The Dangers of Mining in the Philippines

Describe the typical pattern of development and decline in the mining regions. What was life like for men and women in the mining camps and towns?

Mexico’s economy boomed during the thirty year presidency of Porfirio Diaz, known as the Porfiriato. The majority of Mexican profits came from the export of natural resources including mining, petroleum, and agriculture.  With the development of the railway system, these industries flourished. Before the railroads, mule transportation was too expensive; this made only gold or silver worth the effort. Now the production of copper, zinc and lead were made more profitable. By 1911, Mexico was the third greatest petroleum-producing nation. However,, these industries were owned by the United States. In order to finance the cost of construction for the railroads, Diaz gave land to foreign developers. This led to the commercialization of ranching and farming. U.S. investors benefited from the export trade of resources such as cotton, rubber, garbanzos, fine woods and coffee. By doing so, many peasants lost their land. By the end of the nineteenth century, the growth of railroads was incredible. In 1910, the railroad system totaled over 24,000 miles, which was twenty-four times the amount they had in 1880.

The acquisition of Philippines by the United States is the topic that is going to be focused upon throughout this paper. The historical context of this topic deserves to analyzed with reference to both the primary and secondary readings assigned. The highlighted issue takes place after the treaty of Paris was signed between the United States and Spain which liberated Spain’s remaining colonies. Towards the end of the 19th century, Americans were influenced by the ideology of imperialism. They believed that advanced industrialized nations like the United States, Great Britain and France needed to acquire colonies in order to provide raw materials to feed their industrial economies. Extensive markets were wanted in order to sell finished products to those colonial masses.

Beveridge indicated that no land in America could surpass the fertile areas in the Philippines where the temperate and tropical climate produced products such as rice, coffee, sugar coconuts and tobacco. His statement, “The mineral wealth of this empire of the ocean will one day surprise the world”, truly indicates his main idea, that the Philippines would help the United States financially and increase its status in the world (Beveridge).

Mining has strong increase in revenues and investment in the mining sector and for other industries aligned to mining and resources. Modelling undertaken for this document estimates that the mining increase has on average delivered 0.62 per cent to whole funding

Mining was the first great boom in the West. Gold and silver were the magnets that attracted a large number of people. Prospectors from the east were just part of a flood that included people from all around the world. Mining towns got very big when people from all around the United States heard that there was gold in the West. This brought a large crowd of people because they wanted to get wealthy and have a good life. Many Towns didn’t have enough space for all the people that wanted to come get gold. However, other people saw an opportunity to make their fortune by supplying the needs of miners for food, clothing and supplies. Large companies took a huge advantage of this because they were the most powerful and could get people to

this part of the world was a huge bust for the miners. The only to strike it rich were the

Midwest Copper Mining’s (MCM) biggest problem they are facing is that of sustaining supportable profit growth, as the undercurrents of the copper mining industry are changing. In particular, they need to figure out how they are going to increase their capacity to meet demands globally. They also need to figure out how to do this without disrupting the current culture of the business. They have been very successful and have created process and procedures that have kept them sustainable over the years. With the changing of the copper industry, MCM needs to re-evaluate their business strategy, make changes as necessary, in order to continue to be a successful company that is both a cost-leader and a differentiator.

Mining is one of Canada’s primary industries and involves the extraction, refining, and/or processing of economically valuable rocks and minerals. Mineral products – including gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel – are critical to modern industrial society. Although mining has been key to Canadian settlement and development, in recent decades the industry has also been criticized for its environmental and social impacts. Canada remains one of the world’s leading mining countries and has become a centre of global mining finance and expertise.

Throughout the century British coal had become increasingly costly and difficult to mine. Nationalization in 1948 had not altered this. Indeed, there was a case for saying that lack of government investment since that date had added to the problem. For some time Britain had been importing coal from abroad. With the exception of few pits producing particular types of coal, British mines by the 1970s were running at loss.

Since Freeport started their journey of the mining operations, social and environmental issues raised. Environmental issues included the effects on glaciers, overburden storage and the tailing issue with water quality and deposition. Freeport reactively responded to each of those issues. Although there is a huge gap between when Freeport first signed the contract in 1966 until they developed the environmental management in 1991, Freeport allocated huge budget, time and effort to treat and mitigate these issues. However, such an expert company in mining it negatively viewed that their response was reactive, instead they are acquired to predict the consequential results on the environment from mining by proactively dealing with such issues.

Illegal mining in the Peruvian Amazon has led to crime, deforestation and mercury poisoning in local villages and has further weakened the economy. Peru is the largest producer of gold in South America, the sixth largest in the world and in recent years Peru’s remote Amazon rainforest has become a hotspot for illegal mining. An estimated ten to thirty-thousand illegal miners work day in and day out to remove flecks of gold from Amazonian soil using cyanide, mercury, lead and arsenic which has in turn contaminated water sources and poisoned many in rural villages. Mining camps run rampant with crime, including sex trafficking and slave labor, poaching is common and litter is scattered everywhere. These miners have come from cities across Peru

Under the new regime agriculture developed rapidly, commerce and trade soared to unprecedented levels, transportation and communication were modernized, banking and currency improved, the manufacturing industries were transformed. As compared with the Spanish era, economic progress of the Philippines during the American era forged ahead with great strides. (291)

In our days, mining for resources is inevitable. The resources we need are valuable in everyday life. Such resources mined up are coal, copper, gold, silver, and sand. However, mining poses environmental risks that can degrade the quality of soil and water, which can end up effecting us humans if not taken care of and many of the damages are irreversible once they have occurred.

The mining industry has seen an explosive growth from the past few decades. It has played an important role in economic growth, infrastructure development and a raise in the living standard of the whole world. According to the Australian National Accounting System, the mining sector has made contributions of 9.8% GDP growth to the Australian economy between 2008 to 2009 (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2012). However, the mining industry has caused many environmental issues such as adverse effect to air, land and water quality and continues to affect global environment as a whole. According to the World Health Organization, it evaluated that 25% of worldwide death are directly associated with environmental pollution (Blacksmith Institute, n.d). This essay will outline the environmental issue raised by the mining industry with pinpoint focus on the effects to air, water and land. It will also provide strategies for mining companies to improve the environmental conditions.