The hills of Surigao del Sur do not look like a battleground. They are green, layered, and quiet in the way that only old forests can be. Yet beneath them lies one of the most sought-after minerals on the planet, and the company extracting it has spent nearly two decades proving that mining ore from the earth does not have to leave a scar.
Carrascal Nickel Corporation has operated in this corner of Mindanao since 2006. What separates it from the dozens of mining companies working across the Philippine archipelago is not the size of its reserves or the volume of its exports. It is the method, and more importantly, the philosophy behind the method.
