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Our beloved Mindoro IslandThe seventh largest island in the archipelagic Philippines, Mindoro has a land area of 1,057,020 hectares. It has a mountain range at the center and rich paddies and cornfields towards the seashores. Its last remaining watershed is the Mag-asawang Tubig watershed. Nineteen water systems flow from it and go into the island’s cultivated lands.

The word Mindoro is derived from the Chinese phrase “ma-i” or the Spanish phrase “mina de oro” that both connote the rich gold reserve in the island. Mindoro is part of the region of Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan), which was acclaimed for being the home for a rich biodiversity. Mindoro is also

known as the home of the endangered buffalo called the

Tamaraw. At the north beyond the bound of Mindoro is the Verde Island Passage, the so-called “center of the center of marine biodiversity.”

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CAMPAIGN TO STOP MINDORO NICKEL PROJECT

This bounty is being developed by the island’s indigenous people and a number of Filipino groups who migrated from various parts of the archipelago, such as Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Kapampangans, Ilonggo and Bisayas, to name a few. This being said, Mindoro is now one of the biggest rice producers and fruit baskets in the Philippines.

Mangyan, a term that is used to collectively name seven groups of socio-linguistic clans namely the Hanunuo, Alangan, Gubatnon, Iraya, Buhid, Bangon and Tadyawan. They are known as the oldest settlers of Mindoro island and currently recognized as one of the Philippines’ national minorities. Their number, which is now at 160,000 is diminishing year after year due to various factors including foreign and domestic colonial rule of the island, cultural assimilation and development aggression such as large-scale mining operations.

Despite its rich natural resources, Mindoro has high poverty incidence at 27 to 38 percent. Surely, there are a couple of political, economic and social factors leading to a high degree of poverty. However, Mindoro more and more falls victim of profit-driven grandiose plans set forth by foreign and large-scale mining companies. Worse, these are being permitted by the Philippine government despite the strong opposition of Mindoro villagers and their local government units.

What is Mindoro Nickel Project?

Mindoro Nickel Project (MNP) is a mining project of a Norwegian mining firm Intex Resources ASA and its local subsidiaries Intex Resources Philippines, Inc. and

Aglubang Development Corporation. In MNP, Intex plans to mine 1.2 million tons of nickel it found in an 11,315-hectare mountainous area located in Victoria, Oriental Mindoro and Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro.

Intex will employ for MNP the process called surface mining to gather laterite containing nickel, high-pressure acid leach technology to separate nickel from the laterite, and deep sea tailing to discard mining wastes.

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CAMPAIGN TO STOP MINDORO NICKEL PROJECT

Food insecurity. The Mag-asawang Tubig Watershed is located at the same area where Intex seeks to mine nickel. MNP will not only destroy the biodiversity on the surface of the Island’s mountains as it employs surface mining. It will also affect the water systems that supply water for cultivated lands.

Given this, food security is at stake and so are the millions of Filipinos who depend on Mindoro’s rice production. The top three municipalities in Oriental Mindoro alone have a combined estimated rice production of 170,000 metric tons or 51 percent of the total rice production of the province. It is equivalent to 2,137,060 cavans of milled rice, enough to feed three quarters of a million people.

Among the 79 provinces in the country, Oriental Mindoro is the fourth largest food-producing province, producing P12 billion-worth of agricultural products annually.

Endangering the world’s richest marine biodiversity. Directly in the north of Mindoro is the Verde Island Passage, the home of the richest marine biodiversity. It is situated at the northern end of the Coral Triangle, which comprises only two percent of the world’s total water areas but house 60 percent of the world’s total marine species.

This being emphasized, any mining operations affecting the bodies of water around Mindoro Island and the rest of the Coral Triangle, most especially the Verde Island Passage, will not only bring

forth large-scale environmental degradation but also global environmental disequilibrium and therefore climate change.

Deep-sea tailings, albeit considered as the most advanced mining waste disposal method, is tethered with negative impacts on marine biodiversity. Despite the boasted mitigating measures that come with it, deep-sea tailings cannot outweigh perceived damages it might cause to the world’s richest marine biodiversity.

The green area is Mindoro’s forest cover in 1900.

