Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar

Abstract

This paper traces a genealogy of land access and legitimization strategies culminating in the current convergence of mining and conservation in Southeast Madagascar, contributing to recent debates analyzing the commonalities and interdependencies between seemingly discrete types of land acquisitions. Drawing upon research carried out near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in 2009 (January–March), it focuses on how local Malagasy land users are incorporated into new forms of inclusion (into the neoliberal capitalist economy) and exclusion (from land-based, subsistence activities) resulting from private sector engagements in conservation and sustainability. Sustainability tropes and corporate partnerships with international conservation NGOs were found to play a part in land access, in part through the neoliberal project of commodifying, economically valuing and objectifying nature. Through a process of mimesis (of conservation NGOs) and alterity (‘othering’ land users), Rio Tinto's process of creating scarcity of biodiversity paradoxically lends support to the company's claim to be ‘saving’ biodiversity from local Malagasy people; this is described as a process of inversion, wherein actual mining impacts are abstracted and remediated as part of a broader sustainable development strategy.

Keywords:

• mining
• biodiversity offsets
• conservation
• sustainability
• Madagascar

Notes

¹Rio Tinto is operating through its Québec subsidiary, QIT, and QMM (QIT Madagascar Minerals). Local inhabitants often refer to the mining company as QMM. The ‘mining company’ is here referred to as Rio Tinto/QMM.

²‘Local’ is by no means an analytically exclusive category. People interviewed had different and complex interests, values, socioeconomic status, life histories, livelihood strategies, opinions, and reactions to the project. In turn, power hierarchies shaping political and social relations, including age and gender, play an important role in defining ‘local’ dynamics. Interviews were primarily conducted in rural villages, and do not necessarily represent the views of all people within these villages.

³There have been many critiques of the SEIA; see in particular ‘A critique, by Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), of QMM's Social and Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) for the Fort Dauphin titanium project’ and Porter et al. (2001).

⁴Ilmenite (FeTiO₃) is a mineral found in coastal sand deposits. It is processed into titanium dioxide (TiO₂), a pigment used to make products white, and is found in paints, papers, plastics, toothpaste, and cosmetics.

⁵Estimates vary. Rio Tinto/QMM insist that the mining will take place over 60 years, but local informants insisted on 120 years (source: Representative of CCD Ampasy, personal communication). Rio Tinto is operating on a 100-year lease.

⁶The much-publicized Daewoo (South Korean) land deal spurred massive public protests against Ravalomanana in 2009, leading to a military-led coup d'état which resulted in his expulsion.

⁷Over the past ten years, large-scale mining has grown in Madagascar, partly due to the adoption of the ‘Large Mining Investment Act’ (see Sarrasin 2006). The gargantuan ‘Ambatovy’ nickel mine (near Moramanga), led by the Canadian company Sherritt International, is referred to as the world's largest lateritic nickel mine with a USD 4.5 billion-dollar investment alone.

⁸Rio Tinto writes, ‘[e]stablished in 2001, the programme goal is to plant 100 ha per year of fast-growing species’ (Rio Tinto website, 2001–2009, ‘Positive impacts of the Programme' [Accessed 24 March 2012]).

⁹Research was mostly limited to the rural localities surrounding the deposit and to a limited extent in Fort Dauphin and Antananarivo, with some members of government and NGO representatives.

¹⁰This paper is based on master's research conducted in 2009 (January–March).

¹¹Names of villages and informants are fictitious in order to protect anonymity.

¹²Informants noted that the price of a bushel of bananas and a zebu (cow) had doubled between 2000 and 2009, and that the price of rice and beef had risen by a third; they mentioned that such inflation was not normal for the region.

¹³50,000 Ariary = about USD 23 (as of 22 January 2012).

¹⁴Rio Tinto/QMM built schools and health clinics in several of the fokontany surrounding the deposits. This was widely approached during the field period as a positive outcome of the project, particularly schools. However, ALT/Panos (2009, 20) note that some villagers found it difficult to pay for medicine when access to medicinal plants in the littoral forests had been cut off, and that many schools do not have enough teachers.

¹⁵See Panos London: Illuminating Voices website, ‘Rosette: story of change.' Rosette says, ‘somatraha was to fishermen what rice paddies are to farmers, and it sustained their lives… Losing access to Somatraha was a terrible thing’.

¹⁶The equivalent of about 28.8 Olympic-sized swimming pools per day.

¹⁷Compensation was said to follow an agreement wherein payment was received every month for six months and followed by a six month period of no payment.

¹⁸ Vaha are baskets woven out of mahampy.

¹⁹Small fish were purportedly able to get through the dam by means of a ‘key’ in the weir.

²⁰2012-01-06 14:49 UTC, taken from ALT/Panos 2009.

²¹Information collected during focus group interview with women in Ampasy Nahampohana, February 2009.

²²Niaouli is a member of the Myrtaceae family, to which eucalyptus belongs, and is a thin, stunted tree with white papery bark. Kininy was used locally in reference to eucalyptus.

²³Vincelette is a former forest engineer for Conservation International and head of the Rio Tinto/QMM biodiversity programme.

²⁴Conservation International (2011) launched a biodiversity initiative in Brazil with Walmart focusing on the ‘sustainable use’ of natural resources.

²⁵The company pledges to grow 100 ha of eucalyptus per year for local consumption.

²⁶While some local people had been hired to work for Rio Tinto/QMM during the construction phase of the project, at the time of research, most people were being laid off (following a three-year contract).

²⁷The promise that funders can ‘save’ seeds is misleading; as stated on the website, Kew concedes that many of the seeds have ‘already been saved’ and that the 1000 GBP goes towards keeping the organisation running.

²⁸It is important to note that these views were expressed by informants in 2009 and may have since changed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Seagle

This paper was financed through the LDPI (Land Deal Politics Initiative) small grants competition held in 2010. Special thanks to Ruth Hall, the LDPI conveners and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. Many thanks to Sandra Evers (VU University Amsterdam), who supervised the author's master's research in 2009, and Dina Navalona Rasolofoniaina (MSc), who collaborated with the author during fieldwork through a partnership between Sandra Evers/the VU and the University of Antananarivo. Deepest thanks to the people and Mayor of Ampasy Nahampohana, and the staff of the Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie/Institut de Civilisations, for their support. This paper draws from empirical data discussed in Seagle (2009).