Important thesis on world phosphate situation
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Australian researcher Dana Cordell defended today a PhD thesis called “The Story of Phosphorus - Sustainability implications of global phosphorus scarcity for food security” at the Linköping University, Sweden. The thesis underlines dilemmas of exploration of the deposits in Western Sahara.
Published 25 February 2010


The thesis looks among other things on the geopolitical consequences of the phosphate production, and mentioned repeatedly the topic of Moroccan production in occupied Western Sahara.

“A huge proportion of the world’s agricultural fields are fertilized with rock from this region”, the thesis states.

“There are two important dimensions here: a) an ethical dimension of consumers and companies knowingly or unknowingly supporting an occupation that breaches international human rights conventions; and, b) the potential geopolitical consequences of a disruption of phosphate rock supply from the region,” it reads.

This thesis is the product of an agreement between the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney and Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University, Sweden.

The document can be dowloaded from this site:
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-53430




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