spotlight madagascar

So something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, obviously, is how to have responsible investment in developing countries that both benefits local people and helps boost the national economy, while not destroying the natural environment that, especially in Madagascar, is hugely unique and in danger of being completely demolished. I think the answer is NOT MINING. I hate what is happening with this nickel mine (and all of the others), and I hate that the government and the minions of the president are getting richer through all of these ‘development projects’.  Sherritt, you make me physically ill.

“Local sentiments are ambivalent. People surely are happy about the prospects of being employed. However, most of the employment is short-term (only during construction but not operation of the mine). Local people are rarely skilled so that very few will have the chance to work for the mine in the end. People are not happy about being displaced by pipeline construction, but they appreciate the homes that Sherritt has built for them as compensation. People would love to use the pipeline trajectory as a regular road to transport goods on, but Sherritt has not said whether it will allow that. People are definitely not happy about environmental impacts of the mine, most importantly silting of streams and rice fields, as well as social ones, including rising food prices due to inflation and pregnancies among teenage girls by miner workers. At least local people benefit from the mine in terms of being able to sell their produce to the mine workers.”

Conservationists worry that the long-term impact of the mine with be difficult to gauge because “there is no independent oversight of the project. There is no independent institution that will follow up on Sherritt’s activities with respect to what was stated in the environmental impact assessment and the cahier de charges.”

Read the whole article here:

Nickle mine in Madagascar may threaten lemurs, undermine conservation efforts

what do we use nickel for? lots of things.

End Use

Nickel is used in thousands of applications in virtually every industry:

this is from sherritt’s website :

The Ambatovy project is a foreign investment success story for Madagascar. It will contribute significantly to how the country is perceived – especially in the global natural resources sector. With the construction phase advancing nicely, it is likely that more investors – of all industries and sizes – will begin to view Madagascar as a stable country for business, a claim shared by Bretton Woods institutions.

I’m anxious to get back and see if things have gotten better than the last time I was there. Corporate Social Responsibility–is this a real concept or just a lot of jargon? Who will benefit from these investments?

Here’s an overview of the project:

Ambatovy Nickel Project, Madagascar

Here’s what an open-pit mine looks like:

It appears that Spotlight Madagascar has come to Tamatave at exactly the right time! After a week of meeting with local associations and speaking with community members, we have seen again and again that a large majority of the people in the city and the region want to learn to communicate in English. Motivating factors include a recent increase in Anglophone tourists and the arrival of the Ambatovy mining project, whose employees are mostly English speaking. Tour guides, small business owners, taxi drivers…anyone who has any interaction with these new arrivals are finding it difficult to take advantage of the economic and social possibilities they represent solely because of their inability to speak English.

Though there are some great institutions that teach basic language and grammar here in Tamatave, there is little opportunity to practice with native speakers. We’ve identified several local Associations who are excited about working together to achieve our goal of creating a Community and Cultural Center here in Tamatave where we will host courses and seminars in English focusing on subjects that are of interest to the community at large.We’d like the Center to serve as a cross-cultural exchange as well. It will be a place that will feature Malagasy and Betsimisaraka traditions, art and music–a forum where community members can showcase their culture. Tourists and locals alike will be able to access the Center for art shows, films and activities.

Working alongside the Regional Office of Tourism and other related organizations, Spotlight Madagascar will also work to help develop an infrastructure for sustainable community-based ecotourism. The entire region would benefit from a further increase in Anglophone tourists, especially those interested in seeing small-town life in Madagascar. Community-based tourism would allow the local people to see the economic and social rewards from the tourists that may pass through to eat a traditional lunch on a mat of palm fronds, drink the local liquor, or watch a Betsimisaraka song and dance performance. While visitors get a taste of real life Madagascar, they will also be helping facitilitate cross-cultural understanding between two very different worlds.

Here’s a little clip we put together of a place we call ‘Big Tree Park’–there are a lot of stories about this park, mostly having to do with unrequited love…..

Big Tree Park, Toamasina from Sara LeHoullier on Vimeo.