Abstract

The world of international mining is changing rapidly. Mining corporations are encroaching on more and more greenfield sites in Africa, the Asia-Pacific and Latin America, to serve ever-expanding global industries. Moody shows that large-scale mining imposes a heavy toll on local communities, on their fragile economies and ways of life, as well as the environment. He challenges the mining corporations' recent public relations offensive extolling the virtues of largescale mining and its alleged compatibility with sustainable development, and reveals the unprecedented wave of community and trade union opposition to projects in both the South and the North. This important book concludes with urgent proposals to check the role of multinationals in a sector that has always been at the core of resource exploitation.
Roger Moody is an experienced international researcher and campaigner who has traveled extensively, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. As an activist he has worked with community organizations in South America, the Asia-Pacific and Africa. Among his many works are the highly acclaimed The Gulliver File: Mines, People and Land - A Global Battleground (1992), The Indigenous Voice: Visions and Realities (Zed 1988) and his most recent work, The Risks We Run: Mining, Communities and Political Risk Insurance (2005).
'Rocks and Hard Places brings to the surface the disparities of economy, and the resilience and tenacity of indigenous communities, in the face of generation after generation of exploitation. It makes us deeply aware of the cycles of colonialism which continue to lie at the heart of the global mining industry.' Winona LaDuke, Indigenous Womens Network