Anu Rai

On January 10 2020, a 24-year-old environment rights defender was brutally murdered for protesting illegal river mining in Nepal. Sadly, threats and violence are not isolated incidents on mining activity. The environmental destruction by mining is rampant. But mining has also been found to boost well-being in many developing countries.
In the context of Nepal, striking the right balance of use and environmental protection has been difficult. This makes mining one of the highly contested issues for Nepal. The recent budget declaration stating mining will be conducted to decrease the trade deficit based on environmental impact assessment has only added fuel to the fire.

History, Possibilities Of Mining
Nepal has been mining for iron, copper, cobalt, gold and some other metals on a small scale for a long time especially as small scale indigenous mining. The Sonaha community for instance has been mining alluvial gold dust for a living in the banks of the Karnali River. Before 1951, Nepal used to export iron and copper to Tibet and cobalt to India.
The iron ore at Thoshe Ramechhap was mined by the Ranas for about 100 years but now it is not operational. Remnants of mining can be found all over Nepal with places even being named after minerals such as Sun Khani, Koilabas etc. Nepal Bureau of Mines and Nepal Geological Survey began systematic mapping and exploration of minerals in the 1960s, which later merged to form the Department of Mines and Geology (DMG). The organization has mainly been responsible for all types of geological survey and mineral exploration in Nepal.
To date, our authorities have identified 63 mineral commodities, which includes 21 metallics, 23 non-metallic, six gems, nine constructions and four fuel minerals. Currently, mining and quarrying contribute around 0.58% of Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at basic prices with an annual growth rate of 7.49%.
In a recent webinar on Policy Discourse on Sustainable Mining and Utilization of Construction Materials in Nepal, Mr Ram Prasad Ghimire, Director General from DMG has stated that 191.8 million cubic meters of bedrock deposits have been identified in 14 districts of Nepal with 92 mines. Likewise, 32 million cubic meters of river bed deposits have been identified in the river beds of Bara and Parsa alone.
The studies for the exploration of both of these deposits are still ongoing. 92 mines from the bedrock deposit have a capacity of generating approximately NRs. 500 million as one-time revenues through bids and yearly revenue generation of approximately NRs. 1 billion per year has been estimated. Likewise, the export earnings could be approximately NRs. 13.5 billion per year with an employment generation of approximately 12,000.

Concerns
Due to the ambiguity in the recent budget announcement of where the minerals will be obtained many environmentalists have opined this is directly targeting the Chure region. The Chure Board has come in support of the government decision for mining and clarified the mining from Chure will not be conducted. But the people are still pessimistic generating widespread criticism.
Chure region lying at the southernmost region of the foothills of the Himalayas can be roughly divided into three layers – Upper, middle and lower Siwalik. The layers are coarsening upwards with mudstone, sandstone and conglomerate, which are not considered good construction materials. So, if the mineral extraction is to be conducted from Chure, it should be meaning river bed extraction, said Dr Subodh Dhakal, Associate Professor from the Department of Geology from the same webinar.
He adds that decreasing the trade deficit is a political ploy rather than sound science as the minerals extracted from Nepal will be required for Nepal's development activity with trade a thing of distant future.
Likewise, there has also been increasing violence with regards to the mining mafia in Nepal. The reported murder of environmentalist criticizing the illegal extraction of riverine material in the Aurahi river is one such example. Likewise, many illegal sand extractions from rivers in Chure hills have been publicised with many inhabitants under increasing threats of flood induced by a change in the river course.
Besides, mining also leads to loss of biodiversity, pollution and other environmental problem. Mining is destructive not only during the operation but also long afterwards. Hence, the benefits of extraction of the resource are being borne by the select few – the private companies, vendors and government bodies receiving taxes but the residents bear the brunt of the environmental damage. This is the form of negative externality that has often been ignored.

Conservation Efforts
There have been attempts to promote environmental protection from mining. The National Mineral Policy 2074 calls for a zero-waste concept in a mining operation to reduce the environmental impacts of mining waste and to make mining more efficient.
Likewise, the Chure region of Nepal has been declared as Chure Environmental Conservation Area in 2014 under Environmental Protection Act 1997 as the region is fragile and environmentally sensitive.
There have been contestations related to such declaration with views on undermining the resource rights of the community but illegal mining has still not been curbed.
In the discourse for a mining operation in Nepal, term such as sustainable mining is often heard. But sustainable mining is an oxymoron because mining is inherently not sustainable as it exploits non-renewable resource. That being said mining excavates vital materials. A 2015 Yale study, evaluated sixty-two metals used in our consumer products and they did not even find one exemplary substitute for those.
Besides, the 15th Five Year Plan of Nepal is expected to create a foundation for Nepal to graduate to an upper-middle-income country which will require great strides in infrastructural development. This will require construction materials. So, at this moment it is not a question of should mining be conducted but how do we minimize the harm caused by mining.
Of late, the recycling of mining waste has been gaining momentum due to its ability to extract new valuable resource from the waste or using the waste as feedstock for the formation of a new valuable product. Similarly, urban mining is estimated to be 40-50 times richer than mineral extraction from mines as shared in the first-ever Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative.
Likewise, river beds have been uplifted due to sediment deposition causing the rise of river banks especially in the Terai region of Nepal. Mr Ghimire and Dr Dhakal were of the view that these need to be sustainably mined to prevent inundation of nearby settlements.
So mining adhering to environmental standards could still yield mineral extraction for Nepal.
Recently, Tilottama Municipality has banned mining activities from their rivers citing unsustainable resource extraction and has also stated they will not be importing construction materials from nearby areas due to the prevalence of illegal mining in rivers. This is a step towards responsible resource extraction. While mining cannot be completely obliterated, responsible mining should at least be the norm.

(Rai is a Master’s student in Environmental Science at Kathmandu University)