IN DEPTH
Finding out more
From the wealth of information that can be found on the Internet about the relationship between conflict and natural resources we have selected some of the most relevant websites, documents, reports from NGOs, think tanks and other internationally relevant actors.
Web resources
Ejolt (Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade)
http://www.ejolt.org
Ejolt is a project included in the Seventh Programme for the Research and Technological Development (FP7) of the European Commission. It includes members of different organizations linked to environmental justice, with the objective of discovering the subjacent causes of the increases in ecological-distributive conflicts.
It is to this prerogative that a data base named "A Map of Environmental Justice", has been created, including an atlas of thematic and regional maps; the project also publishes the most recent knowledge for the analysis of the environmental impacts of the nuclear and biomass energy, the development of a basic methodology for the Organizations of Environmental Justice for the calculation of the ecological debt, or the translation from the advances and new discoveries in concrete proposals for policies.
This project is founded on four thematic pillars: the nuclear energy; conflicts caused by the extraction of gas and oil and climatic injustices; biomass and terrestrial conflicts; and conflicts related with the mining, the disruption of boats and electronic waste.
OmAL (Observatorio de multinacionales América Latina)
http://omal.info
The main objectives of this observatory, created in 2003 by the association Paz con Dignidad, are the documentation and systematisation of information about the impact of Spanish transnational companies in Latin America, the research into and to condemn the consequences of these multinationals' actions to raise public awareness amongst the Latin American population as well as that of Spain, and to work in partnership with European and Latin Americans social movements, promoting fair social relations.
The main reason for the creation of this observatory is that recently internationalised Spanish companies are greatly increasing their presence in South America, obtaining substantial benefits from its population but without contributing to the improvement of the social inequalities.
The observatory's web page includes several articles, including the following topics "Bolivia: Riquezas naturales e impactos de las transnacionales, Las multinacionales en Bolivia. De la desnacionalización en el proceso de cambio"; "Las empresas transnacionales frente a los derechos humanos: Historia de una asimetría normativa".
Illegal Logging
http://www.illegal-logging.info
Illegal logging may not be one of the causes more directly related with conflicts, but it affects them in several ways: preventing income generation for states, therefore preventing them from improving the situation of the population as soon as it is reinvested in policies; deforesting areas that are protected which are home to native communities; and the funding of autocratic regimes.
For this reason, Chathman House, otherwise known as in Royal Institute of International Affairs has created this web-page, in collaboration with the Department of International Development of the United Kingdom and the EU FLEGT Facility of the European Forest Institute. Illegal Logging (illegal wood-cutting), offers a wide range of information, on this practice, including reports and studies as well as a section with information on a vast number of countries and regions.
Global Witness
http://www.globalwitness.org
This NGO proved its first success when it managed to bring an end to wood-cutting in Cambodia, through which the Khmer Rouge was funded, thanks to a report and the subsequent pressure on different authorities by the NGO.
It has also successfully campaigned to condemn Blood Diamonds, which have funded and continues to fund civil conflicts in parts of the Africa, in order to ensure that commercialized diamonds were not contributing to funding wars or harming Human Rights. Its work contributed to the adoption of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme. On its website, it offers information on its current campaigns, classified by subjects and countries, as well as news and relevant reports.
Intermon Oxfam
http://www.oxfamintermon.org/ca
This NGO dedicated to Cooperation and Development offers a solution to the challenge of poverty. In order to achieve this, it works around five objectives: defence of economic justice; humanitarian action, impulse of citizenship and governability; promotion of basic social services; and fight for gender equity. On its website, it offers information on its campaigns in different places throughout the world on subjects such as fair trade, or conflicts that are generated by agricultural exports.
Perill de Riqueses / Danger of wealth
http://www.perillderiqueses.org
This is a website created by Sabadell-based entity Lliga dels Drets dels Pobles (the League for the Rights of the Peoples), which possesses years of experience on subjects related with cooperation for development and public awareness. Centered mainly on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Great Lakes region -Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi-, the website offers a vast range of resources, which ranges from the historical documentation on ethnic composition to reports on Human Rights, Natural Resources and proposals of action.
Global Policy Forum
http://www.globalpolicy.org
This entity, charged with carrying out independent scrutiny of the United Nations' work, disposes of a section on its website called The Dark Side of Natural Resources, which offers information related with different natural resources all over the planet: diamonds, oil and gas, water, wood or minerals.
Audiovisual resources
Blood Diamonds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Diamond_(film)
This film, starring Leonardo Di Caprio and directed by Edward Zwick, portrays the war that Sierra Leone suffered. The film "The troubled diamonds", or Diamonds of blood (as the name of the film indicates), but also child soldiers, slavery, war crimes, warlords or governmental corruption that facilitates conflict.
Blood in the Mobile
http://bloodinthemobile.org
Coltan is an essential mineral for a product of which practically everyone in the developed world is user. Coltan is extracted from illegal mines, directed by warlords without any type of scruple, promoting a conflict that accumulates more than 5 million deaths... It would seem that it should be a priority to deal from the global institutions, as it was made with the Diamonds of Blood, but the reality is quite different. Every day thousands of exploited persons and children are forced to work in infernal conditions, many of them dye when carrying out this task. However, as Frank Poulsen shows to us, the director of the documentary, the big brands like Nokia seem to have the consciousness clear, they buy these necessary mineral, the Coltan, in Malaysia, without being concerned very much where exactly it has been extracted.