Bench Marks Foundation, a church-based NGO specializing in corporate p has released a report demanding that the communities living in diamond mining areas in Botswana should receive royalties. The report will be launched in Johannesburg tomorrow. It claims that communities are not involved in the drafting of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) or the setting up of Environmental Management Plans (EMPs). The report says the communities are not meaningfully consulted in the granting of prospecting licenses or in the granting of mining licenses. "No communities have the right of refusal (although De Beers claims the right of 'informed consent' for its 'family' of companies) of joint ownership and royalties goes to the state." Debswana is a 50-50 joint ownership between the Botswana government and De Beers.
Bench Marks claims the effect of the 50% shareholding by government in Debswana has been to marginalise communities on whose ancestral lands the mining occurs. The report lashes at Debswana saying that while the company recognises unexploited natural resources in Botswana as assets of the country, it does not recognise them as assets of the community. In Botswana, the mineral rights are owned by the state and all land is managed by the government.
