines. To be fair, this professor is not a political scientist; he's a resource economist who tries to predict supply and demand curves of various minerals and then uses those predictions to advise mining corporations on how to prepare for future market behavior or engineering firms on which minerals to employ in their products. The point of his talk was not about the politics of mining in Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, but about how supply and demand forecasting can influence material selection in engineering.
Last night, I briefly chatted with my friend Marena about the sloppiness and fuzziness of environmental justice, and it got me thinking about the rare earths talk. Mining rare earths is good for the global environmental cause: these elements are necessary for the magnets found in the motors of electric vehicles and wind turbines. If we want to ween ourselves off of petroleum-fueled vehicles and coal power plants to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change, we're going to need a lot more of these minerals for our electric cars and wind farms. On the other hand, the mining process of rare earths devastates the local environment. Much like hydrofracking, the process is water-intensive and results in heavy contamination of local water resources. So, do we sacrifice the local for the global? What is the "just" thing to do?
Arundhati Roy would say the just thing to do would be to "leave the bauxite in the mountain." (Yes, I've referenced this quote before.) She feels so strongly about this issue that she declared the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks should focus on mining in eastern India rather than curbing worldwide carbon emissions. Roy is an ardent supporter of the Maoists, who oppose the mining operations. She implies that the Maoists represent the wishes and beliefs of all tribal people in the regions in which they fight. However, this is simply not true. It is difficult to quantify support for Maoism, as the Maoists tend to utilize intimidation techniques to garner support. While certainly there are genuine supporters, many adivasis who show support do so out of fear. Some agree with the Maoist ideology but disagree with their violent methodology. Others disagree with them altogether. Like any population, adivasis feel divided on politics.
I learned during my visits to Jharkhand that the poorest people do see the mines as a lucrative employment opportunity, especially because there are few other opportunities. It is very easy for the Maoists and Roy to paint the government and mineral companies as evil bullies stealing land from helpless tribal people at absolutely zero benefit to them, but it is not that simple. Mines do provide jobs, and jobs that pay well due to the dangers.
I'm not denying that the major mining corporations exploit the local communities. Of course they do. To admittedly simplify the issue: the forest lands belonged to the adivasis, and then the Indian government took those lands away and sold them to outsiders for huge sums of money--and adivasis haven't seen a rupee. But the answer cannot be to completely eliminate mining; the world needs the minerals (Japan definitely wants an alternative supplier to China!), and these impoverished states of India need the money. The answer has to involve some form of inclusive development. How can the benefits to the local communities be maximized and the risks to the environment be minimized? How can the profits be more equitably distributed so that adivasis see more advantages from these mining operations? The local communities need to be included from Day One in the planning of the mines--not just included for the sake of being included, but included as an equal partner with equal power--and the environmental damage needs to be adequately contained. (Ok, maybe I'm asking for a lot that is not realistic...)
For now, major corporations on the demand side, such as GE, are preparing for the potential decline in rare earths availability by trying to design induction motors that do not require rare earth magnets. One supply side player, Molycorp Minerals, has been developing more environmentally-friendly (or should I say, less environmentally-devastating?) mining methods that meet California's environmental regulations so that they can re-open the Mountain Pass rare earth mine (in 2002 California had closed Mountain Pass, the only rare earths mine in the US, due to environmental contamination). Certainly researching ways to reduce the demand for rare earths and ameliorate the environmental impacts of mining is a step in the right direction for environmental justice. But for the foreseeable future, rare earths mining is going to be in high demand and highly dirty--with potential for high profits. Given this reality, what is the just way forward in Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh?
Some further reading:
If you want to learn more about mining in India, it is definitely worth reading Roy,* even though I don't think she takes a nuanced-enough approach. She does make some strong points, so click here for her thoughts on mining and Maoists.
India Together's mining news here
Ernst and Young's "Mining India Sustainably for Growth" here
"India bets on rare-earth minerals," Wall Street Journal here
*My problem with Roy, really, is that she doesn't seem to recognize that the modern world has encroached on traditional tribal life. She never offers any alternatives for tribal development; she seems to think India should simply leave the adivasis alone. That might have been fine if they were always left alone, but now they're in this weird limbo between their traditional lifestyle and mainstream society as a result of various British colonial and Indian policies. The adivasis probably cannot revert to their old way of life given modern realities. I'm not saying India should force them to join mainstream society, but they should be included, somehow, in policy-making and be given the tools to make decisions about their own future. (Where I work, former forest-dwelling adivasis have been forced into a settled agrarian lifestyle due to various forestry policies. But they were not farmers before a generation ago, so they lack a lot of the knowledge and skills that are usually passed down from parents to children.) Ok, Roy rant over.
For those of you who don't know about rare earth elements (I certainly knew nothing before yesterday), they are used in a lot of modern electronics, advanced motors, and other automotive parts. China is pretty much the only player on the rare earths market. China produces 97% of the world's rare earths, and India produces the other 3%. India has the world's second-largest reserves of rare earths, but those reserves have barely been tapped. India has tremendous potential to expand rare earths mining, especially in the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, home also to the largest concentrations of adivasis (indigenous people) and iron ore.
