Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal最新文献

Mining sustainability initiatives led by stakeholders from mineral-demanding countries have proliferated, encompassing regulations, voluntary standards, and guidelines aimed at ensuring responsible mining across supply chains. Focusing on lithium in South America, this article examines whether these initiatives address the main sustainability challenges posed by the mining industry and identifies their limitations. We analyze three initiatives relevant for that region: the European Batteries Regulation, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, and the Recommendations for Responsible Lithium Mining by German automotive stakeholders. Sustainability challenges were identified and prioritized through a Delphi survey involving 141 participants. Our findings indicate that while most environmental and social sustainability issues are addressed by these initiatives, economic concerns, particularly those related to development, are often overlooked. The initiatives vary in their comprehensiveness, with IRMA being the most thorough. The study reveals that the approaches and procedures of these initiatives mainly reflect the priorities of lithium-demanding regions and adopt a corporate-centered due diligence approach, limiting their effectiveness in addressing some of the prioritized challenges. Finally, the study emphasizes the need for capability-development mechanisms to enhance the ability of lithium-rich countries to meet higher sustainability standards.

This article focuses on analyzing environmental governance in the context of the growing economic relations between China and Latin America, with particular attention to Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the South American extractive industries. Using novel data that match Chinese investment and local environmental reactions, the results strongly support a positive correlation between institutional capacity for environmental protection in recipient countries and an increase in local environmental concerns. I find that the escalation of activity by Chinese companies with greater state participation in the extractive industries raises the probability of generating environmental concerns in affected communities. These findings significantly contribute to understanding the complex interactions between Chinese investments and environmental governance, providing an essential foundation for addressing environmental challenges associated with Chinese FDI in Latin America.

The present research paper is an ethnographic account of the travails and resistance of an adivasi (native) community of India called Santhals. These adivasis are facing the threat of eviction due to a planned coal mining in the area, located in West Bengal, a state in the eastern part of India. Amid the ongoing protest against coal mines, many families are ready to give up their land for the project. Even differences in opinion are common among the leaders of those protest groups. These differences in perception about a coal mine project are the central theme of this paper. Drawing from it the paper is going to scrutinize the grand terms like ‘Affected Persons’, used in ‘National Mineral Policy 2019’ and ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (2013)’, and ‘Local Community’ to show that any generalization or universalization of those various perceptions suppress the real needs of the people since they get affected in multiple ways. Further, this paper regards ‘development’ as ‘pharmakon’ for its dual nature, since people in the same community perceive it as poison; in contrast, for others, it is the remedy for their poverty. Tracing from all the varying voices, the paper finally argues for finding ‘significant others’, who are significantly excluded from decision-making.

Endowed with a significant proportion of the world’s petroleum and solid mineral resources, Africa is the location of a vibrant and dynamic extractive industries sector, which today, is its chief economic mainstay. The revenue generated from the extractive industries has been a significant source of finance for public infrastructure development and investments in education, health and the development of other economic sectors across the continent. However, the African extractive industries have faced massive setbacks in recent years, in particular due to the economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and the global transition to a low carbon economy that has formed a central part of ongoing efforts to respond to the climate change emergency. These challenges have accentuated concerns on the current and future relevance of the African extractive industries in a low-carbon economy world order.

This article examines the role played by the African extractive industries in the global energy transition, contextualising these concerns against a continuum of disruption arising as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and emergent efforts to redress the crisis posed by anthropogenic climate change. If well managed, extractive resources could play a crucial role in advancing energy security and transition in the African continent in the face of these challenges. In addition to its role in addressing current high levels of energy poverty across Africa in this disruptive setting, environmentally-responsible production of extractive resources can help sustain economic and social development across Africa in going forward. This article examines the current opportunities and challenges for cleaner and environmentally-responsible extractive investments in Africa in a low carbon world. It analyses the preconditions and barriers to environmentally-responsible fossil fuels developments in Africa and highlights the key considerations for African policymakers. Its analysis is informed by recognition of, and sensitivity towards, the extreme disruption to fossil fuel governance embodied by the twin concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current “climate emergency.” Through a qualitative analysis, this research has found that if well-managed, African resource-rich countries could utilise the revenues from the extractive industries to invest in low carbon technologies.

