The curse of mineral resources: an analysis from Moatize in central Mozambique

Abstract

In this article I discuss mining exploration in Mozambique from the Moatize region, which is a place rich in carboniferous mineral resources. I emphasize throughout my approach that, contrary to expectations that the exploration of coal in Moatize would bring social development to the communities around the projects, reality shows that they do not benefit the countries where it is carried out, but it works as a source of large-scale resource removal and as a form of development that ends up benefiting rich countries at the expense of the poor. On the other hand, many of these extractive resources occur on the lands of peasants and indigenous groups, who are also involved in resource extraction such as artisanal miners or workers in large-scale mines and resist these encroachments on their lands (Jacka, 2018 and Gilberthorpe & Rajak, 2017). Coal mining in Moatize, in the manner in which it is carried out, puts the survival of the communities around it into question, as they remain in the cycle of poverty, and a series of human rights violations occur when they are resettled in new regions by the State.