Mining Sustainability Working Group

The Fraser Institute’s new global centre for mining studies has produced an important new paper on the “resource curse”. It shows that the vast majority of nations benefit from mining activities and lays out the conditions for increasing mining benefits for all nations. The paper is available for free download at:

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/news/6982.aspx

The podcast below gives a timely update on the debate about the role of Canadian mining companies abroad:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200910/20091016.html

a new NGO campaign:

http://www.drc.moonfruit.org/

SWG meeting notice

The next SWG Meeting is going to be held on friday, October 16th, from 11 am-12 pm in FF 519W (conference room).

Agenda for the meeting as follows,

1. Green bag lunch update on speaker, venue, etc.
2. SWG participation in the Mining and Sustainability BC seminar, Nov 19th http://mining.bc.ca/?p2=/modules/evcalendar/view.jsp&eventId=79
3. Future project, including: developing a sustainability course…

Please reserve this time in your calendar.

This action movie will be presented at  UBC-Mining Engineering,  room 519A, Oct/23rd just after the MINE 590W (Environmental Risk Assessment) class. Coke and popcorn will be available. FREE.

Blood Diamond is a 2006 action/adventure drama film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick, director of Glory and The Last Samurai, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mined in African war zones and sold to finance the conflicts and profit the warlords and the diamond companies across the world. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor (DiCaprio) and Best Supporting Actor (Hounsou).

Next green bag lunch scheduled to Nov/23rd at 12:00pm. Speaker/theme and location (Robson Square / Infomine) to be confirmed soon. Please reserve this time in your agenda.

For anyone who is interested, the Vancouver Film Festival is starting next week (Oct 2009). There are four movies that feature mining as part of the action.  Those movies (and links) are: Continue Reading »

The next SWG Meeting will be held on October 2nd, 2009 in the Conference Room.

Here is a fun post from the Economist’s Green.view blog:

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14340926

and a linked article: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005653

The article states: Continue Reading »

SWG Meeting Notice

The next SWG Meeting is going to be held on September 18, at 5pm following Rodolfo’s MINE 590W class – at Koerner’s Pub.

The meeting will be a chance for all new (and old) students to hear about SWG activities, who we are, and where we are going, etc.. All new members are welcomed. Continue Reading »

Here are a couple of excellent articles on heavy metal contamination in Guizhou and Hunan, China. Both make mention of small-scale mining. Caijing is probably China’s top business magazine and has really made a name for itself exposing corruption cases. Continue Reading »