"Large scale mining’s impacts: A case study of the Rio Tinto QMM mine in Madagascar - Weir Threshold and Buffer Zone Reduction in Mandena"

This study aims to expose the neglected costs or impacts of the “deal” between RT/QMM [Rio Tinto/Qit Minerals Madagascar] and the Malagasy Government, on communities. The study brings a specific focus to the impacts of RT/QMM’s Weir Threshold and Buffer Zone Reduction on local communities. In doing so, it provides an opportunity for a wider and more in depth debate about transparency around the “deal” that extractives companies make with governments, and an example and approach that can be replicated and expanded both in Madagascar and internationally. It is hoped this will open up more holistic consideration about the real costs and benefits of proposed and existing mining projects. The work can also help to inform Madagascar’s mining code/laws that are currently under review and assist in developing new activities and local communities’ awareness of them...

The three most significant changes that villagers report since the RT/QMM mine began are : • the degradation and destruction of the natural environment and access to natural resources in the region, especially forest products and mahampy11 reeds; • the degradation of water quality with accompanying health and livelihood issues; • and decreased access to land and fertility of the soil, including lack of pasture for cattle, with detrimental impact on food security.

Villagers see the degradation of the natural environment as being the worst of these, since it affects all other areas (income, expenditure, quality of life). Traditional livelihoods that have depended on the natural environment for generations have been displaced and or adversely affected by the arrival of the mine...

Villagers explain that all the places that allowed them to live are now forbidden to them. “We feel really trapped”. This exclusion means that the very sources of income and survival are affected: “Lack of agricultural yield, weaving baskets and mats (tsihy) are no longer viable because it is difficult to find raw materials. The collection place of mahampy is all destroyed by the extraction of QMM”, and “…there is no more forest area for the collection of “gaulette”12, construction wood, medicinal plants ... yet the main activities of some people here are based on forest products”...

Locals complain of an increase in illness and largely attribute them to water pollution from the mine, though they also mention other health impacts such as respiratory conditions. The illnesses currently reported by villagers that they see are attributable to the mine include stomach aches, skin problems, diarrhoea, coughs, birth issues and ‘handicaps’ in new born...