AFRICA NEWS
Bauxite boom threatens humans and chimpanzees
The evidence contained in a complaint filed
in March 2019 by Cecide and a collective
of 13 villages in the Boké region with the
World Bank’s Office of the Ombudsman, is
directed against the International Finance
Corporation (IFC), which is accused of
aggravating the negative impact of mining
activity in Boké through a EUR135-million
loan it granted in 2016 to the Guinean
Bauxite Company (CBG), the main mining
company in the region, which is 49% owned
by the state and 51% by Rio Tinto and Alcoa.
In the meantime, the CBG has certainly
contributed to the creation, a year ago, of
the Bauxite Environment Network (BEN),
a platform for exchange and collaboration
on good environmental and biodiversity
practises, to better mitigate the cumulative
impact of mining activities. But concrete and
effective measures are needed.
Knowing that, according to information
from Reporterre (a French online news
agency), the IFC’s contribution had a
leverage effect and ‘USD473-million was
borrowed from a consortium of commercial
banks: Société Générale, BNP Paribas,
Crédit Agricole, Natixis, the German branch
of ING Bank (ING-DiBa AG) and two Guinean
banks, SGBG and Bicigui’.
It is not impossible that French
institutions may one day have to report to
France on the human rights impact of the
Bauxite mining is growing rapidly in the
Boké region of northwestern Guinea. In
just a few years, the activity has propelled
Guinea to the rank of the world's third-
largest bauxite producer.
But the rush for red gold is not without
risk; it destroys the natural environment, as
well as the living environment of humans
and chimpanzees. Almost 2 800 individual
endangered great apes could perish if
nothing is done.
In Guinea, the rapid expansion of bauxite
mining in Boké, supported by the growing
global demand for aluminium, is increasingly
being opposed by local populations.
In Guinea’s largest mining region, civil
society actors denounce land expropriation
and environmental destruction. “When
companies set up, they take over land,
sometimes without compensation for the
area lost. After the eviction operations, a
large part of the farmers inherit smaller
plots than those they have been forced
to leave,” says Pascal Tanguiano, director
of the International Trade Centre for
Development (Cecide).
In addition to the destruction of
agricultural land, the main means of
subsistence for villagers, Cecide also
identifies other environmental damage
such as deforestation, pollution and the
destruction of water resources.
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AUGUST 2019
infrastructure they have financed in Guinea,
in accordance with the 2017 law on the duty
of vigilance. Movement in this direction is
beginning to spread in Europe with Germany
also considering a law on the duty of care
and the UK Supreme Court has just decided
that the Vedanta mining company will
be sued in London for the pollution of its
subsidiary in Zambia.
Chimpanzees are no exception
Meanwhile, Guinea is home to about half of
the chimpanzee population of West Africa
and is an endangered species in the world.
Most of these primates are housed in the
Middle Baffin National Park in Boké, which
has almost 5 300 chimpanzees.
Apes are not immune even in this place
dedicated to their preservation. According
to the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF),
the presence of a bauxite mine and a
294-megawatt hydroelectric dam, planned
within the protected area, threatens 2 800 of
these chimps.
Primatologists fear that the West African
region will lose its main centre for the
preservation of great apes. The population
of Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes
verus) has decreased considerably over
the past three decades. The number of
specimens is currently estimated at about
53 000, compared to about 175 000 in 1990.
“We lost our lions in West Africa. The
chimpanzee population has declined over
the past 20 years. I fear that if we do not
do more in terms of conservation in West
Africa, we will lose them completely,” says
Abdul Tejan-Cole, campaign director of the
environmental group Mighty Earth.
The IFC, a subsidiary of the World Bank,
is accused of financing mining activities
in Guinea that affect humans and the
environment and is also being challenged by
a German media group for its investments
in hydrocarbons, when the World Bank
struggles to engage in the energy transition
by financing renewable energies. At a time
of global threats to climate and biodiversity,
it seems obsolete to see some international
institutions and global groups imagine that
they can indefinitely escape their global
responsibilities.
Apes are not immune, even in Middle
Baffin National Park in Boké that is
dedicated to their preservation, to the
presence of a bauxite mine with a
294-megawatt hydroelectric dam planned
within the protected area that threatens
2 800 chimpanzees.
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