“To a great extent, the key environmental decision that Mindanao has to make today, revolves around the perceived potential of this non-renewable resource and the impacts of mining on the island’s dependence on natural resource, and its core business, i.e, agriculture.”
“Think about this carefully,” he said.
He ticked off statistics on Mindanao’s mineral wealth: an estimated 43% of the country’s chromite reserves, 56% of copper, 63% of nickel, 67% of bauxite and 75% of the country’s gold reserves.
Gold mining, Tan said, stands out as an activity of special concern as this mineral has “almost singlehandedly fueled the proliferation of less stringently regulated small scale and artisanal mining activity.”
No comments:
Post a Comment