KoBold received permits last year to search for lithium and other minerals in DRC and struck agreements with Kinshasa to digitize data.
The Royal Museum for Central Africa, colloquially known as the Africa Museum, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium. Credit:is in a tangle with Belgium’s AfricaMuseum over who should digitize antique maps of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in the museum’s archive.
Mining startup KoBold Metals said it had offered to support the DRC in digitizing the colonial-era archive, stored on museum shelves stretching some 500 metres and containing millions of documents that record how Congo’s mineral wealth was mapped and exploited. “We scan, we digitize the documents, and make them accessible to the public immediately,” Benjamin Katabuka, director general for KoBold Metals in DRC, told“This country needs more investment in exploration, and we need the data to be available to the public to make that happen.” The Belgian museum, backed by Belgian authorities, has refused, saying it already has a separate project with the DRC to digitize the data, backed by the European Union. “We cannot delegate the management of collections to private companies; it would go against all scientific and institutional ethics,” museum director Bart Ouvry toldto search for lithium and other minerals in DRC and struck agreements with Kinshasa to digitize data, including records held in Belgium, it said.Katabuka said the request for access to the archive was made by the DRC government. “KoBold is coming to support the project, technically and financially,” he said. KoBold pointed to a 2022 Belgian law that created a framework for returning colonial-era collections to African states. However, archives are excluded. Ouvry said the museum is working with Congo’s National Geological Service to digitize and share the geological archives in a project expected to take up to five years. Data would be available in both countries “in accordance with Belgian and European law,” he said.Located just outside Brussels in Tervuren, the museum’s extensive archive includes material that is handwritten, fragile and still not fully inventoried, the head of the museum’s earth sciences department toldBelgium’s King Leopold II seized Congo in 1885 for his personal enrichment – the territory was plundered and the population subjected to extreme brutality. The King ran it as his fiefdom until 1908, when it became a Belgian colony. Ouvry said the archives are accessible, copies can be provided on request, and private companies must supply a letter of support from the DRC government to view geological maps. A Belgian government spokesperson for foreign affairs said the geological archives are a public asset. “Belgium cannot, under any circumstances, grant exclusive access to a foreign company or private entity with which it does not have a contractual relationship,” spokesperson Florinda Baleci said. Global competition for critical minerals is increasing and DRC is rich in deposits of lithium, copper, cobalt and coltan. The country’s ministry of mines estimates that 90% of potential remains untapped.PDAC: Canada will be G20’s quickest on mining permits, Natural Resources Minister vows The government is pushing five projects valued in the billions of dollars, from copper in British Columbia to tungsten in New Brunswick.MMG eyes copper deals as profit more than triples The company is seeking M&A opportunities to boost its copper portfolio and is assessing takeover targets in Latin America and Africa.Gold price advances as dip-buyers enter market despite dollar strengthLupaka Gold sues Peru in US over $69 million arbitration award
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