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Facts about mining
Mining is Dangerous
Mining kills and injures more workers than any other industry
For example:
- The USA: from January to October 1999, 45mine workers died because of workplace accidents.(1)
- South Africa: one worker dies and12 are seriously injured for every ton of gold produced.(2)
- China: 3,362 people died as a result of accidents in coal mines in 1996. (2)
- World-wide: uranium mining has caused 20,000 deaths since the 1950s. Uranium mining has exposed more workers to radiation than any other industry.(3)
1 US Mines Safety and Health Administration.
2 Project Underground, Berkeley, US.
3 Australian Conservation Foundation.
Mining Exploration:
the industrial North wants the resources of the South
- Today there is more large-scale mining in more countries than ever before.
- Industrialized countries have used up much of their own resources and have become the biggest importers of minerals.
- The US receives the largest shipments of minerals from overseas
- Nearly all of the aluminium the US uses comes from other countries
more than 70% of the nickel, chromium and tin the US uses comes from other countries.
Mining fever comes to South America
In the global search for minerals, companies consider South America the best location to develop at this time. Some of the reasons for this are:
- Mines that were once owned by the government were sold to corporations;
- Changes in rules concerning mining have made mining easier;
- Large areas of untouched land have been made available.
Mining doesn't make poor countries rich.
Nations where the most mining takes place are also some of the poorest countries in the world. In these countries, national governments are helping mining companies to get the minerals they want.
The small amount of money that poor countries get from mining companies is taken by international banks, not local people.
Fourteen Majority World countries get at least a third of their export revenues from minerals. Their external debts are 1.4 times greater than their Gross National Product (GNP).
1 Minerals Economics Group Survey, 1997.
2 World Resources 1996-7.
Copyright New Internationalist Magazine 1997, 1998, 1999
Last Modified: 17 Nov 1999