Environmental Justice: Problems Sometimes Hide in Common Things

Glitz and glamour never fail to strike awe in many of us. This is an indication of the screwed values of modern human beings. Everybody wants to own diamonds, gold, silver, platinum and other valuable minerals. There’s no wonder the jewellery business is thriving.

In the meantime, Mother Nature suffers. This has been going on for years, decades and even centuries. Human beings are upsetting Earth for a very long time and we are starting to feel Mother Nature’s wrath and revenge in various ways.

Now that we are in the 21st century, even less impressive-looking materials from the Earth are being extracted because our modern technology (for example, mobile phones) and common day-to-day materials we do not take notice of need those materials from the Earth to be created. 

We use these day-to-day things, unaware that we are contributing to the demand for minerals, such as nickel. And the mining companies willingly supply the demand for a profit, of course. 

We think nothing of it, but it is a fact that such minerals have stories, too, like humans. 

‘Insignificant’ Nickel

The fact is, we don’t care about nickel. We do not look at something and say, "Oh, this thing has a nickel in it!" We don’t even care about the details of our cooking utensils and coins. But even these little things have their stories. It may come as a surprise but some of the stories are not beautiful but dark.

We often ignore these stories, not because we are evil nor do we choose to close our eyes on their plights. The stories are simply not being told. And if they were, who will waste their valuable time to listen to a story about nickel. What’s interesting about nickel, anyway? It does not help that it is the littlest detail among the many details of your pans, coins, and other kitchen utensils.

But the nickel has a story. For example, the next statements will tell you of the story of a seemingly insignificant group of people in the Philippines who live on a land rich in nickel deposit. This seeming blessing has become their curse. 

Zambales Exposure

My classmates in a college course and I travelled for hours from Metro Manila to a rural municipality of Sta. Cruz in the province of Zambales. It a busy mining town that is not easy to reach. The bus ride was definitely uncomfortable. 

Upon arriving at Sta. Cruz, the first thing I noticed was how dry its land was. But the hospitality of the local people more than made up for my feeling of dehydration not necessarily of my physical body but of the spirit. 

No wonder I felt an inexplicable feeling of inadequacy—the land was broken. Mining has destroyed the land of this nickel-rich town. Capitalism has put the livelihood and the way of life of the people living there at stake. The mining company, the DMCI Benguet, sell the nickel it extracts to Europe.

Mining and Its Environmental Costs

Shoulder-deep floods and infertile land. These are the two realities in Sta. Cruz that 

were foreign to the residents before. There is no doubt in their minds that the mining company brought with it these “plagues” that have destroyed their environment and their lives. 

They can no longer farm their land, which now rejects the fertilizers they put in it. Heavy rains raise floodwaters up to their shoulders. 

The local residents have not benefitted from the mining activities in their land. They cry in anguish while the DMCI and its affiliate businesses laugh their way to the bank. It’s almost a tragic-comedy, really, to think that the seemingly simple pursuit of an element that is added as a “very small detail” in everyday household materials can cause exploitation and destruction of human lives.

That is how deep the environment problem is already, and we are not even aware that we actually contribute to it. It is woven deep and invisible into our lives. The challenge that we are facing today is to resist the temptation of looking at the problem from the perspective of a bigger picture without looking deep into its roots. 

Problem Too Deep

The point of my internship here in Washington D.C.  is to learn about social justice. And knowing social justice is recognizing the intricate roots of the problems of the world. I am starting to realize that the problem is already too deep that we never notice it is there. 

Hence, we must not stop being vigilant and critical. We must not stop from questioning and challenging things common to us. We must not stop from facing problems squarely and diligently work for a solution.

Jasna Nicolas
Creation Justice Ministries - Intern
EYA Intern 2017