Coltan Coltan (short for columbite–tantalites and known industrially as tantalite) is a dull black metallic ore from which the elements niobium and tantalum are extracted. The niobium-dominant mineral in coltan is columbite (after niobium's original ...

is the colloquial name for the mineral columbite-tantalum ("col-tan"); it is sometimes incorrectly used as shorthand for tantalite, a metallic ore from which the very similar elements niobium, also known as columbium, and

tantalum Tantalum is a chemical element with the symbol Ta and atomic number 73. Previously known as ''tantalium'', it is named after Tantalus, a villain in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a very hard, ductile, lustrous, blue-gray transition metal that ...

are extracted. In the early 21st century coltan mining was associated with

human rights violations Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

such as child labour, systematic

exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour ** Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery ** Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment *Exploi ...

of the population by governments or militant groups, exposure to toxic chemicals and other hazards as a result of lax environmental protection, and general safety laws and regulations. Ferrocolumbite-Manganotantalite-rh3-36b

Overview

The coltan industry is worth tens of millions of dollars a year. The price for coltan ranged between $50 and $200 per pound in 2012Molinski 2012 and has spiked much higher in the past when supplies were scarce. In 2006, Australia, Brazil, and Canada produced 80% of the world's coltan. As of 2018, coltan's main producers are Rwanda, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

(DRC),

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and China. Australia,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

are also important players. Thus, the task of supplying world coltan needs has fallen largely on conflict regions and underdeveloped countries. The coltan market is characterized by opacity, as supply and trade is based on contracts that do not publish public price references. The products are sold in private, unregulated markets,Diaz-Struck and Poliszuk 2012 unlike commodity metals like

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

, and

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

. No standards are set or enforced for mining operations and devising safety procedures is the responsibility of mine operators which may not prioritize worker well-being. The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

has taken an active role in assessing the state of the world's coltan industry and in 2003 has cited specifically the DRC as an example of a country where natural resource exploitation, "The flow of arms, exploitation and the continuation of the conflict are inextricably linked."

Ethical issues

Human rights

Some notable similarities link mining practices in countries where they have come under fire: *systematic exploitation of workers. *dangerous working conditions. The UN also considers developed countries that support conflict minerals violators of human rights for allowing the violations to continue rather than fulfilling and promoting the human rights set forth in the 1948 Declaration.

Working conditions

The UN has declared a right to choose one's employment and has also called safe working conditions a basic human right. However, the violence in the regions that produce conflict coltan gives the population little choice about whether to mine coltan. In Central Africa, for example, gold mines are typically connected to militias.

Forced and child labour

According to some activists, coltan mines in national reserves often forcibly use indigenous people for their operations. In Colombia - a very minor coltan producing country - the Puinawai natives call the coltan mines “guns, pointed at the earth beneath hesacred mountain."Gómez 2012 A report by the

Commission of the European Union The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

in 2011 raised issues of child labour in coltan mining in DRC, and in the recycling industry in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

and China. Twenty years ago it was reported that children as young as twelve were working in some mines. Amnesty International, in a joint investigation with African NGO African Resources Watch, in 2016 published a report that found that children even as young as seven years old are working in cobalt mines in the DRC. The report says that children were beaten and forced to pay "fines" to state officials as bribes for money extortion and intimidation. Furthermore, a lack of protective gear, and long working hours were lamented. Cobalt (element Co) mining is a totally different supply chain to coltan mining (elements Ta and Nb) and there is no geological overlap of resources or mines.

Mining and economic development

Many of the burgeoning coltan producers are resource-rich developing countries with economies that are currently largely dependent on mining non-renewable resources. This indicates a danger attached to even clean coltan operations in developing countries. Groups that study developing nations such as Oxfam caution against a developing country putting much of its capital into mining operations, especially single mineral developments. While countries like the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Canada, and Australia were able to turn their mining operations into profitable industries, these experiences are not practical models that would support today's developing countries’ reliance on mining operations for further economic development. These countries’ dependence on mining creates tension due to the relatively small size of the developing countries and their exploitation of nonrenewable resources at the expense of their other natural resources. This land tension typically leads to poor economic performance and political instability, which in turn creates the conflicts that make coltan an ethically-charged commodity.

