Multicriteria Group Decision-making Model for Environmental Conflict Analysis in the Cape Region,Mexico

This paper is concerned with developing a model for group decision making under multiple criteria. The multiple criteria group decision making (MCGDM)problem involves a set of feasible land use patterns that are evaluated on the basis of multiple, conflicting and noncommensurate criteria by a group of individuals. The model integrates the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and an integer mathematical programming method. The former provides a tool for structuring the decision problem and determining land suitability for different socio-economicactivities (the uses of land), the latter is used to identify the land use pattern that maximizes consensus among interest groups. The model is used to analyze environmental conflict over land resource allocation in the Cape Region of Mexico.     

Tribute chromite mining and environmental management on the northern Great Dyke of Zimbabwe

A combination of poor mining methods, waste storage and disposal systems, as well as the day-to-day activities associated with tribute and contract chromite mining are primarily responsible for environmental problems on the Zimbabwe Great Dyke. For instance, the unsystematic dumping of waste rocks in rivers blocks channels and results in flooding, which further sterilizes agricultural land and mineral resources. Erosion of these haphazardly located dumps causes siltation of water bodies and results in the dispersion of heavy metals in soils and watercourses. Vegetation growth on waste dumps is limited and constrained by the high pH levels from phytotoxic metals in soils, the lack of nutrients, poor moisture retention qualities of the mining waste and critical cation imbalances within dumps. This article attributes poor environmental management on the Dyke to poverty, a direct result of the nature of tribute agreements and output prices. Prices based on output targets are exploitative and undervalue labour and thus perpetuate poverty. By absolving claim holders from environmental liability, tribute agreements contribute directly to environmental problems. Thus, the incorporation of enforceable dual environmental responsibility requirements in contract mining agreements is needed to overcome this problem. This article recommends that, to break the poverty cycle, the primary cause of environmental mismanagement in the sector, miners need to be empowered through claim ownership and the enhancement of their capacity to negotiate prices with buyers of chrome.