PRESS RELEASE:  Madagascar Communities File Complaint Against Canadian Uranium Producer Energy Fuels Inc. Over Threats to Health, Livelihoods, and Environment.

Community representatives in Toliara, Madagascar, filed a complaint on 15 January 2025 to the Canadian Ombudsperson For Responsible Enterprise accusing Energy Fuels Inc., one of the world’s largest uranium producers, of threatening their health, livelihoods, and local ecosystems.

Energy Fuels acquired Base Resources in October 2024, gaining control of the Base Toliara mineral sands project in Ranobe, Toliara, Madagascar. Local communities have been opposing this project since 2014, and firmly refuse to grant their free, prior and informed consent to its development in their territory. Responding to this opposition, Madagascar’s government suspended the project in 2019, but the suspension was lifted in November 2024, soon after Energy Fuels Inc. gained control of the project.

Of particular concern to communities located around the mine site are the risks associated with radioactivity. Various scientific studies^[1] highlight dangerously high levels of uranium and thorium emissions, posing risks of cancer and congenital diseases to workers and residents.  The project also poses risks to water, land and forest resources, which are crucial to the survival of the agrarian livelihoods of thousands of people across the region, including the Indigenous Mikea people.

The complaint to the Canadian Ombudsperson For Responsible Enterprise alleges that Energy Fuels Inc.’s plans for this mining project also threaten sacred sites of deep cultural significance to those communities, together with their ancestral tombs that would also be destroyed to make way for the mining operations.

Thousands of farmers and fisherfolks from Ranobe, Benetse, Tsiafanoka, Ankilimalinike and other communities affected by the mining operations, will lose their land and livelihoods, along with their access to vital water resources for subsistence and agriculture due to the water requirements for dry mining and operating processes estimated at 560 m3/h (just under 13,500 m3/day) for the 38-year duration of the project.

A Malagasy people’s movement comprised of individuals and families from communities who stand to be adversely impacted by the Base Toliara project submitted the complaint to the Canadian Ombudsperson For Responsible Enterprise. The Research and Support Center for Development Alternatives – Indian Ocean (RSCDA-IO), an independent human rights organization based in Madagascar, is assisting them through the complaints process.

The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) is a non-judicial grievance mechanism created by Canada’s Minister of International Trade in 2018. The CORE has a global mandate to hold Canadian companies operating in the garment, mining and oil and gas sectors accountable to respect internationally recognized human rights[2]. The Complainants have appealled to the CORE to assist them in addressing the concerns and preventing serious harm to local communities.

 Base Toliara operations taking place in a context of social unrest and oppression

In November and December 2024, the complainants held public demonstrations against the project during which the security forces intervened to repress the protests and arrest a RSCDA-IO staff member.  As stated by a representative of the Ankilimalinike communities whose name has been withheld due to fear of reprisals, “we do not need this Base Toliara project. We are already living in poverty because of the development model that the Government pretends to impose on us. Is this mining project the kind of development that we need here? It will only bring about destruction and death. You are bringing death but not development to us.”

The project has also generated extensive and transnational opposition as a result of its non compliance with human rights standards, including those enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP)^[3].

Local activists and their international supporters have been vocal and active in expressing their resistance to the project, engaging in advocacy with key stakeholders at the national and international level. But Base Toliara has largely dismissed this opposition, and asserted it remains committed to the project^[4].

This is not the first time that Energy Fuels Inc.’s social and environmental record has been in the spotlight. In the US, the company is currently facing strong protest against the deleterious impacts of its operations from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe living in the White Mesa Band next to its White Mesa Uranium Mill in Utah.

Volahery Andriamanantenasoa, RSCDA-IO Programs Director, says: “Energy Fuels Inc.’s lack of transparency and the clear local indigenous opposition to the project puts the company in prima facie contravention of their responsibilities under the OECD guidelines and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Energy Fuels Inc. should cancel this project which is expected to cause irreversible environmental damage and grave adverse human rights impacts”.

The complainants are calling on Energy Fuels Resources Inc. to:

• commission and disclose an independent environmental and human rights impact assessment of the project, including through meaningful consultation with local communities;
• respect the human rights of all affected communities, including the right to free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous People and affected communities, and cancel the project since a genuine mutual agreement cannot be reached;
• take all possible measures to ensure that the affected communities do not face reprisals, including from company employees, contractors or government officials, for filing this complaint.

[1] https://www.lupm.univ-montp2.fr/users/qcd/econf17/hepmad17_talks/randrianandrasana.pdf

[2] https://core-ombuds.canada.ca/core_ombuds-ocre_ombuds/annual-report-2019-2021-rapport-annuel.aspx?lang=eng#a3

[3] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16 December 1966, United Nations,

-and- UN General Assembly, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples / adopted by the General Assembly, 2 October 2007, A/RES/61/295. UNDRIP. https://www.un.org/press/en/2007/ga10612.doc.htm-and-

UN General Assembly, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas / adopted by the General Assembly, 17 December 2018, A /HRC/RES/39/12. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1661560?ln=en

[4] For example, see the joint letter from several organizations to a potential financier at the link below: https://www.banktrack.org/download/letter_from_craadoi_womin_idi_banktrack_to_ten_fis_on_base_toliara_project/201013_base_toliara_letters_x10.pdf