Environmental concerns

In addition to the human rights issues attached to the coltan industry, the mining process itself can be environmentally hazardous. Since it is usually pan-mined, the mining process and slurry from this process can contaminate water and may be harmful to

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s, although since no chemicals are added to process the minerals it is relatively benign. However, while the exact effects of prolonged coltan exposure through dust around particularly artisanal mines have not yet been studied in detail, more DNA damage was found in children living in mining areas than in those from control groups. Preliminary results of an ongoing study also hint that babies born to miners suffer "an increased risk of

birth defect A birth defect, also known as a congenital disorder, is an abnormal condition that is present at birth regardless of its cause. Birth defects may result in disabilities that may be physical, intellectual, or developmental. The disabilities ca ...

s." Other risks include acidic drainage and the presence of toxic metals such as

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

and substances like

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, ...

and

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

Air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different typ ...

is also a concern. Some people question the sustainability of

artisanal mining An artisanal miner or small-scale miner (ASM) is a subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as su ...

, but miners often are very poor and have few other options to earn a living.

Illegal mining Illegal mining is mining activity that is undertaken without state permission, in particular in absence of land rights, mining licenses, and exploration or mineral transportation permits. Illegal mining can be a subsistence activity, as is the ca ...

in national parks and land reserves can be especially damaging, such as the

Kahuzi-Biéga National Park The Kahuzi-Biega National Park is a protected area near Bukavu town in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated near the western bank of Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border. Established in 1970 by the Belgian photographer and conserv ...

in the DRC and the Puinawai National Reserve in Colombia, due to the deep forest cover these places provide. Coltan is mined using techniques developed for gold mining in the 1800s. The work is difficult and dangerous, with workers panning for coltan in large craters in stream beds, with the average worker producing less than one kilogram of coltan a day. Coltan mines operate under boom-bust economics and not only strip the mineral from the land, but also cause environmental degradation. In mining towns that depend on coltan for their wealth, fewer people cultivate the land. Numerous instances of famine related to the mining operations contribute to increasingly unsustainable types for land use. Besides the harm it does to food security in the eastern Congo, coltan mining is inimical to land uses such as ecotourism, game ranches, and medical research which could possibly provide better incomes and profit from the wildlife and forest land. Mining threatens the national parks across the Congo. Developing nations often go through with mining operations because they need the capital these operations bring without thinking of the environmental impacts. Given that mining is an expensive venture to undertake, the returns are sometimes low. Civil societies who study developing nations, such as Oxfam, have stated that the cost of mining on the environment can cause nearly permanent environmental damage, which can leave a developing nation permanently poorer, and that support for mining should only be offered in countries that have a clearly defined plan for using the revenue gained from mining for the promotion of public health and infrastructure investments that will eventually allow them to become less resource-dependent. The

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wor ...

(WWF) and the UN advocate for extractive activity to stop in

UNESCO World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

sites and in proposed protected areas within conservation sites, in areas with last remaining examples of unique ecosystems, and in places where mining threatens the well-being of local communities and

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

Criminal activity

Smuggling

Rwandan coltan comes mostly from mines in the DRC, usually in the conflict areas adjacent to the Rwandan border. Only four of the ten largest Rwandan mining companies have taken any measures to verify whether their product is conflict-sourced.Lublinski et al. 2010 Rwanda has been implicated multiple times in smuggling Congolese coltan by UN investigators, as have Burundi and

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

. Uganda and Burundi however do not export coltan, so the UN has found it difficult to verify that the smuggling is still taking place. About half of exported Rwandan coltan comes from conflict regions in the DRC. Many countries export their raw coltan to China for further processing. The UN reports that many tons of coltan from the DRC are processed through China and are often mixed with samples from conflict-free regions to produce tainted coltan that is more difficult to source. This practice undermines the efforts made by countries with legislation restricting conflict materials, such as the United States and Canada.

