The following article was first published in Engagement, Vale’s magazine for socially responsible and sustainable mining.

In partnership with Vale Inco, aboriginal peoples from Canada keep their ancestral customs alive while they learn to deal with new technologies

Known as First Nations, or aboriginal peoples, two of the first ethnic groups that inhabited the continent, the Innu and the Inuit, have lived for about 7000 years in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the northeast of Canada.  The nomadic tribes confront the intense cold and survive by fishing and hunting animals such as deer and moose.  The men chant ancestral music to attract whales to request and conduct ceremonies of blessing of the shaman, torngak, especially for their hunting equipment.

However, over time the ancestral traditions have been losing out to the encroachment of Christian and colonists’ religious customs.  In 1995, concerned about the gradual loss of customs and high degree of dissatisfaction in the relationship of the Innu and Inuit and other inhabitants of the provinces, the Canadian government recognized the original rights of the aboriginal peoples to land, signing partnership agreements with governments representing the indigenous groups.  Five years later, this was one of the major concerns of Inco when it began its mining activities in Newfoundland.

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CVRD School Program Almost Ten Years Old

CVRD school program approaches its tenth anniversary and celebrates its positive results

 ”I now enjoy studying more.  Before the program, I felt embarrassed and had difficulty with some reading.  Now I’m not embarrassed about anything and can read without a problem. “Testimonies like this one by Layla Leite Soares, who is ten and a pupil at the Henrique Rodrigues de Barros Hall School, in the district of Penha the Capim, in Aimorés (MG), represent significant pedagogical advances.  And they reflect a host of similar reports in the 24 Brazilian municipal districts covered by the school that Vale (EQV), or “CVRD School program(1), set up in 1999 by the CVRD Foundation (FVRD), in partnership with the Municipal Departments of Education and the Center for Education and Documentation for Community Action (Cedac) (2).

The program was set up to improve public education sector by qualifying and training teachers and pupils.  Today the program covers 450 schools, reaching more than 90 thousand people.  Nearing the end of its tenth year in existence, the program has had significant results, such as in the case of Curionópolis, in Pará  “One of the effects of the project has been the drop in the numbers of students failing their exams in our local schools.  In 2001, around 43% failed - by 2006, this had dropped to 19.5%,” says Maria do Amparo Costa e Silva, the Secretary of Education for the district.

 Although the statistics speak for themselves, the real merits of the Vale School program that go beyond the rise in the numbers of pupils in the public system passing their exams.  The program’s methodology is geared towards the exercise of citizenship and encouragement.  The idea is that to be a citizen in school is to learn about local and universal matters, to be treated with dignity, to have access to up-to-date, quality materials and equipment; to have the opportunities to develop one’s capacities, and to share experiences and opinions.  Read the rest of this entry »

Vale plants about six million native trees every year in Brazil throughout its mining operations

The following article was first published in Engagement, Vale’s magazine for socially responsible and sustainable mining.

From the Vale Nature Reserve in Linhares (Espirito Santo) come 4.5 million seedlings per year for forest regeneration projects

From seedlings barely a hand’s width in height have come mighty trees that have helped to rescue the green of the Atlantic Forest in various parts of Brazil. This has also been happening in various parts of Espírito Santo’s capital Vitória: on the city’s hillsides and at the Vale Botanical Garden located in the Industrial Port Complex of Tubarão, as well as in the historic Convent of Our Lady of Penha, in neighboring Vila Velha. Natives of Espírito Santo, known as capixabas, have given their endorsement to this growth with the more than 450,000 visits paid to the park since 2004, while seedlings are also being planted in the states of Maranhão, Pará and Minas Gerais. With appropriate environmental technology and tropical silviculture, Vale is contributing to restoration of the ecosystem in the cities where it operates, for the sake of the quality of life and the conservation and safeguarding of biodiversity.

The source of this environmental undertaking is the Vale Nature Reserve, located in Linhares, in northern Espírito Santo. A national model for the planting of seedlings of species from the Atlantic Forest, it has a production capacity of 55 million seedlings per year, involving 800 species from some of the ecosystems of this biome. A great many of the seeds used for this production are gathered in the reserve’s 22,000 hectares – 40% of what remains of the old-growth Atlantic Forest in the state. Read the rest of this entry »

Vale employees working at the seedling nursery in its nature reserve

Brazil-based mining giant Vale is building sustainability into its long-term success. Vale Director of International Public Affairs Renato Amorim offers a snapshot of recent developments.

Over the past few years Vale has undergone a major process of expansion and diversification to become the second largest company in the mining and metals sector. Its approach to sustainability is evolving in parallel with this expansion, guided by the company’s mission to ‘transform mineral resources into sustainable development and prosperity’.

Vale’s 2006 acquisition of Inco for US$18.9 billion represented the largest ever made by a Brazilian company. Expansion has continued apace, and the company is now responsible for almost one-fifth of Brazil’s trade balance, as well as being world number two in the mining and metals sector. Such rapid growth has brought growing awareness of social and environmental issues.

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