Debate over phosphate
A human rights activist says it is ‘‘inevitable’’ that New Zealand fertiliser co-operatives will stop sourcing phosphate from the disputed Western Sahara region.
The Polisario Front, which is pushing for the area to be self governing, has called on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to step in to the issue. In 2008, as President of the Union of Socialist Youth, she visited Western Sahara refugee camps.
However, fertiliser companies Ballance Agri-Nutrients and Ravensdown have refused to back down on the trade, saying phosphate ‘‘drives prosperity and social wellbeing in a wide variety of Kiwi communities’’. The United Nations considers the Polisario Front and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic are the legitimate representatives of the 570,000 Saharawi tribesmen of Arab, Moor, Berber and Taureg heritage living in the region.
After Spain gave up control of its former Western Sahara colony in 1975, Morocco annexed the territory, which contains about 70 per cent of the world’s phosphate reserves.
A South African high court has ruled a cargo of phosphate rock bound for New Zealand from the Western Sahara belongs to the Saharawi Government, and not Morocco’s state-owned phosphate company OPC. The ship Cherry Blossom was detained in South Africa a year ago with a 54,000 tonne cargo of phosphate worth $5 million destined for Ballance in Tauranga.
A board member of Western Sahara Resource Watch, Erik Hagen, said by the end of this year New Zealand would be the only country taking phosphate from Western Sahara.
Both Ballance and Christchurch-based Ravensdown import about $30m worth of the phosphate a year.
Hagen said the declining trend of phosphate exports had been remarkable. ‘‘When we first started monitoring the vessels in 2011 there were about 13 different importing countries and 50 companies. By the end of this year the Canadian and US imports will stop, and New Zealand will be the only country in the world to buy West Sahara phosphate apart from the OPC Moroccan subsidiary in India.’’
A Ravensdown spokesman said New Zealand needed phosphate because of its ‘‘virtually unique pastoral-based system. Aerial topdressing and livestock having the pick of the paddock is a very unusual setup in the world’’.
‘‘Our legal advice is that the trade can continue. We continue to monitor the situation closely.’’
Hagen said groups fighting for independence had been able to put pressure on banks to stop funding companies trading in phosphate. However, Ballance and Ravensdown were farmer-owned co-operatives and less susceptible to such lobbying.
The Ravensdown spokesman said the point of a co-operative was that it engaged and listened to its stakeholders. ‘‘Our shareholders have understood our decision to continue trading with this supply partner and for us to continue to do our due diligence.’’