Remembering Andrew Lees

Andrew Lees was at the time of his death campaigns director at Friends of the Earth and an internationally renowned environmentalist.

A prediction, a sudden death, and decades of struggle in Madagascar.

Thirty years on from Andrew’s death, the QMM mine seems to have benefitted only Rio Tinto shareholders and certain groups of local elites in Madagascar.

On New Year’s Eve 1994, Andrew Lees walked into the forest of Petriky in southern Madagascar carrying heavy filming equipment. He never walked out. 

Andrew was campaigns director at Friends of the Earth at the time and an internationally renowned environmentalist. He went to Madagascar to research communities and film the littoral forests of the south-eastern coastline, which he believed were seriously threatened by extraction proposed by the mining giant Rio Tinto. 

READ: MORE COVERAGE OF MADAGASCAR MINING

READ: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS AT THE QMM MINE

Thirty years after Andrew's tragic death in Madagascar is a useful moment to take stock of his predictions about the Rio Tinto mine on the island. 

Mission

Andrew was aware of the mining company’s track record, in Bougainville and elsewhere, and foresaw significant negative impacts to Madagascar’s precious biodiversity and local people. 

Rio Tinto’s ilmenite extraction was projected to erase 6,000 hectares of littoral forest and unique biodiversity over the course of 40 years and impact some 15,000 villagers living adjacent to the mine sites.

Andrew was planning to use his research to draw international attention to the social and environmental risks the island would face from the proposed mineral sands operation.

His death threw a light on the project. However, despite local objections, and outcry and alarm at international level, Rio Tinto secured the necessary permits and began its QMM operation in 2009. 

Poverty 

Rio Tinto promised to lift the region out of poverty with its QMM mine. The company also made promises to deliver a “green” and “sustainable” mine.

Rural communities living around the QMM mine in the Anosy region are multidimensionally poor with more than 80 per cent living below the poverty line, reliant on natural resources for subsistence agriculture and fishing. 

Villagers depend on local waterways for their domestic and drinking water. The health of local lakes and waterways is critical for fish catch and other water products for survival. 

In 2014, The Ecologist published the first of a numerous articles reviewing the status of Rio Tinto’s promises, exploring some of the negative impacts of the mine on local communities from the loss of land and forests.

Thirty years on from Andrew’s death, the QMM mine seems to have benefitted only Rio Tinto shareholders and certain groups of local elites in Madagascar.

A decade later, in an inversion of sustainable development imperatives, local communities have reported even greater losses in livelihoods and income from the impacts of the large scale mine - as much as 47 per cent of revenues pre-mining. 

Biodiversity targets set by QMM have fallen into question since Rio Tinto officially abandoned Net Positive Impact (NPI) as a corporate mandate in 2016.

Most egregiously, QMM’s contamination of local waterways has deepened food insecurity and livelihood losses, and created new health challenges for already vulnerable populations.

Harm

The mine breached an environmental buffer zone in 2014, placing its mine tailings permanently on the bed of Lake Besaroy, and exposing the local estuary in which it sits to toxic contaminants.

Elevated uranium and lead levels have been detected in water downstream of the mine. The QMM mine basin, where it stores mine process wastewater and mineral waste (tailings) before release into the environment, has uranium levels 50 times higher than WHO safe drinking water guidelines. 

Local people complain of health problems since the mine began and, in 2024, a legal case was launched citing discovery of high blood lead levels (BLL) in a cohort of villagers living adjacent to the mine. 

QMM has experienced four mine tailings dam failures since 2010, two of which in 2022 lead to fish deaths, a fishing ban, months of conflict and reported human rights violations

Wastewater

High levels of Aluminium and cadmium, together with increased acidity (low pH) in QMM mine process wastewater has likely created acid mine drainage, a probable cause of fish deaths

Fish species have declined and water quality has become a subject of contestation and conflict over the last five years.

Recent attempts by QMM to remove unauthorised levels of aluminium from mine process wastewater with a new treatment plant display no signs of addressing other heavy metal contaminants. 

Instead, the new $13mn plant poses new threats to the environment from an undisclosed toxic sludge that QMM acknowledges cannot be managed by the Malagasy state. 

Transparency

The company denies that QMM has any negative environmental impact and has repeatedly refused Malagasy civil society demands for an independent water impact assessment at QMM.

Rio Tinto has failed to share promised studies related to the 2022 dam failures, and issues with reports they disseminated in 2024 have done little to encourage confidence in the company’s assertions about water quality. 

Inquiry into the repression of citizens who protest against QMM has been taken up by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, requiring greater transparency of Rio Tinto policies on human rights defenders.

Investors are increasingly concerned about water issues at QMM in Madagascar, and at other Rio Tinto mine sites.

Vindicated

Thirty years on from Andrew’s death, the QMM mine seems to have benefitted only certain groups of local elites in Madagascar - and Rio Tinto shareholders.

Rural villagers living along the fragile coastal forests and estuary are struggling, have become poorer, and live with greater risks to their health, human rights and livelihoods than before the mine arrived. 

In this respect, Andrew’s concerns for the Anosy region have been vindicated, and the advocacy campaign to hold Rio Tinto to account at national and international level a legacy of struggle for transparency and human rights.

Enormous gratitude to The Ecologist for amplifying the struggle in Madagascar. 

Right of Reply

A spokesperson for Rio Tinto told The Ecologist: "QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) has been providing employment and economic activity in the Anosy region of Madagascar for more than two decades. We have always strived to conduct our business to the highest standards of integrity and transparency for the benefit of our communities, host governments, shareholders and customers. QMM operates in a highly sensitive area from a water and broader environmental perspective. The local communities are farmers and fisherfolk and we take our responsibilities to them very seriously. We are committed to working to address any specific issues that community members raise, and to engaging in constructive dialogue on how we can mitigate impacts of our operations while generating tangible and sustainable benefits for our host communities. We recognise there is more we can do to positively impact the livelihoods of our host communities. For that reason, as part of the fiscal agreement between the Government of Madagascar and Rio Tinto announced in August 2023, we committed to increase support for local communities to US4 million per year over 25 years, with half to be spent locally and half in the region. We conduct an extensive water quality monitoring program within our mine lease area and around Mandena, in compliance with government regulatory requirements. We also conduct additional monitoring and sampling of groundwater, surface water, and marine water quality for the Port of Ehoala activities as part of this program. We are committed to being transparent with our local communities and stakeholders and in 2023 published our QMM Water Report 2021-2023 and the three-year community study of radiation, undertaken by internationalenvironmental experts, JBS&G Australia Pty Ltd. This report is available on the QMM website."

This Author

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications consultant and Director of the Andrew Lees Trust (ALT UK) a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in 1994. She lived and worked in southern Madagascar to develop social and environmental programmes. She has followed the evolution of the Rio Tinto/QMM mine for thirty years and been actively involved in the research and advocacy campaign on QMM issues. 

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