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grant round

Responsibility and Remedy for Mining and Tailings Disasters

In 2019, the SAGE Fund supported a thematic round of grants on responsibility and remedy for mining and tailings disasters. Despite the enormous challenges of attempting to hold mining companies accountable for rehabilitation and remedy, especially in cases of legacy liability, the projects in this thematic round attempt to lay the preliminary groundwork for advancing responsibility and remedy for mining and tailings disasters. With this thematic focus, SAGE seeks to work with affected communities and an expanded set of partners to inform and build-out specific campaigns designed to re-engage and pressure mining companies and governments to address the most critical needs and current risks in several key cases. Each project centers around developing or testing a specific strategic approach or tool that if successful on even a limited scale could be employed in other cases, inform future strategy development, raise profile and debate, and have a broader field impact.

grant round locations

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Panguna  Mine – Addressing Legacy Impacts and Remediating Risk, Papua New Guinea

The project will build a layered, transnational advocacy project to secure Rio Tinto's commitment to provide support and resources for remediating the most urgent risks and critical on-going human rights and environmental impacts at the Panguna mine, from which the company unilaterally divested in 2016.

In July 2021, the Human Rights Law Centre and Rio Tinto announced a landmark agreement to identify the immediate risks to communities from the Panguna mine that Rio Tinto abandoned in 1989, after dumping billions of tons of tailings into local rivers and whose infrastructure is now deteriorating. SAGE supported HRLC and the development of this powerful strategy to address legacy liability. Learn more here. 

organizations

 
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Marcopper  Mine – Accessing Remedy for Mine Closure and Clean-up, Philippines

The project will define new pathways through corporate research, legal analysis and strategy development for access to remedy for on-going human rights and environmental impacts from the Marcopper  mine, from which Placer Dome divested but may retain beneficial ownership. 

orgaNIZations

 
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Córrego do Feijão Mine – Ensuring Restoration and Prevention of Tailings Dam Collapse, Brazil

The project seeks to build the tools and capacities of communities affected by – and at risk of future – mining and tailings dam disasters in Brazil to enforce reparations to livelihoods and ecosystems, prepare at-risk communities and advance prevention through mining sector reforms to safety standards. The project also seeks to leverage Christian Aid’s unique position as the international development arm of the Church of England, one of the two pension fund investors to create the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative post-Brumadinho, to provide direct input and advocacy from affected communities and movements for strengthened global standards. 

ORGANIZATIONS

 
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Beyond Brumadinho – Tool for Tracking Mining Royalties, Brazil

The project seeks to build capacity and pilot a methodology for tracking the flow of mining royalties into municipal budgets in Brazil, equipping local movements and constituencies with critical information to advance their demands for channeling funding into development alternatives to mining dependence. This project seeks to advance work more directly on prevention as a complement to the other projects in the thematic set which are focused on remedy and rehabilitation.

ORGANIZATIONS

  • Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (INESC), inesc.org.br, Brazil

  • Comitê Nacional em Defesa dos Territórios Frente à Mineração, emdefesadosterritorios.org, Brazil 

  • Grupo de Pesquisa e Extensão Política, Economia, Mineração Ambiente e Sociedade (PoEMAS), Brazil