Food over Gold

Campaign 2006-2008
Women and Environment Task Force (WEN TF)

In 2005, APWLD through its two programmes, Women and Environment (WEN) and Rural and Indigenous Women (RIW) launched its campaign Don’t Globalize Hunger!  Assert Women’s Right to Food Sovereignty.  Central to this campaign is the awareness-raising and mobilising women, particularly those from the national and grassroots organisation.  Regional forums and support to national forums in several countries within the region brought together women activists and peasant women to discuss the various political forces which cause our hunger and poverty.

The main target for the campaign that year was the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the 6th Ministerial meeting was held in our backyard, Hong Kong in December.  More than 75 women constituted the delegation of APWLD in Hongkong as we held the Women’s Tribunal against WTO, and declared it guilty primarily of causing impoverishment and hunger of women and their families.  APWLD also led the Women’s March against WTO which saw 500 other women marching along the busy business streets of Hong Kong.

These series of activities led to national activities and campaigns by the members in their own countries.  The Women and Food Sovereignty Kit which is being translated and adopted in 5 countries provides another tool of awareness-raising and organising women towards the advocacy of food sovereignty.

For 2006, the Women and Environment looks at the other pillar of globalisation – trade liberalisation. The aggressive trade liberalisation across the world has facilitated the entry of trans national corporations or TNCs.  The TNCs play a crucial role in shaping the country’s development, and particularly the food situation of the people. 

The numbers are very telling - 800 million people hungry all over the world, majority of which are women and girl-children; 500 million are from the Asian region. This, despite all the development programmes and technology that have been developed purportedly to eradicate hunger and poverty.  However, the reality is that these development programmes and the technology which go with them worsen the situation as they are designed not for this objective but for profit.  The natural resources – land, water, forest - which are the primary source of food, and major source of livelihood for rural communities, have been placed with price tags, up for bidding for the investors and capitalists. 

The national development plans of most developing countries, even as their flagship programmes are for poverty alleviation are not geared towards supporting domestic food production but are in fact oriented towards opening up access to the natural resources as raw materials for large foreign capitalists and importing cheap, unsafe food products.  Agricultural land planted to food crops are converted to, and forests cleared for, industrial use for extractive large-scale commercial activities such as mining, industrial plantations and for tourism.  This drive towards a globalised market – wherein the developing countries have remained to be a source of cheap labour and cheap raw materials – have globalised hunger among the food producers and rural poor.

For the period of 2006-2008, one of the worst culprits identified by the Women and Environment (WEN) Task Force of APWLD in converting sources of food and sustainable livelihoods of rural communities is large-scale commercial mining.  Most of these commercial large-scale mining operations are controlled and owned by trans-national corporations (TNCs), which are operating in rich agricultural and forested areas of rural communities.  With the intensification of trade liberalization, natural resources are being opened up to foreign investments, breaking down any protectionist policies in place.  The TNCs are given not just usufructuary rights but practically control and ownership of huge areas, the resources within and the communities living within those.

Documented experiences of rural communities from the region, particularly Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea have proven that large-scale commercial mining operations, particularly gold mining, have caused irreversible damages to environment, despite claims of “responsible and sustainable mining practices” by the mining corporations.  Mountains, which serve as watershed, source of forest products, or wood for household use, are overturned and turned into open pits.  Lakes and rivers which are source of irrigation and food are heavily silted with mine tailings.  These environmental damages have huge implications on the food production and level of income and survival of the communities. 

The promises of increased income for the government and the generation of employment for the local communities turn hollow from the social, environmental, and political costs of large-scale commercial mining operations of transnational corporations. 

