Bishop Benjamin Romarosa, C.M., of Madagascar speaks of caring for our common home and Laudato Si’ in a strongly worded letter to his own government.

Madagascar, one of the planet’s poorest countries, has become a new Eldorado of the large international mining companies, always seeking new resources in order to satisfy the growing needs of the contemporary world. The Malagasy subsoil abounds in mineral resources: precious stones for ornamentation, gems and industrial minerals, chromite, mica, graphite, zircon, limonite, nickel, cobalt, iron, titanium, uranium, copper, gold, coal, limestone, gypsum, iron quartz and piezoelectric, etc. The diamonds in certain regions, the oil and gas in the canal of Mozambique and the rare earths in our region of Anpasimanjava are more recently known, without forgetting the old gold deposit of Betsiaka near Ambilombe. One also speaks a lot, at least through the media, of the mining code and the oil code. It was even announced that they will be voted on and promulgated very soon.

Thus my question: Is it not possible to have the native Malagasy of each region profit from all this wealth, equitably with the foreign powers?

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