“Use a Cell Phone—Kill a Gorilla: The Destruction of a Final Home”
by
Ana Maria Bowman-Rivera
PVPHS class of '03
“Right
in the heart of Central Africa, so high up that you shiver more than you
sweat, are great, old volcanoes towering up almost 15,000 feet, and nearly
covered with rich, green rain forest—the Virungas.”—Farley Mowat, Woman in the Mists
The
Virungas are home to approximately 300 of the 650 mountain gorillas left
in the entire world. These gorillas live on about 285 square miles of
high-elevation rainforest in East Central Africa. Everyday, these amazing
apes, who are 97 percent genetically identical to humans, are critically
endangered from poaching, diseases introduced by humans, war and habitat
loss. The very survival of the species faces new threats: The most current
and alarming situation is the encroachment of miners into the Kahuzi Biega
National Park in the Congo, where the gorilla population has already been
reduced from 258 to 130 gorillas.
In
the process of mining Columbine-tantalite, coltan for short, the natural
habitat of the gorillas is being destroyed, causing their death and
displacement. Coltan, when refined, becomes metallic tantalum, a
heat-resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge. It is an
important element in creating capacitors, the electronic conditions that
control the flow of electric currents inside miniature circuit boards.
Capacitors are used as storage vessels, storing ready-to-use energy that
helps supply an extra flow of energy for cell phones, which the battery
cannot provide on its own. Capacitors are also used in superalloys, mainly
in aircraft engines and spacecraft. Tantalum capacitors are used in almost
all cell phones, laptops, pagers and many other electronic devices. It is
the use of tantalum that has been a key factor in reducing the size of the
mobile phone in recent years. Demand for this tiny but complex component
from mobile phone giants, such as Nokia and Motorola, has pushed the price
of the precious metal around 600 percent higher than it was three years
ago. Alcatel, Compaq, Dell, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent and
Solectron are also all major purchasers of tantalum capacitors.
As of
yet, companies have been hesitant to respond to knowledge that they may be
using tantalum mined in the Congo. Those companies that have replied to
the inquiries do nothing to raise hopes that the destruction of the Congo
will be stopped. Says Outi Mikkonen, communications manager for
environmental affairs at Nokia, “We first heard about this in April and
immediately asked our suppliers if they used tantalum from the Congo. All
you can do is ask, and if they say no, we believe it.”
The
makers of the capacitors have faith in the honesty of their suppliers, but
the suppliers can do little to affirm that their products have not been
mined in the Congo. Says Dick Rosen of AVX, a capacitor maker, “I’m
not in favor of killing gorillas, but we don't have an idea where [the
metal] comes from. There’s no way to tell. I don't know how to control
it.”
It is
apparent, however, that many of these companies are purchasing major
amounts of tantalum from the Congo.
As
the demand for the metallic powder continues to increase, the number of
gorillas left living continues to decrease. If the situation is not
corrected soon, it may very well be the cause of the extinction of our
closest ancestors in the wild.
“Human
beings must decide now whether or not the mountain gorilla will become a
species discovered and extinct within the same century.”—Dian Fossey
Sources:
-
CNET Broadcast, http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/73.html
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Woman in the Mists , http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/Ta.html