Here’s a small part of IKN376 out last night, one of the minor pieces in the ‘Regional Politics’ section but it’s also the type of thing that I think needs more eyes on it and more attention devoted by the mining industry, in order to demonstrate to the ublic at large that the treehugger end of the debate are just as likely to use BS in order to influence public opinion. So here you go:
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Mexico:
Anti-mining propaganda
This is the type of thing that
drives me up the wall, not just because of its misinformation content but also because
the mining industry never makes a concerted effort of rebuttal against the NGOs and knee-jerk treehuggers peddling this
crap. Last week in Mexico, during a presentation by a group of anti-mining NGOs
for a (13) “Manual for the defence of communities against the impact of mining
in Mexico” (in other words, an instruction book on how to stop mining companies
in your community), one of the presenters, a lawyer from Greenpeace, said the
following (translation of direct quote):
“At the end of 2014 a total of 25,267 mining concessions
were registered (in Mexico) which, according to the Mexican Geological Service,
cover a concessioned surface area of nearly 26 million hectares. This
represents around 12.7% of the national territory”.
And how was this anti-mine
coordination meeting reported by the press? Here are (translated) four examples
of the headlines (and there were many more, play with Google and find out for
yourself) (14) (15) (16) (17):
“NGOs:
12.7% Of Mexico’s Terrain Is Concessioned to Mining Companies”
“Mining
Companies Consume Mexico: They Already Have 12% of the Territory”
“Mexican
Mining Companies Already Have As Much Terrain (12%) As The Country’s Nature
Reserves”
“Mining
Companies Awarded 12.7% of the Nation’s Land”
Of those
four only the first one is in any way accurate, the others use inflammatory
language and are deliberately trying to create the false impression that mining
companies “own” 12.7% of Mexico. As you and I know (or you damned well should
by now) the reality is nothing of the sort and owning a mining concession is a
million miles from “owning” the land. So why doesn’t the mining industry tackle this head
on, because it’s both a way into teaching a wider audience about how it works
and a way to show them the BS they’re being fed by the anti-mining industry? It
would be simple stuff too:
1)
Explain what a concession is
2) Explain how you get one
and what you need to do to keep one
3) Most
importantly, explain why a mining company will own concessions that are much
MUCH larger than the mine therein contained. This last point is the one that’s
most played upon by the anti-mining screechers and it just by doing this, your
average person would see the hypocrisy in the Greenpeace propaganda.
And of
course it isn’t just a tactic used in Mexico, I come across this “Mining owns
X% of my country! How dare they!” argument all the time, with variants such as
“Mining Company XYZ owns a concession that includes a graveyard! They’re going
to dig up my relatives!” and all sorts of others. The world of mining is hardly
perfect and there are still some companies that give it a bad name, but it’s
long past the time that the good guys need to be painted as some sort of gang
of land-rapists and property usurpers.