New Caledonia

At the invitation of Brazilian activists who are supporting communities struggling against multinational mining giant Vale (formerly Companhia Vale do Rio Doce) in Brazil, and with support from the Steelworkers Humanity Fund and the Canadian Auto Workers Social Justice Fund, MiningWatch’s Catherine Coumans attended the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil in January 2009. Catherine was asked to provide local activists with information about relations between Vale and communities in Canada (Port Colborne and Sudbury in Ontario as well as Labrador), Indonesia and New Caledonia. In each of these places Inco (now owned by Vale and operating as a subsidiary, Vale Inco) is facing serious community concerns and criticism of its operations.

Xstrata’s Koniambo project in the South Pacific French "territory" of Kanaky-New Caledonia, formerly owned by Falconbridge, is coming under increasing scrutiny and criticism.

Xstrata’s Koniambo project in the South Pacific French territory of Kanaky-New Caledonia, formerly owned by Falconbridge, is coming under increasing scrutiny and criticism. The proposed nickel mine, in the northern province of Kanaky-New Caledonia, will be one of the largest mines in the world when it is built. The territory, called New Caledonia (Nouvelle-Caledonie) by the French, is called Kanaky by its native Kanak inhabitants.

"State of Mine, An Investigation of Canada's Extractive Industries", a special edition of The Dominion Newspaper, was published in November 2008 and is now available online.

The Canadian mining map was produced by the Halifax Initiative during the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries. The Roundtables, which took place between June and November of 2006, fulfilled one of the recommendations made in the groundbreaking report, Mining in Developing Countries and Corporate Social Responsibility, tabled by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT) in June 2005.

A unique opportunity presented itself as a result of the Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Extractive Sector in Developing Countries. On November 13th, 2006, MiningWatch Canada brought together a panel in Montreal made up of community leaders from Indonesia, Guatemala, New Caledonia, and Canada who discussed their struggles against Inco (now CVRD-Inco, having been acquired by the Brazilian firm CVRD-Companhia Vale do Rio Doce).