Letter to the Editor

I always write way to much for any letter to the editor to be published. So in addition to sending this to High Country News I'm posting it here:

Dear HCN,

I’ve been reading back issues of HCN while living and working in Vientiane, Laos for the past year. As a native Coloradan, outdoor enthusiast, and anti-corporate child of hippies, I tend to oppose commercial development of public lands and resources – mining, drilling, etc - pretty categorically. However, on a small point, I found myself agreeing with the mining representative in November 22, 2010’s cover story on mining “Hard Rock Showdown.” Mr. Cornoyer stated that mining in Arizona would be better for the planet than copper mining in Chile or the Congo. When Westerners oppose these projects, we need to ask ourselves where the resources that are not being mined in our states are going to come from, and where they are going to go.

Laos is a beautiful and very mountainous country; filled with steep limestone mountains that are absolutely overgrown by tropical greenery. In size, it’s about 90% as big as Colorado, but stretches out along the Mekong River. The mountains extend well into our neighbors, Vietnam and Cambodia as well. They are great sources of natural resources – both ores and as the substrate for rubber plantations, timber cutting, and other environmentally degrading but profitable ventures.

In Laos, mining, timber cutting, and rubber plantation planting are happening with little or no concern about environmental consequences, even inside national protected areas. I do not know if Lao law requires environmental impact statements, but I do know that bribing the right string of officials will give businessmen access to land, which will likely be completely unregulated or supervised, and there is unlikely to be any legal action for cleanup after the project and damage is done. Corruption is rampant in South East Asia – Laos ranks 154/187 for most corrupt nations on the latest survey from Transparency International. (With 187, Somalia, being the most corrupt) Cambodia is 164, and Vietnam 112. The US holds slot 24. Some of the companies working here are trying to teach the Lao people and government about environmentally responsible stewardship of their natural resources, but many see it simply as a poor country where a bribe here or there can get you access to very profitable natural resources.

So Mr. Cornoyer is sort of right, even though my natural tendency is to assume he is wrong. When we westerners absolutely refuse to allow our own natural resources to be accessed, it likely means that the copper for those hybrid cars, photovoltaic panels and other electronic gadgets we love is coming from somewhere else on our small planet; probably somewhere with much less oversight. (43% of copper comes from Asia according to this site: http://www.lme.com/copper_industryusage.asp, but I’m pretty sure Asia isn’t yet consuming that percentage of electronic gadgets, hybrid cars, etc.) We may not see the unpleasant tailings piles, nor will our water, grazing land, etc be harmed, but if there is a demand for that copper, it will be mined somewhere. And the people affected may be subsistence farmers in the developing world who have neither the time, knowledge and experience to resist development, nor the political clout or legal framework to limit impacts. When we take a NIMBY attitude to resource use in the west, we may really be hurting poor and powerless people in other parts of the world much more than the corporations we think we are obstructing. And that’s not responsible citizenship any more than allowing unrestricted development of our own natural spaces would be.

Thanks for keeping me connected to the west over the past year. Keep up the great work!