By Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo

1. Anthropology and mining: Ethical issues in conducting social impact studies among indigenous peoples By Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo

2. Acknowledgements • Center for Environmental Concerns/Kalikasan PNE • Legal Rights and Natural Resources/Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth Philippines • Anthropology Watch, Inc. • Researchers

3. Large Scale Mining in the Philippines • $1 trillion worth of unexplored mineral resources • 3rd worldwide in gold deposits, 4th in copper, 5th in nickel, and 6th in chromite • 294 mining agreements in existence as of January 2008 covering over 600,000 hectares of mineralized lands • 2,626 mining applications are currently being processed

4. The Mining Act of 1995 • Allows transnational companies to own 100% of the mines • Repatriate 100% of capital and profits • Evict communities from mine areas • Gives companies complete water and timber rights over mineral-rich lands, capital tax exemption and 10-year tax holidays

5. Environmental and social costs of mining Marcopper mine disaster (Source: Oxfam and saverapurapu)

6. Maricalum mine disaster (Source: bulatlat) Marcopper mine disaster (Source: Coumans)

7. Rapu Rapu island fish kill (Source: saverapurapu) Antamok open pit (Source: CPA)

8. Social costs • Displacement of communities • Destruction of livelihood sources and economic activities • Breaking apart of communities who are divided between pro- and anti-mining • Human rights violations committed against communities and their advocates who oppose mining • Militarization

9. Barricade of indigenous peoples to bar entry of mining equipment in Kasibu (Source: CEC/Kalikasan PNE)

10. Militarization in Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya (Source CEC/Kalikasan PNE)

11. Mining and indigenous peoples • 53% of the 15 million hectares that have been opened for mining applications and 16 of the 24 priority mining areas are in indigenous peoples' lands • Development aggression

12. Indigenous peoples of Mindanao (Source: Anthropology Watch)

13. Mines in Mindanao (Source: Anthropology Watch)

14. Legal framework for FPIC and social acceptability • Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 • The State "recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities within the framework of national unity and development" • The State, "subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social and cultural well-being." • National Commission on Indigenous Peoples

15. Free and prior informed consent • “consensus of all the members of the indigenous peoples to be determined in accordance with their respective customary laws and practices, free from any external manipulation, interference, and coercion, and obtained after fully disclosing the intent and scope of the activity, in a language and process understandable to the community.”

16. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) • Requirement for Environmental Clearance Certificate • Aims to protect the environment as well as the community's welfare

17. Anthropology and mining • Looking into potential social impacts of the project • Providing baseline data • Tapped to make social feasibility studies for a mining company wanting to enter a community • Conducting information and education campaigns in the communities for the company • Drawing up strategies that can convince people to become pro-mining • Others are hired as community liaison officers and community organizers to convince people to become pro-mining

18. Problems with the legal framework • Cases of fraudulently obtained FPICs in various indigenous communities, bribery and harassment • Unclear definition of "socially acceptable" • Lack of disclosure of project information to the public • Lack of accountability on the part of the preparers of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which would have prevented falsification of data • Lack of an independent and third party body that could conduct the EIA

19. The protective mechanisms in the various laws are not adequate in protecting the community; instead they are being used to serve the interests of mining companies even though these are in violation of the community’s rights

20. Are people able to freely decide in a context where they do not have much option to begin with? • "The political exercise of FPIC cannot be divorced from the reality of economic inequities" (Leonen 1998)

21. Ethics in anthropology • Problems encountered • Conducting the study in the guise of academic research even though said study was financed by the company • Unclear objectives of the study even for the researcher • Researcher lacks ownership over the data gathered and the freedom to write about it in other publications • Researcher not allowed to divulge that mining company financed the study

22. Furthermore… • Copies of research not provided to the community • Anthropologists become party to divide and rule tactics • Devising strategies so that communities become pro-mining is potentially unethical

23. Ethical guidelines violated • American Anthropological Association (AAA) • The anthropologist's responsibility is to those they study especially when there is a conflict of interest • The rights and welfare of those studied must be safeguarded and protected, and their dignity and privacy honored • Risks and benefits must be communicated clearly to those being studied • Reports must be equally available to the sponsors, general public, and to the community studied • Anthropologists should not engage in secret research or researches whose results are not publicly reported and freely available

24. Anthropological Association of the Philippines (UGAT) • Anthropologist must be sincere to the host community • Researcher must explain the research objectives and implications to the host community • Research product must be returned to the community preferably in a language the community can understand • Research product must be made available to the larger community

25. UGAT: focus on ethics • Recently formed the ethics review board that, among others, serves as a venue for complaints to be filed by individuals/parties against anthropologists who commit unethical research practices, and recommend possible sanctions

26. Issue of fair benefit sharing in mining • How could the loss of a sacred ground to mining be compensated? How could the sense of uprootedness and loss of identity be compensated? The loss of traditional relations to land and traditional utilization of resources and the eventual loss of indigenous knowledge and practices rooted in their lands? • Lack of public disclosure of information • Public participation and FPIC is compromised • Conflict of interest

27. Recommendations • UGAT • Formulate more explicit ethical principles with details on sanctions and mechanisms on how communities can access the services of the organization • Inform the public about its services • Link with indigenous people’s organizations and networks to monitor the activities of anthropologists working for mining companies • Advocate the teaching of ethics in schools

28. NGOs and indigenous organizations and communities • Demand accountability from researchers • Report unethical researchers to their institutions, organizations, and to the general public • Sanction unethical researchers by blacklisting them from the community and other community networks • Provide indigenous communities with research capability to enable them to conduct their own investigations and determine potentially risky researches

29. Provide wider reach for information and education campaigns regarding indigenous peoples rights in research • Pressure the government to give more teeth to the FPIC and EIA processes to protect the interests of the community and not that of the mining company's • Pressure the government to form an independent body free from vested interests who will conduct the EIA