It is in this light that APWLD WEN task force has adopted as part of the advocacy of women’s right to food sovereignty, the women’s campaign against the conversion of food source – the land, water and forest – into open pit mines, particularly gold mines.  The campaign Food over Gold will highlight the destruction of land, water and forest as food sources by the large-scale commercial gold mining; and how gold mining has caused further impoverishment and hunger.  The campaign Food over Gold will look into the current situation of large-scale gold mining operations in emerging host countries within the region, how these have impacted on the food production and hunger situation of the communities in these countries; and how it impedes the realization of food sovereignty among communities and developing countries. With the control and access of tools of food production in the hands of transnational corporations, the campaign Food over Gold will expose how patriarchal power relations are reinforced – between the corporations and the state, between the state and the communities, and even within and among members of the communities.  This will be a contribution in the organising of women within the host communities of gold mining operations – to know about their rights, and towards the discovery and reinforcement of their strength to say no to TNCs, and to assert their right to Food over Gold.

B. A glimpse at the global gold mining situation

Global demand for gold is on the rise, as the gold prices continue to climb.  According to analysts, the gold market has not seen gold prices at this level since 1981.  Thus, the investments and the quest for more gold are running high. 

What is gold for?  While there are industrial uses for this precious metal, more than 80% of gold produced worldwide is for jewellery. In the Middle East, demand for gold rose 7.5% last year while demand for jewellery grew 12% and 16% in China and India respectively. 

Three-quarters of the world’s gold comes from developing countries.  In 2004 alone, developing countries produced 72% of the global output of gold. (source: CAFOD)  On that same year, United Nations Food and Agriculture Office (FAO) estimated that there are 815 million undernourished in the developing countries, and that 80% of world’s poor are from the developing countries. (http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp)

This is because we cannot eat gold nuggets.  With the entry of trans-national mining companies in the developing countries, with less and less restrictions, with more and more incentives, food sources have been depleted. With open pit mining, as the latest and most efficient system for large-scale gold mining, landscapes are turned upside-down, inside-out, producing massive waste on the ground and underwater.  Gold mining utilizes toxic chemicals, such as cyanide, large quantities of water, and high level of energy.  These have devastated community livelihoods. These, too, have subsequently caused adverse health impacts on the members of the communities, especially women whose daily chores are more tied to the use of these resources, e.g. river, forest products. 

Because of gender roles and discrimination against women – both at the level of state policies, as well as social norms, women from the rural communities suffer different, if not worse forms of poverty, violence and human rights violations.  Displacements and forced relocations of families and communities by mining projects give rise to physical as well as psychological strain on families, and women are at the receiving end of domestic violence.   

With the destruction of the primary sources of food, it is mostly the women who bear the burden of looking for alternative sources of food.   While men are often hired by mining companies, albeit temporarily and low-paying, there are no spaces for employment at the mining site for women.   With the entry of foreign men workers at the mining site, one of the usual social problems that would arise would be the vulnerability of women to get into prostitution. 

As seen from the experiences of communities from the gold-producing developing countries, conflicts within and among communities have ensued arising from the control of the remaining resources, or because of the divisions caused by the entry of the mining activities.

The glitter of gold cannot outshine these realities.

Mining in Mongolia

Mongolia has been in transition towards democracy for the past 15 years. A great deal has been achieved in the field of civil and political rights during this period, yet widespread poverty persists, with the economic, social and cultural rights of the poor continue to be denied for the past decade.

An official study by the National Statistical Office of Mongolia ¹ shows that 36.1 per cent of Mongolians now live under the poverty line, which means that one third of the population of Mongolia are living with 20 USD per month. The poorest 20 per cent of the population that earn 8 USD per month do not have enough income to buy adequate food.

In 1997, the Mining Law was passed, and the Government Gold Programme was launched.   This signalled the beginning of intense mining in the country.
The Mining Law has favored foreign mining companies excempting them from taxes fully for the first 5 years and 50% for the next 5 years. This means economic growth which was supposed to be gained from the mining industry has not benefitted Mongolian population, since the main mines are operated by foreign companies.  For over ten years now since, poverty has remained, hunger has increased.

Furthermore, government policy on the mining sector and its implementation do not respect, promote or protect the rights of local people and herders. Mongolia is an agricultural country.  Approximately 40 percent of the population is herders who make a living by breeding livestock. This large population of herders has created a unique nomadic culture and life in the country. However, the herders’ pasturelands are mostly taken for the purposes of mine exploration or extraction. Currently, 45 percent of Mongolia’s territory has been given away for mining or exchanged for exploration licenses. In some provinces, 70 to 80 percent of its territory is licensed.

