Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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A new white paper by Harvard's Project on American Indian Economic Development, On Improving Tribal-Corporate Relations in the Mining Sector (Kennedy School April 2014) documents long, fascinating histories and synergies of mining developments involv- ing Native American lands across 48 states in the United States. But by heralding lessons learned for any miner with any stake in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it's a must-read, too. Thoroughly researched by Native American graduate students Jackson Brossy and Christopher Kolerok, the document, commissioned by an editorially neutral Rio Tinto plc, tackles mining issues and operations spanning 567 tribes and more than 500 villages and reservations. Its 131 pages, moreover, clearly illustrate the promises and perils of mining in places where laws, institutions, infrastructure and, above all, value systems, often diverge from other parts of the country. Through case studies and legal precedents, the paper under- scores exactly how tribes and their 56 million land acres—hosting 40% of U.S. uranium and 30% of coal—are jurisdictions autonomous via laws enacted from the early 1800s and beyond the 1960s. "Outsiders should learn about the particular history of the culture and laws of that nation before embarking on econom- ic transactions," the authors noted. It is truly difficult to generalize about the American Indian pop- ulation—one which, despite widespread poverty, has witnessed economic growth triple that of the U.S. people at large into the 2000s. Population increases since have been accompanied by an unprecedented economic diversification in areas from extractives to manufacturing to tourism. The challenges they can pose to mining companies, meantime, are potentially enormous. The very perception of time, for instance, can clash between miners and native populations, according to the authors. "For tribes, longer-term relationships are more important than short-term extraction ventures," they wrote. "Depending on community buy-in, tribes may have a fast pre-proj- ect development time expectation and a slower post-project extraction pace." But within tribes themselves, attitudes ingrained by tradition and heritage can also be varied, noted the authors. "Ceremonies and displays of tribal culture can be considered by corporate nego- tiators as a distraction and the perceived solution is to send a con- sulting anthropologist," they said. This, however, is nearly always a dire mistake. "Tribes should not be stereotyped as being all of one mind when it comes to a mat- ter as contentious as mining on reservations," the paper continued. "As with other communities, there may be deep divisions; the wise developer recognizes such disagreement is the tribe's business." By any measure, smoothly operating projects generating pros- perity for miners and tribes should prevail as a win-win—yet one particular narrative has often proved a constant. "More than one would-be developer has found out the hard way," noted the paper, "that tribes are real governments and have the power to make or break attractive projects." PolyMet Mining Inc. discovered as much after developing its copper, nickel and precious metals mine near the Fond du Lac Band reservation in northeast Minnesota. Under U.S. Environ- mental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Water Act (CWA) man- dates, rather, tribal "off-reservation" rights meant sulfate pollution concerns expanded—and considerably delayed—the permitting process. And although Fond du Lac Band has not insisted on anti-min- ing resolutions, "it's really about what can be done responsibly— sustainably," tribal representative Karen Diver told Brossy and Kolerok. "Anything that would affect the ecology of the ceded ter- ritory that might diminish tribal members' ability to hunt, fish or gather, that's a huge issue to our people." In gold-copper-silver-rich Idaho, the strength of tribal regulatory strength emerged after the Shoshone-Bannock Nation detected sele- nium contamination from two closed phosphate mines. Tribal dis- content with a strategy to cap, rather than decontaminate the site after a $57 million cleanup order against Philadelphia-based FMC Corp. by EPA officials, led to the formation of a Selenium Working Group to investigate active and dormant phosphate mines statewide. 128 E&MJ; • JUNE 2014 www.e-mj.com C S R W AT C H Improving Tribal-corporate Relations in the Mining Sector By Joseph Kirschke, News Editor-Mining EMJ_pg128-129_EMJ_pg128-129 6/3/14 12:20 PM Page 128