Mining amid typhoons: Large-scale mining and typhoon vulnerability in the Philippines

This article examines the problems inherent in locating large-scale mining projects in the Philippines, a nation vulnerable to typhoons and heavy rainfall events. The government of the Philippines has emphasized large-scale mining as a method of achieving economic development but the Philippines are highly vulnerable to typhoons and heavy rainfall events, which can adversely impact large-scale mining projects thus degrading the natural resources relied upon by the rural poor. With climate change, typhoons are becoming more powerful, and more unpredictable, and this further complicates the difficulty of attempting to rely upon mining as an agent of development.