The New York Times breaks the story today that the U.S. military has found $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. This undoubtedly changes the situation on the ground there and will very likely result in a huge change in Afghanistan’s economy.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.

There is always the chance that this could be a positive development, but the NYT reminds us why we should approach this situation with caution:

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

Afghanistan is certainly its own country with its own history, but I can’t help thinking about other countries that have been so severely impacted by mining, like Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The reports of illegal mining in Eastern Congo are widespread and the consequences of that mining are dire for the lives of millions. Women’s E-news has been reporting on the rape crisis in Congo, correspondent Dominique Soguel wrote last June about Eve Ensler’s testimony before the U.S. Senate:

“Corporate greed, fueled by capitalist consumption, and the rape of women have merged into a single nightmare,” Eve Ensler said at U.S. Senate hearings on May 13. “Women’s bodies are the battleground of an economic war.”

Ensler said that international mining companies with significant investments in eastern Congo value economic interest over the bodies of women by trading with rebels who use rape as a tactic of war in areas rich in coltan, gold and tin.

“Military solutions are no longer an option,” she said. “All they do is bring about the rape of more women.”

WeNews correspondent, Danielle Shapiro, reported just a few weeks ago that the President of Congo, Joseph Kabila, would like to see the U.N. start to pull peacekeeping troops out of the country.

Margot Wallstrom, the secretary general’s special representative for sexual violence in conflict, thinks otherwise, and told the U.N. Security Council so before last week’s visit by council members and other diplomats to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“It will not help the fight against sexual violence,” Wallstrom said last month in New York after she briefed the Security Council following her nine-day April trip to the country.

Wallstrom said the Democratic Republic of Congo’s legal frameworks for protecting women are robust. They include a 2006 law against sexual violence, a national strategy to combat sexual violence and a policy of zero tolerance for rapes, murder, theft and other criminal acts by the national army.

But resources for enforcement fall far short, said Wallstrom.

Global Witness Limited, a non-profit that describes itself as one that “exposes and breaks the links between the exploitation of natural resources and the funding of conflict, corruption and human rights abuses,” produced a report called “Faced With A Gun, What Can You Do?” War and the Militarization of Mining in Eastern Congo (pdf). Reading this report is an eye-opening experience. It details all of the parties involved in the mining in Congo as well as all of the awful consequences of the mining. Here’s just part of the summary of their report:

In many parts of the provinces of North and South Kivu, armed groups and the Congolese national army control the trade in cassiterite (tin ore), gold, columbite-tantalite (coltan), wolframite (a source of tungsten) and other minerals. The unregulated nature of the mining sector in eastern DRC, combined with the breakdown of law and order and the devastation caused by the war, has meant that these groups have had unrestricted access to these minerals and have been able to establish lucrative trading networks. The profits they make through this plunder enable some of the most violent armed groups to survive.

In their broader struggle to seize economic, political and military power, all the main warring parties have carried out the most horrific human rights abuses, including widespread killings of unarmed civilians, rape, torture and looting, recruitment of child soldiers to fight in their ranks, and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. The lure of eastern Congo’s mineral riches is one of the factors spurring them on.

By the time these minerals reach their ultimate destinations – the international markets in Europe, Asia, North America and elsewhere – their origin, and the suffering caused by this trade, has long been forgotten.

Obviously this information can be overwhelming, leaving us to wonder what exactly we can do to help stop what’s happening in Congo. John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, provides us an answer and some hope:

There are several steps you can take right now to help stop this disastrous and inhumane situation. Please visit that link and do your part.

The mining situation in Peru is different from the one in Congo, but the environmental devastation, inhumane treatment, and damage to women is similar. Over the last several years as the prices of minerals have skyrocketed, Peru has found itself at the center of mining expansion, some of it illegal. Sadly, the Peruvian people and the ecosystem are paying the price of that expansion.

In December of 2009 the BBC reported on the impact of the recent gold rush in Peru:

It is only from the air that you can see the full extent of the destruction.

The forests seems almost endless until it is abruptly interrupted by the raw colours of sand and earth; rivers torn open and thousands of hectares denuded and pocked with dead, stagnant pools of water.

There is a terrible environmental price to pay, but there is also a human one – in the form of trafficking women and under-age girls.

But there is a dark side to the boom. While young men ride around on shiny motorbikes, many young women and under-age girls lurk in garish bars. Many of them are victims of people-trafficking mafias who use them to entice miners flush with cash.

And of course, the damage to the environment doesn’t just harm the flora and fauna, but will very easily impact human beings and their health as well.

For every gram of gold extracted, up to three times more mercury is needed. The toxic metal is used to bind with the gold particles, forming an amalgam which makes them easier to extract.

It is cheap and efficient; so cheap that much of the mercury is left in the rivers and lagoons, poisoning the flora and fauna and in turn passing into the food chain.

Gold isn’t the only mineral being mined in Peru, in 2008 a Chinese mining company, Chinalco, literally bought a mountain known as “copper mountain.”

The copper Chinalco extracts from Toromocho will cost something like US$410 (£210) per ton. Today, the price for copper on the London Metal Exchange was $8,255 (£4,220) – 20 times more.

Chinalco stands to make a 2,000% profit on its investment.

There is only one problem. In order to dig out the copper ore, the company will have to shift the inhabitants of an entire town, and move them across the valley.

Every mining project results in some level of environmental damage, but in countries where the environmental regulations are few, the damage can be even more catastrophic. To give you a sense of how damaging copper mining can be – here’s some information from the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Research Program about a former copper mine in Butte, Montana:

Butte, Montana is home of an abandoned copper mine once owned by the now defunct Anaconda Copper Mining Company, established in Butte in 1895. Until the major Butte mine operations closed in the 1980s, the mine produced 20 billion pounds of copper. Until the 1950′s, it produced one third of the country’s copper and was an important supplier for the nation during the two World Wars. The former mine is now the largest Superfund site in the country. The main open pit has filled with water since the termination of mining activities, forming a 600-acre lake. Copper, lead, cadmium and arsenic contaminate the huge pit, which is recharged with water every day from an aquifer below—making the toxic lake nearly impossible to clean up. Sulfur, a mineral that is commonly a component of copper ore, reacts with air and water, producing sulfuric acid, which fills the pit. Mine runoff and fallout from the smelter once owned by Anaconda cover the landscape. A 1,000-acre tailings pond sits near the main pit.

This is one of the largest Superfund sites in the United States and the way the mine was constructed makes it nearly impossible to clean up. Unless Chinalco plans ahead to prevent some of the damage, the people of Morococha will undoubtedly suffer some serious health and safety consequences, and that doesn’t count the environmental damage the area will suffer.

The Peruvian government is already battling one mining company from the United States over the health and safety of citizens in one city. It will certainly not be the last.

Studies carried out by a team of scientists from the St. Louis University School of Public Health in Missouri in 2005 found that a majority of children under six in La Oroya have toxic levels of over 40 micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood (mcg/dl) – four times the maximum safe limit of 10 mcg/dl set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Many also had high levels of cadmium, arsenic, mercury, antimony, caesium and thallium.

And an epidemiological study conducted by the Health Ministry in 2004 and 2005 found that 50 percent of minors in the province of Junín had asthma.

There are enough human rights and health and safety issues in Afghanistan without adding mining to the equation. While it will certainly be a good boost to the Afghan economy and could potentially help the people there if it is done right, we have an obligation to ensure that is is done right and that no further damage is done.