Anyone who is a Disney fan will recognise the title song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Every day Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy et al would happily plod off to their diamond mine to harvest the earth's mineral riches on a small scale, something of which Gina Lopez would, no doubt, approve.
But if she has her way, miners working in large scale operations, their families and community could soon have nothing to sing about as they see their only source of income literally sink into the ground.
Whilst Ms Lopez's enthusiasm for environmental protection is to be applauded, wholesale cancellation or suspension of 28 mines without consultation or reference to the financial impact on the local community will only alienate the future custodians of mother nature who question whether short term poverty is a price worth paying for long-term environmental protection.
The premature closure of the mines without any plan for alternative employment or income for the locals is at best short sighted and at worst a cruel indifference to local people's hardship as well as dismissive of a local government's major source of income.
According to a Caraga State University study in 2014 entitled 'Analyzing the Income Effects of Mining with Instrumental Variables for Poverty Reduction Implications in Caraga Region, Philippines',
“Responsible Mining has become the byword that embodies that noble intention of the Philippine government in partnership with the mining sector on optimizing mining benefits for social welfare... Prelude to the desired outcomes with the said reforms in mining is mining’s stepped-up participation in the improvement of the economic performance of the region, which has helped ease poverty incidence on a regional scale, enough to declare Caraga Region no more the poorest region in the Philippines in 2013 (Panganiban, 2013).”
With each mining operation potentially earning a local community hundreds of thousands of pesos in compensation payments as well as individual wages for workers, can Ms Lopez's eco-tourism alternative provide a viable alternative livelihood? In the long term perhaps but what do they do in the meantime whilst they wait for the trees to grow back and the rivers to run clean once again?
And who will fund the setup costs of such ventures when the locals are scraping by and have no seed money to invest in their future?
Knee jerk, spur of the moment action may celebrated now but could be regretted at leisure, especially by those cast by the wayside from a whirlwind of environmental zeal.
Take a breath Ms Lopez, talk to the local communities affected and ask them what they want before bringing down the sword of Damocles upon their livelihoods. Tighten up environmental regulations to ensure responsible environmental conduct by mining companies and enforce landscape restoration by all means but ask yourself, what good is an intact water catchment and pristine river when those on the river bank cannot afford a rod to fish for their supper.
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