Mining key cell phone metal 'coltan' funds Congo war and environmental destruction

UN asks consumers to help stop ecosystem destruction and social disaster with boycott of Congolese coltan ore

By: Carole Pearson

  Over 500 million cell phones will be sold worldwide this year. There's a voracious consumer demand for these high-tech gadgets. It's too bad the industry supports the ecological devastation of two UN world heritage sites and a six-nation war in the heart of Africa.
  Vast reserves of colombo-tantalite (coltan) are located in the mountains of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire. This steel-grey, glittering ore is a source of tantalum, a specialty metal used in the manufacture of cell phones, pagers and computers. Australia, Brazil and Canada are the biggest producers of coltan, but 80 percent of the world's reserves are believed to be located in Africa, mostly in the eastern Congo area. The price of coltan has increased from $20 a pound in 1990 to $350 a pound at the end of 2000 - a good price for a shovel full of rock.
  But it's bad news for the DRC's Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Okapi Wildlife Reserve, which are located in prime coltan territory. Both are classified as world heritage sites by the UN because of their biodiversity. Unfortunately, the region is controlled by foreign-backed Congolese rebel groups which use coltan revenues to finance their operations. Streams, forests and wildlife are being destroyed in the process.
 

After killing off nearly 4,000 elephants between 1995 and 1999, the miners are now eating gorillas

  The estimated 10,000 miners in the eastern Congo are shooting the wild animals for food. The Wildlife Conservation Society says the elephant population in the Kahuzi-Biega is "virtually wiped out." In the park, only two of 350 elephant families remain. Most were likely slaughtered for food and for their valuable tusks. Between 1995 and 1999, nearly 4000 elephants were shot and killed. "With those about gone," states a Radio Expeditions report, "the miners are now eating gorillas."
  The World Wildlife Fund for Nature estimates the area's gorilla population has already decreased by 50 percent.
  David Sheppard of the Swiss-based World Conservation Union says, "Mining, together with the presence of so many people looking for food is severely impacting on the ecology of these sites and is in flagrant violation of world heritage principles."
  Last year, the United Nations set up a panel to investigate. The outcome is the recently-released "Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the DRC." It calls coltan "a prominent reason for the continuation of the war, along with gold, diamonds and timber" and decries "the systematic and systemic exploitation" of the DRC.
  Suleiman Baldo, a Human Rights Watch researcher says, "Diplomats and human rights groups accuse all foreign participants in the three year old war, including Rwanda, Angola, Namibia and Zimabwe, of profiting from the conflict."
 

Cell phone users can help by putting pressure on manufacturers to stop accepting coltan from the eastern Congo until all national parks are cleared of illegal miners

  Profits are what keep the civil war alive because no one wants to voluntarily cede this resource-rich area. There is a de facto partition of the DRC into separate regimes. Kahuzi-Biega Park lies within the territory of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which takes in $1 million per month in coltan revenues. The area around Okapi Reserve is controlled by Ugandan-backed rebels of the Congolese Liberation Front (CLF). Government forces still have control of the west and are allied with Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola.
  Besides concerns about the environment and slaughter of animals, there is also the social devastation. So far, 2.5 million people have died, mostly from disease and malnutrition, and 1.6 million Congolese have been internally displaced. Young men between 12 and 18 years of age are recruited in Uganda and Rwanda and put to work mining, under heavy military guard. There are also Ugandan-trained child soldiers - boys between nine and eleven years of age - in this war zone.
  And the mining continues. Each month 100 tons of Congo coltan are transported to Rwanda and flown from Kigali to destinations in Europe, Russia and North America where it is processed into tantalum and sold to high tech manufacturers. An article by Michael Bond and Colette Braeckman for the New Scientist says some companies argue they purchase this material through intermediaries and "are blind as to how and from whom it is obtained."
  One of the biggest processors of coltan is Cabot Performance Materials of Pennsylvania. Cabot produces up to 40 percent of the world's tantalum and admits it takes Congo ore. A company spokesperson admitted he "doesn't know enough about the politics to know if we're doing something that's really wrong."
  The UN report recommends a boycott of Congolese ore until safeguards are in place. It wants public pressure put on companies buying coltan and selling it to electrical manufacturers. This also means pressuring the manufacturers of the electronic devices we find so essential today, including computers, Game Boys and, yes, even cell phones.
  The Wildlife Conservation Society advises consumers "Cell phone users can help by putting pressure on manufacturers to stop accepting coltan from the eastern Congo until all national parks are cleared of illegal miners."
  It's your call.

For more information:
UN Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Radio Expeditions

"A Moral Minefield", New Scientist

About coltan/tantalite/tantalum: US Geological Survey

Carole Pearson is a Victoria area freelance writer.

Posted, June 11, 2001

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