Cartels

In Colombia, the coltan mining industry is involved in numerous internal conflicts and is currently illegal. This has not stopped guerilla forces and militia groups from mining the ore and selling it on the black market or shipping it to China. The

Colombian government The Government of Colombia is a republic with separation of powers into executive, judicial and legislative branches. Its legislature has a congress, its judiciary has a supreme court, and its executive branch has a president. The citi ...

has made little attempt to regulate the industry. In 2010, plans were announced to auction off the rights to mine coltan in certain areas, but those plans were never completed and were dropped by the current administration. Most of the coltan activity takes place in the deep

jungle A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century. Etymology The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''ja� ...

areas along the Southeastern borders of

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

or Brazil, causing severe environmental repercussions. Colombia's coltan mines are often located in national parks and on indigenous territory, which forces the native population into the mining industry. Colombian coltan is tied to violence at every step of the process. The mines are typically owned by paramilitary groups or drug cartels such as the

Sinaloa cartel The Sinaloa Cartel ( es, link=no, Cártel de Sinaloa), also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, is a large, international organized crime syndicate that specializes in il ...

and the Cifuentes Villa family, who use the same smugglers to move both drugs and coltan. Colombian authorities have little control over the coltan mining region due to its size and density, and coltan is easily moved along the same routes as cocaine and emeralds, two of Colombia's most heavily trafficked illegal goods. In Venezuela, the government has sent military patrols into the jungle to root out illegal mining activities and the Colombian cartel leaders who fund these operations. As in Colombia, indigenous Venezuelans in the Parguaza region have suffered from the mining industry, and people have suffered violence from the coltan mine's military supervisors.

Proposed solutions

Ensuring clean coltan

It is difficult for manufacturers to ensure that the coltan they use in their products is not from a conflict zone or otherwise unethically produced. Currently there is one process for verifying the origin of a coltan sample. This process, developed in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, involves creating an elemental ‘fingerprint’ via WD

X-ray fluorescence X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis ...

analysis and X-ray diffraction analysis to determine the composition and amounts of trace elements present in the sample. These results are then compared to the results of samples of known provenance, much like the Kimberly process for diamonds. This technique works for samples of mixed sources as well as pure coltan; however, it requires having sample fingerprints for all original coltan sources on file. Using this technique, it is possible to identify the source of most coltan samples. As of 2010, almost 75% of the world's coltan mines have samples on file. However, the process is expensive and lengthy and while it has worked in Rwanda, adapting these fingerprinting techniques to the DRC mining industry and convincing countries such as China to adopt these methods has been difficult. Both the United States and Canada have passed legislation that provides incentives for using certified coltan and making conflict materials extralegal, but because most coltan is processed in China and China does not use the certification processes, avoiding conflict coltan has been very difficult. Roughly 60% of the coltan mines in Africa, including in the DRC, have some percentage of Canadian backing but are not subject to Canada's laws about environmental hazards and human rights violations. Both Canada and the United States have passed acts that attempt to curtail the purchase of conflict-sourced materials. Most of this change has been consumer-driven. Back in 2004, the TIC (Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center) had little interest in regulating conflict materials, but since then has become one of the leading voices promoting conflict-free minerals. Awareness campaigns in Western countries have pushed manufacturers such as Apple and Intel to rely on more than just the word of their suppliers that the coltan used in their products is conflict-free. This consumer interest pushed the TIC to create a working group in 2009 to promote better standards for coltan mining and over the next decade it successfully removed conflict minerals from the coltan supply chain. The group works with the OECD, European Commission, civil society, the International Tin Association, UN and with other

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

to monitor risks associated with conflict affected and high risk (CAHRA) areas and to promote transparency in the supply chain. The TIC has created a process to deliver conflict-free coltan from Africa to refinery sites, called ITSCI, by using independent third-party companies to assess the mining sites and determine whether or not they violate of human rights and through working with RMI to audit them smelters and refiners that purchase material.TIC 2011, p. 8

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Archive of Articles on the Illicit Trade of Coltan
''

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with ...

'' Ethics Mining Niobium minerals Tantalum minerals