Here is an issue I was unaware of until a thread appeared on the anthro-l mailing list, coltan mining in the Congo. Coltan is a mineral that is refined into tantalum which in turn is used in the manufacture of capacitors and other hi-tech products. The mining of this mineral has caused rather severe environmental and social issues and plays an important role in the financing of the African civil wars. We all too often assume that our electronic existence is clean because it doesn't appear to emit pollution and too easily forget or ignore what makes it all possible.

Ray Scupin, a member of the anthro-l mailing list and author of the textbook Cultural Anthropology: A Global Perspective has offered this summary of the issue:

One of the most devastating consequences in the Ituri forest came from the introduction of coltan mining (Harden 2001). Coltan is a mineral that is found in the forests of the Congo near where the Mbuti live. Coltan is refined in the United States and Europe into tantalum, which is a metallic element that is used in capacitors and other electronic components for computers, cell phones, and pagers. The electronics and computer industries are heavily dependent on coltan. Many of the Mbuti have been recruited by the mining industry to dig for coltan. They chop down great swaths of the rain forest and dig large holes in the forest floor to obtain this vital mineral, which is used in electronic equipment far away from the Ituri forest. The Mbuti use picks and shovels to dig out this mineral, which was worth $80 a kilogram in the early part of 2001. They could earn as much as $2,000 a month, which represented more cash wages than the Mbuti had ever seen. Thousands of other immigrants began to pour into the area to take advantage of this new profitable mineral needed by the high-tech businesses of the postindustrial societies.


This encounter between the high-tech world and the Ituri forest resulted in painful circumstances for the Mbuti. First, the mining created major environmental damage to the rain forest, which these people depended on in their hunting and gathering. The streams of the forest were polluted, trees were cut down, and the large holes in the ground ruined the environment. The growing migrant population began to poach and kill the lowland gorillas and other animals for food. Lowland gorillas have been reduced to fewer than 1,000, and other forest animals were overhunted. Along with the increase of the population in the mining camps came prostitution, the abuse of alcohol, conflict, exploitation by outside groups, and the spread of diseases such as gonorrhea.


Additionally, by the spring of 2001, the price of coltan fell from $80 to $8 a kilogram. A slump in cell phone sales and the decrease in the high-tech economy created a glut of coltan on the global market, which had consequences for the people of the rain forest. Mining camps that had ravaged the rain forest were still filled with migrants, prostitutes, and some of the Mbuti people, but many people abandoned these mining camps. However, many of the Mbuti have not returned to their traditional hunting-and-gathering way of life. Many of them lost the land that sustained their way of life. The weakness of the state, civil wars, and ethnic conflict surrounding the Mbuti enabled outsiders to take over their forest land. Globalization resulted in ecological damage and social and cultural dislocations for the Mbuti people in a very short period of time.