The professor somehow managed to talk about rare earth elements without talking about the sticky politics of mining those elements in India's adivasi heartlands, where a Maoist insurgency has taken root partly due to the perceived illegal exploitation of tribal lands for mines. To be fair, this professor is not a political scientist; he's a resource economist who tries to predict supply and demand curves of various minerals and then uses those predictions to advise mining corporations on how to prepare for future market behavior or engineering firms on which minerals to employ in their products. The point of his talk was not about the politics of mining in Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, but about how supply and demand forecasting can influence material selection in engineering.
Last night, I briefly chatted with my friend Marena about the sloppiness and fuzziness of environmental justice, and it got me thinking about the rare earths talk. Mining rare earths is good for the global environmental cause: these elements are necessary for the magnets found in the motors of electric vehicles and wind turbines. If we want to ween ourselves off of petroleum-fueled vehicles and coal power plants to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change, we're going to need a lot more of these minerals for our electric cars and wind farms. On the other hand, the mining process of rare earths devastates the local environment. Much like hydrofracking, the process is water-intensive and results in heavy contamination of local water resources. So, do we sacrifice the local for the global? What is the "just" thing to do?
Arundhati Roy would say the just thing to do would be to "leave the bauxite in the mountain." (Yes, I've referenced this quote before.) She feels so strongly about this issue that she declared the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks should focus on mining in eastern India rather than curbing worldwide carbon emissions. Roy is an ardent supporter of the Maoists, who oppose the mining operations. She implies that the Maoists represent the wishes and beliefs of all tribal people in the regions in which they fight. However, this is simply not true. It is difficult to quantify support for Maoism, as the Maoists tend to utilize intimidation techniques to garner support. While certainly there are genuine supporters, many adivasis who show support do so out of fear. Some agree with the Maoist ideology but disagree with their violent methodology. Others disagree with them altogether. Like any population, adivasis feel divided on politics.
I learned during my visits to Jharkhand that the poorest people do see the mines as a lucrative employment opportunity, especially because there are few other opportunities. It is very easy for the Maoists and Roy to paint the government and mineral companies as evil bullies stealing land from helpless tribal people at absolutely zero benefit to them, but it is not that simple. Mines do provide jobs, and jobs that pay well due to the dangers.
I'm not denying that the major mining corporations exploit the local communities. Of course they do. To admittedly simplify the issue: the forest lands belonged to the adivasis, and then the Indian government took those lands away and sold them to outsiders for huge sums of money--and adivasis haven't seen a rupee. But the answer cannot be to completely eliminate mining; the world needs the minerals (Japan definitely wants an alternative supplier to China!), and these impoverished states of India need the money. The answer has to involve some form of inclusive development. How can the benefits to the local communities be maximized and the risks to the environment be minimized? How can the profits be more equitably distributed so that adivasis see more advantages from these mining operations? The local communities need to be included from Day One in the planning of the mines--not just included for the sake of being included, but included as an equal partner with equal power--and the environmental damage needs to be adequately contained. (Ok, maybe I'm asking for a lot that is not realistic...)
For now, major corporations on the demand side, such as GE, are preparing for the potential decline in rare earths availability by trying to design induction motors that do not require rare earth magnets. One supply side player, Molycorp Minerals, has been developing more environmentally-friendly (or should I say, less environmentally-devastating?) mining methods that meet California's environmental regulations so that they can re-open the Mountain Pass rare earth mine (in 2002 California had closed Mountain Pass, the only rare earths mine in the US, due to environmental contamination). Certainly researching ways to reduce the demand for rare earths and ameliorate the environmental impacts of mining is a step in the right direction for environmental justice. But for the foreseeable future, rare earths mining is going to be in high demand and highly dirty--with potential for high profits. Given this reality, what is the just way forward in Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh?
Some further reading:
If you want to learn more about mining in India, it is definitely worth reading Roy,* even though I don't think she takes a nuanced-enough approach. She does make some strong points, so click here for her thoughts on mining and Maoists.
India Together's mining news here
Ernst and Young's "Mining India Sustainably for Growth" here
"India bets on rare-earth minerals," Wall Street Journal here
*My problem with Roy, really, is that she doesn't seem to recognize that the modern world has encroached on traditional tribal life. She never offers any alternatives for tribal development; she seems to think India should simply leave the adivasis alone. That might have been fine if they were always left alone, but now they're in this weird limbo between their traditional lifestyle and mainstream society as a result of various British colonial and Indian policies. The adivasis probably cannot revert to their old way of life given modern realities. I'm not saying India should force them to join mainstream society, but they should be included, somehow, in policy-making and be given the tools to make decisions about their own future. (Where I work, former forest-dwelling adivasis have been forced into a settled agrarian lifestyle due to various forestry policies. But they were not farmers before a generation ago, so they lack a lot of the knowledge and skills that are usually passed down from parents to children.) Ok, Roy rant over.
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