"China’s Quest for Iron Threatens West African Ecosystem" 23 June 2022

The Road to Simandou

Three years ago, a consortium of China-connected companies, including the world’s largest aluminum producer, won the rights to excavate half of the range. Last year Chinese workers began cutting mining roads and blasting tunnels for a 400-mile railway line to bring the ore to a new port planned for the Atlantic coast, where it can be loaded onto ships bound for the other side of the world. After a quarter-century of delays, the riches of Simandou were on the verge of being tapped. [...]

Yet this push comes at great environmental cost. Across Africa, Chinese companies are building roads and railways to remote places to reach previously inaccessible mineral deposits, as well as the mines to dig them out, energy plants to power the excavations, and ports to carry the resources away. Chinese investors now own 70% of the copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a United Nations study has found “alarming” environmental degradation. While European and North American companies dominated mining in Africa throughout the 20th century, also with serious environmental consequences, the new infrastructure push is leaving a mark far deeper inland. In Guinea, which signed on to the Belt and Road initiative in 2018 after surpassing Australia to become China’s top bauxite provider, 14 Chinese companies have mining-related operations. [...]

China’s business practices were formed during the 1990s and 2000s, when weak environmental standards at home caused massive degradation, Zhang says, and it never set clear guidelines to manage the impact of its outbound investments. “When those Chinese companies come to a country like Guinea with very weak governance and rule of law, they take advantage to use these weak institutions to avoid the national law requirements,” she says. “Without international pressure and monitoring from outside, the companies will take advantage and avoid complying with the laws.” [...]

Winning Consortium Simandou, the group that won the mining contract, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did CRCC. [...]

Camara says the Chinese immediately poisoned relations with villagers by positioning their latrines upstream. He says he told the consortium many times that its operations polluted their streams not only with human waste, but with chemicals used for prospecting. Rocks falling down the mountain where they’re building mining roads are killing their cows and goats. Half a dozen elders nod solemnly as he speaks.

The community liaison officer at the camp, who’s from China, declined to meet us. [...]