Land Acquisition and Resettlement - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 579

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Land Acquisition and
Resettlement

When Property and Development
Rights Collide

The cultural, economic and emotional impacts of resettlement are written
deeply in the history of both industrial and developing countries. In the latter,
development projects and programmes that use a nation's passive natural wealth
are indisputably needed; they broaden the production base, create employment,
bring added revenues and improve many people's lives. However, the concept of
property versus development rights is ill-defi ned: who is entitled to acquire land
from the individual for the benefi t of the society-at-large?

Who is entitled to acquire
land from the individual for the
benefi t of the society-at-large?

In developing countries, the scale of development-related resettlement has grown rapidly
in the past few decades due to a combination of accelerated industrial and infrastructure
development and ever-growing population densities. By some estimates more than ten
million people are involuntarily displaced every year (World Bank 1994, Goodland 2004).
Dams, urban development and transportation programmes represent the main causes of
development-related resettlement. The displacement toll of the 300 large dams that com-
mence construction in an average year is estimated to exceed four million people (World
Bank 1994). The displacement toll of the controversial 'Three Gorges Dam' in China
alone amounts to more than one million people. Urban development and transportation
programmes displace an additional six million people annually.
Mining projects too contribute to resettlement, particularly those surface coal mines
and laterite mines which involve large areas. Large-scale coal strip mining operations in
Germany for example continue to force the relocation of families, and entire communi-
ties (see also Case 7.7). Providing mine access alone may not cause excessive resettlement,

Providing mine access alone may
not cause excessive resettlement,
but associated mine waste
disposal sites, mine infrastructure,
roads, rails and pipeline rights-of-
way often do.