Landscaping - or land grabbing?
Published by MAC on 2007-04-23
Landscaping - or land grabbing?
23rd April 2007
Four years ago a proposal by IUCN, the world's largest single conservation organisation, to collaborate with the then newly-founded International Council on Mining and Metals caused a furore among its member groups. As a result, the IUCN was forced to "downgrade" its collaboration from a "partnership" to a "dialogue". That should have fooled noone.
Now the IUCN and ICMM have set up a joint working group to examine "integrated landscape management" and find a "balance" between "development" and "conservation".
Those who believe that mining, in itself, can compensate for socio-economic losses caused by encroachment on biosphere areas may welcome the move. Others emphatically will not.