While vital for the development of ‘clean’ energy technologies, the extraction and processing of critical minerals and rare earth elements entail a range of overlapping social and environmental harms in local communities across the world. The transition to low-carbon economies invokes a host of multiscalar dilemmas, injustices and trade-offs, notably between the global imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the local consequences of mineral mining. There are profound barriers to delivering a just energy transition at a planetary scale given the reliance of green technologies upon socio-environmentally harmful extractive practices across critical mineral supply chains. Adopting an interdisciplinary lens and drawing from a set of international case studies, we critically examine the intersection of critical minerals with just transition governance and explore possibilities for more plural, holistic and integrated just energy transition pathways. In this introduction article, we detail the ways in which the production of low-carbon technologies is bound up with global inequalities and ongoing coloniality. We then demonstrate the importance of adopting a global, inclusive outlook on just energy transitions. Drawing from the concept of planetary just transition, we provide an overview of the key debates around the role of critical minerals in a just energy transition.

This research evaluated the impact of applying financial resources from mining exploitation (known as CFEM) on socio-environmental indicators in Parauapebas municipality, eastern Amazon. This study applies synthetic control methodology to establish a counterfactual for Parauapebas by weighting data from municipalities that did not experience the same impact due to the absence of mineral resources. We created synthetic indicators for before and after 1991, the initial year in which these royalties were received. Parauapebas municipality achieved a higher level of socio-environmental well-being with mining royalties than those without this activity. The rates (highest impact since 2000) for the population served with water were 3 %; sanitary sewage: 7 %; and waste collection: 3 %. Thus, resources allocation considers territory demands and expectations for the maintenance of municipality development. This research has important implications: it may guide the actions of various actors operating locally and support government development planning.

The extractive industries play a pivotal role in Nigeria's economy, yet it has been riddled with allegations of corrupt practices involving revenue transfers from operations to the government. To increase transparency and ensure public engagement, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) introduced the National Stakeholder Working Group (NSWG) as a mechanism to ensure public accountability and civil society organisations (CSOs) as the public interlocuter. To navigate this complex arrangement and critically evaluate its effectiveness, we adopt Boven's (2007) understanding of public accountability. We conclude that while NSWG provides oversight, the NEITI reporting process provides transparency, and the CSOs enable public accountability, these objectives are constrained by a challenging social and regulatory environment.

Transparency in the extractive industries has become one approach to mitigate resource-related problems. However, many transparency policies have failed to consider the local contexts where extraction activities occur and conditions that affect local citizens, limiting policies’ societal and governance impacts on the ground. Using the case of resource revenue redistribution implemented in the oil-rich Pelalawan District, Indonesia, we assess what elements exist in places of extraction that may shape citizens’ ways of making sense of oil revenue management and implications for the design and implementation of transparency-related policy for accountable natural resources revenue management. Drawing on the conception of place, we found that social identities and elements of location, locale, and sense of place characterize citizens’ views of oil extraction and local revenue management. In our case, living in closer distance to extraction sites does not determine citizens’ views and informational needs concerning the extractive industries and revenue management. We suggest that unfolding transparency's transformative process requires understanding the physical and non-physical elements of a place (of extraction). Further, by focusing on extractive industries’ influences on the spatial configurations of citizens’ everyday lives, the development of transparency policy can promote relevant and tangible societal and governance impacts on the ground.

This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the policies and modes of governance driving the acceleration of construction mineral extraction rates in Mexico, through a case study of a controversial development project that resulted in hundreds of thousands of tons of unused concrete: El Zapotillo Dam in the Highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. It analyzes the types and volumes of materials extracted for the construction of El Zapotillo Dam and for the housing infrastructure meant for displaced families, the subjects involved in the extraction and transformation of these materials, and the socio-environmental impacts. Information was obtained through Mexico's National Transparency Platform and by reviewing environmental impact assessments, academic texts on the conflict around the dam, newspaper sources and data available on the Internet. Primary sources include the application of interviews and direct observation during a series of visits to the affected territories and the dam site between August 2022 and June 2024. In accordance with extractive tendencies on the national and global levels, the findings of this research illustrate how – even in the case of a high-profile development project – poor regulation can combine with the emergence of hybrid forms of governance to expand the extractive frontier.

This research aims to uncover tensions and contradictions between justice claims within the context of low-carbon transitions and the growing demand for critical minerals. By exploring the contested Mining Act reform in Finland, the study sheds light on the multidimensional and multiscalar complexities of justice claims made by various stakeholders. Based on qualitative content analysis of document and interview data, the findings highlight that stakeholders mobilize justice claims on micro, meso, and macro scales, emphasizing diverse normative dimensions and creating tensions around perceived justice in transitions. These claims illustrate the multiscalar nature of mining and the justice consequences of growing critical minerals demand. The research emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to address justice tensions and contributes to understanding conflicts around critical minerals mining through a systematic analysis of justice claims. Beyond empirical insights, the study raises critical questions about the role of conflicts and the meaning of justice in low-carbon transitions.