FROM OUR vantage point, we see prospects thinning for Sagittarius Mining in its fight against environmentalists, church groups and insurgents, all bent on preventing this Australian mining giant from following its timeline from groundwork all the way to ore extraction and shipments.
Although it was all too clear the recent anti-mining conference was one-sided (naturally!) at the Ateneo de Davao University, there are still certain things SMI can do to make it easy for their project to keep moving forward. I’m sure they’ve already anticipated all these obstacles coming their way— that’s part of building a new business.
Placating the grievances and anxieties of the lumads in the mountain area where the open pit mining will be done, is, of course, one very important move— which is now being done almost successfully by Sagittarius. If you don’t capture the hearts and minds of these lumad groups, you can’t do anything over there.
Dealing with the real threats from rebels in the area, both from communists fronts and Muslim insurgents, are being handled right now by government troops thru advance command posts, as a way for the national government to protect foreign investments. While this is keeping rebels at bay at this time, SMI should expect attempts to disrupt their operations in the near future with ambushes and attacks.
Environmentalists can always have their way in stopping SMI from moving forward, not only because they seem to care for the environment, but also because it’s profitable to do so. You might not know it yet, but global environ groups have big budgets to fight big business worldwide, so don’t wonder why these groups are so noisy.
But it won’t hurt if SMI can set aside a pretty sum to start new big forests around the area where they plan to start their open pit mining. If the government says for every tree you cut down, you replace it with ten trees, SMI should replace every tree with at least 20 to 50 trees. That means thousands of new trees planted in thousands of hectares in the mountains of Tampakan.
Simply put, we should see new big forested mountains by the time Sagittarius starts the open pit mining. These new forested mountains should be proof of SMI that while an entire mountain is devastated by open pit mining and abandoned after all its ore had been dug up — new giant forests are going to take its place.
SMI’s biggest problem is of course, is the deadly pollution from the mining wastes that surely will endanger the rivers and lakes of Tampakan and surrounding areas in South Cotabato. This too, can be licked by a system of ground filters that prevent mining wastes from straying into rivers and lakes.
Now, if those Australian partners of SMI don’t have the same mindset as we do, and would rather bribe, push and threaten poor villagers around who are only expressing their anxieties, then this mining company is in big trouble..
(Comments? Email : trad ing post_davao@yahoo.com)