Herders and local people do not enjoy the benefits from the growing mining exploration industry, even though it is one of the most promising economic sectors in Mongolia. The right to livelihood and healthy environment of herders and local people are being denied because of the tremendous negative impacts of mining in their living environment, including pastureland and rivers. Hundreds of rivers, lakes and springs throughout Mongolia have dried out due to gold extractions. The water pollution, decrease of pasture lands force people to leave their land and move far away.  

With the ecosystems drastically being altered by gold mining operation, traditional livelihoods are being destroyed.  Some impoverished herders have turned to artisanal mining.  To date, there is now an estimate of almost 100,000 artisanal miners.  This leads, among other things, a non-regulated and unmonitored use of mercury and other toxic chemicals to extract gold. 

Serious negative social, environmental and political problems have emerged from the mine pits.  As the number of local communities opposing the intensifying mining operations in the country, their active participation in consultations and participation in policy discussions have been denied. 
But the civil movements continue to oppose the current gold mining practices in the country.  Groups are organizing different activities to raise awareness among the public on the different issues on mining, and have policy advocacy for reforms.  Some of the community groups are working with NGOs such as Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD) for judiciary intervention as they bring mining companies and some local governments to court for the prohibition of their operations.

Food Over Gold campaign

As part of the continuing advocacy for women’s right to food sovereignty, and an end to hunger, APWLD launches its campaign Food Over Gold along with its task force members from Women and Environment Programme. 

Food Over Gold is a campaign to –

: determine the links of the destruction of land, water and forest as food sources of rural and indigenous communities by large-scale commercial gold mining to increase of hunger and poverty in the communities;

: establish the fact that the entry of TNC gold mining operations in the communities creates a new social hierarchy within and among the communities; state and the communities; communities and the TNCs;

: highlight the adverse social, health, political, economic impacts of large-scale commercial gold mining on women

: expose the detrimental role of transnational mining corporations in causing hunger and poverty among the rural communities;

: explain how national governments act as the mediator in this selling of our lands, our food source and sovereignty;

: raise awareness to the gold consumers of the pernicious production process that goes along with a gold ring or set of earrings so that they will exercise their consumer power against dirty and oppressive mining corporations;  and

 

Food Over Gold campaign will -

: emphasis that a sustainable use of land, water and forests, within a domestic food production framework is a more efficient, equitable and humane development plan

: advocate for stronger national government support for agricultural food production

: link up with other groups and movements against large-scale commercial mining; as well as with other movements calling for food sovereignty

: contribute in the movement building among rural women against TNCs, and for our right to food sovereignty

What are the main activities of Food over Gold campaign?

Fact-Finding Mission

This Fact Finding Mission (FFM) is a mission to countries emerging as big host countries of gold mining operations, or those countries with emerging movements against gold mining operations.  This mission will bring together women from communities with existing gold mining operations; and have been involved in the struggle against large-scale mining operations in their communities.

The objectives of this mission is to

: document the food, hunger and health situation of the women and men members of the communities which are hosting gold mining operations;

: identify the changes brought about the intensification of trade, facilitating the entry of the gold mining operations in the communities, particularly in the area of environment, health, social relations, political situation and economics;

: link the local women’s groups opposing the mining to the regional women’s movement and broader movement against TNCs and large scale gold mining, which will assist in their long-term struggle;

: formulate policy recommendations and advocacy points; and

: profile the findings, results and recommendations.

 

The FFM will serve as a spring board for other campaign actions, policy advocacy and networking for the national groups, as well as regional alliances.  Some of these actions are –

: media campaign on the local situation and women’s condition

: documentation – photo and video – to show the level of destruction and other impacts of gold mining on the lives and livelihood of women which could be circulated widely

: further exchange of information and experiences among women leaders and activists on lessons, challenges and strategies

: linking up to other food sovereignty movements, anti-TNC movements as well as Women and Mining network.

Loei, Thailand (2006)
Mongolia (2007)