Present forest cover is where the Mag-asawang

Tubig watershed sits.

Why should we stop Mindoro Nickel Project?Intex boasts its state-of-the-art technologies. Intex also regards these as the safest methods ever invented for mining operations. However, large-scale mining cannot deny large-scale destruction of the environment.

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CAMPAIGN TO STOP MINDORO NICKEL PROJECTHuge technical lapses. Since the late 1990s, MNP has been a grandiose plan pursued by transnational corporations foreign to the Philippines. Mindex Corporation pursued it then, until Crew Minerals bought most of its shares in 2001. Later on Intex Resources ASA became the company that pushes for MNP. However, all of these corporations failed to convince environmental experts who repeatedly recommended the cancellation of mineral production sharing agreement (MPSA) related to MNP and even Intex’ environmental compliance certificate (ECC), the most crucial document for any mining company to become scientifically legitimate to be pursued.

With these proofs, the local councils of Mindoro legislated a 25-year moratorium prohibiting any foreign and

large-scale mining operations in the island. Oriental Mindoro passed the said moratorium in 2002 after several MPSAs related to MNP were cancelled by the Philippine government’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Meanwhile, Occidental Mindoro passed the same moratorium in 2009 after the DENR revoked an ECC it previously issued to Intex.

Mangyans and local villagers in Mindoro also campaign to stop MNP because Intex committed multiple violations along the process of obtaining consent from indigenous people that claims ownership of ancestral domains, and permission from the local councils. These consent and permission were clearly

mandated by Philippine laws.

Loss of moral high ground. Intex (formerly Mindex and Crew) – and so are foreign and large-scale mining – met a popular resistance

from the people of Mindoro. In 1985, thousands of local villagers marched across tens of miles to protest against mining applications in the southern part of the island. In 2009, priests, local vilalgers and Mangyans staged a 14-day hunger strike to protest MNP. And recently in April 22, 2015, thousands of Mangyans met with a protest parade the reinstatement of Intex’ ECC for MNP. In June 12, 2015, thousands of local villagers and their government officials from various political affiliations gathered in an interfaith protest to reject MNP. These show a consistent united stand of the people of Mindoro against mining. Intex or any other foreign and large-scale mining corporations cannot simply repudiate this by releasing press statements that back their sham ‘good’ intentions.

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CAMPAIGN TO STOP MINDORO NICKEL PROJECT

Therefore, Filipinos cannot fight MNP if we do not criticize the legal bases that allow foreign and large-scale mining to operate in the Philippines. These legal bases are not only blind of the large-scale environmental catasptrophes this kind of mining will cause the Philippines. These also encourage the plunder of the country’s rich natural resources by foreign and local elites.

The Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and incumbent Philippine President Benigno Simeon Aquino III’s executive order (EO) no. 79 are the country’s laws allowing foreign corporations to use mining for profit accumulation. Therefore, the campaign to stop MNP should go along with the campaign to repeal Mining Act and EO no. 79.

And most of all, the fight to stop foreign and large-scale mining is a fight for:

• The interest of the people. That makes us humanitarian. We put the welfare of the people and their source of livelihood as the prime consideration to any mining operations.

• The environment. That makes us environmental warriors. We protect and preserve the environment because it is the people’s source of livelihood.

• The nation’s interest. That makes us patriots. With an extreme poverty it carries intergenerationally, the Philippines must prioritize using the mining industry for genuine national development. That is fair and justified.

KALASMINA is calling all Filipinos and environment-loving citizens of the world to join us in this fight. We need to conduct a series of information-education drive to ensure a well-informed public. We encourage everyone to claim all possible platforms, including the internet as our democratic space for campaigning. We encourage all local councils in Mindoro to pass ordinances banning foreign and large-scale mining in their jurisdiction. We call Mangyans to be brave and join our ranks. We ask the international community to maximize all possible channels and avenues to advance our cause. For we believe that a people united will never be defeated!

What do we need to fight for?Mining as a primary industry is vital for the Philippines to achieve progress and industrialization. However, mining is inherently destructive. Thus, we should require heavy regulatory policies to ensure that the negative impacts are effectively mitigated and the benefits will surely serve the welfare of the majority rather than amplify the profit of the few local and foreign elites.