Warn: “Mines always create significant impacts”
Belgian activists have joined the fight to try and save Portugal’s iconic Barroso region from the prospect for open-pit mining.
They gathered this week in protest in the small Belgian town of Mechelen, in solidarity with communities affected by mining in Portugal, Spain, Serbia and Romania, writes MiningWatch Portugal – sending a signal of discontent to corporate mining, EU-funded academia, oil major Shell and officers of the European Commission.
Scientist and mining companies like Savannah Resources and Swedish Boliden met this week for the International Circular Hydrometallurgy Symposium (ICHS), to present research results and a Social License to Operate (SLO) approach to improve society’s trust in metals mining for the energy transition.
Under the motto of “SLO – Silencing Local Opposition”, the protest criticized the lack of scientific rigor, transparency, and ethics when it comes to academic-industry partnerships funded by the European Commission.
Koerian Verbesselt, spokesperson for the Belgian movement CATAPA, says: “Mines always create significant impacts. When mismanaged, they drain and poison water sources and scar the landscape. Local populations should have the right to say “No” to certain projects. The Social License to Operate, invented by the mining industry itself, is just a window dressing to help silence opposition. Our experience with mining conflicts since 2005 shows it is a tool to give a semblance of local consent to devastating extractivist projects. And in this respect, Europe seems no different.”
Event organisers and participants were handed an open letter that details the complaints. Among them, the deliberate decision of the conference organisers to refuse access to any members of the public.
The letter also urges for a public debate on the true costs of the energy transition’s industrial renaissance for rural communities like in Barroso, Northern Portugal. Its authors claim Europe’s excessive raw materials and consumption policies not only create sacrifice zones, but also continue to exceed planetary and societal boundaries.
Nik Völker of the transparency initiative MiningWatch Portugal says: “The community of Covas do Barroso has for years been complaining about the lack of transparency in the lithium mining proposals. Until May, they have faced month-long land usurpation attempts by the British company and, more recently, also direct threats of expropriation. It is thus unacceptable to see their representatives – who also support ruby mining projects in Mozambique with vast human rights abuses – sit with Belgian scientists telling how responsible and much needed their operations are. We urgently need a public discussion on this.”
The European Commission adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) earlier this year and is currently in the process of selecting projects to be designated strategic in 2025. The list of applicants contains various companies also participating in the Mechelen conference, for example Savannah Resources from Portugal, as well as the Swedish mining major Boliden.
Roxana Pencea-Bradatan of Miningwatch Romania comments: “The participating mining companies all have a recent track-record of environmental and social wrongdoing. The Rovina project would be Europe’s largest copper-gold mine, with more than 10 times the throughput of the stalled Roșia Montană gold mine. In April 2024, the courts ruled the annulment of the Rovina environmental permit and thus sent also a clear signal to the Commission on who may or may not deserve strategic project status under the Critical Raw Materials Act.”
Source: MiningWatch Portugal
