#rodway supply | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fatehbaz · 2 years ago

Text

Known widely as the “Madagascar of the Pacific,” New Caledonia is coated in remnant Gondwana rainforest and surrounded by reefs [...] that constitute one of the largest marine parks on earth. [...] It houses the longest continuous barrier reef in the world and is internationally renowned for its plant species, over 80% of which are endemic. The territory is also one of the world’s largest producers of nickel and holds a quarter of the earth’s known reserves. Despite the wealth nickel mining has produced on Grand Terre, the principal island of the nation, the extraction of the metal has had an ambiguous social and environmental impact of the country’s Indigenous people, the Kanak community. With the archipelago colonized by the French in the mid-19th century, there is still little formal recognition of the Kanak community’s legal and customary attachment to their traditional lands. The effect of this history is being played out at New Caledonia’s largest mine, Goro, and the plant that services it. Plagued by environmental and social issues, including five acid spills in ten years, the last decade at Goro has seen waste mismanagement, land clearing and sediment run-off into the sea. [...] Last year, it was announced that Tesla, one of the world’s best-known manufacturing companies, would invest in Goro following the sale of the mine [...] The electrical car manufacturer’s “technical and industrial partnership” [...] has raised the prospect of Goro becoming a key source of the world’s nickel production. [Source: Nick Rodway. “Nickel, Tesla and two decades of environmental activism: Q&A with leader Raphael Mapoiu.” Mongabay. 22 June 2022.]

-------

On the south side of Grand Terre, the largest and principal island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific, mountains rise like a spine out of a vast, turquoise lagoon that forms part of the longest continuous barrier reef in the world. Although a French overseas territory, New Caledonia -- located approximately 1,470 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of Brisbane, Australia -- has been home to the Indigenous Kanak people for thousands of years and has a history and culture as rich as its ecology.

“Most of the vegetation we have in the south of the island is endemic and it is a region that contains many of our medicinal plants,” said Raphael Mapou, a Kanak leader and head of a local environmental organization, Rhéébù Nùù. “The legends of the Kanak people speak of the importance of rivers [and] the ocean. The coral reef is a very important source of food for Kanaks.”

Just a few short miles from the famous lagoons, lies a vast, sprawling, open-cut nickel mine. Known locally as Goro, named after a nearby town, this pit and its processing plant are proving to be a stress test for a country that is thought to contain a quarter of the world’s known nickel reserves.

As the mine receives new owners and investors, including manufacturing giant Tesla, Kanak people and environmentalists are poised to see whether they can handle the mine’s troubled record. Ecological and financial difficulties have plagued Goro since it began production in 2010 under its former owner, the Brazilian mining giant, Vale. In the past decade, there have been five chemical spills, causing fish deaths and contamination. [...]

Within its battery supply chain, Goro is Tesla’s sole relationship with a direct supplier in the Pacific region. [...] Lithium-ion batteries needed for the ‘clean‘ energy transition depend heavily on nickel mining -- which is anticipated to grow. [...] France has been mining nickel in New Caledonia since the mid-19th century. [...]

The official Kanak unemployment rate sits close to 40% amid an island of plenty, forming one of the key sources of local resentment against the current management of mines and Goro. In recent years, royalty payments from nickel companies to Kanak communities have been discouraged by provincial governments in New Caledonia, with mining money instead invested in enterprise and business ventures within these areas as an economic development strategy.

The French territory has experienced a long-running and, at times, violent independence struggle over the last fifty years. Of the territory’s three provinces, only the south -- where both Goro and the capital, Nouméa, are located -- retains a French-loyalist local government. In three referendums to secede from France, the Kanak vote has overwhelmingly favored independence. [...]

In 2020, after years of financial woes, Vale attempted to sell the mine to Swiss company Trafigura. Counter attempts made by a local firm to purchase the mine were twice rejected by Vale and dismissed by the French overseas ministry. In December that year, violent protests erupted in Nouméa and around Goro, where access to the mine was blocked and cars torched in anger. The shells of burned-out vehicles still dot the road to the mine today. [...]

Natural soil erosion has increased and, through nickel mining like at Goro, metals have spilled into the coral reef lagoon. [...] “Fringing reefs are especially sensitive to such an increase in sediment deposit and decrease in light penetration [...].” For Mapou, what is essential is that the local Kanak people will be able to have a say in whatever occurs in order to keep their lands safe. [...] As this international competition over resources near and around New Caledonia plays out, Kanak people and civil society organizations plan to hold whoever pursues mining in the territory to account.

-------

Headline, images, captions, and text all published by: Nick Rodway. “All eyes on Tesla as it invests in a troubled nickel mine.” Mongabay. 22 June 2022.

40 notes · View notes

irelandseyeonmythology · 3 years ago

Note

So, what’s the difference between saying Fomorian and Fomoire?

For me, it's more that "Fomorian" is an anglicization -- you don't see people being referred to as Fomorians in the texts. It'd be like calling someone Norwegian -- you wouldn't do that, because you already have Lochlannach.

And if you go to CMT (which is obviously not the ONLY text where the Fomoire appear, but it's possibly the most iconic, as well as being one of the earliest descriptions):

Tochmarc Emire:

LGE:

So. What I usually do is take a best of both worlds approach -- Fomoire when I'm referring to the group (Elatha is a king of the Fomoire), Fomorian as an adjective (Elatha is a Fomorian king), and Fomoir in the singular (Elatha is a Fomoir), though, tbh, I almost never use the latter. You can actually see how much the word changes over the course of the Irish language here -- I just use the Old Irish when it's possible because it's where my training is and it's where I learned how to deal with this sort of thing. You're going to notice that, unlike Edil, I don't put a fada over it -- part of that's because I'm used to not at this point, part of it's that you'll notice in the editions above that there are almost no fadas supplied by the editors.

I should note that it doesn't mean that people CAN'T use the term "Fomorian" -- it's a valid anglicization, it's not INCORRECT, and no lesser authority than Simon Rodway has used that formation in his article "Mermaids, leprechauns and Fomorians: a middle Irish account of the descendants of Cain", I just don't because I like to stay as close to the texts as possible.

5 notes · View notes