Saturday, March 3, 2012

New Report on the Impact of Land Grabbing by Extractive Industries

The Gaia Foundation launched a new report on the impact on the earth of land grabbing by extractive industries on the 29th February. The report, titled 'Opening Pandora's Box: The New Wave of Land Grabbing by Extractive Industries and the Devastating Impact on Earth', seeks to publicise the scope of the expansion on this phenomenon around the world.

The webpage from the report launch states "This report alerts global citizens to the dynamics in the extractive industries as a whole, and shows the alarming scale of this overall trend. Just as in the Greek myth, when Pandora opened the box and let out all the troubles known to mortals, so too this new wave of land grabbing for mining is leading to unimaginable destruction. If hope does remain, we must wake-up and act now. The extent and the scale of the increase in extraction over the last 10 years is staggering. For example, iron ore production is up by 180%; cobalt by 165%; lithium by 125%, and coal by 44%. The increase in prospecting has also grown exponentially, which means this massive acceleration in extraction will continue if concessions are granted as freely as they are now."

Download the full report here or read a summary from the report launch here.

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