A new vision of and recommendations for sustainable management in mining and post-mining landscapes
Nadine V. Gerner, Gerdhard L. Jessen, Anna Cord, Robert Lepenies, Diego Pujoni, Pedro Val, Kelly Whaley-Martin and Jan Nissen
Emschergenossenschaft & Lippeverband, Germany
The future of extractive industries: Understanding and analysing mining sector reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa
Cindy Wilhelm
University of East Anglia
Sustainable, technology-driven, whole-system approaches to small-scale mining in the 21st century
Kathryn Moore, Olga Sidorenko and Rauno Sairinen
University of Exeter
The key to unlocking the SDGs for the mining sector in Latin America: local partnerships and dialogue
Yanina Kowszyk and Rajiv Maher
University of Barcelona/ Trinity College
Comments 4
Many thanks to the four presenters here for engaging and insights into policy-related aspects of the global mining sector. Nadine provides an overview of an interesting international collaborative project that brought together young scientists and social scientists to explore new ways of mitigating the risks of environmental destruction from the industry. In part driven by the multiple tailings dam collapses in Brazil in recent years, the group have produced a clear set of policy prescriptions that seek to make mining more sustainable and less destructive of environments and communities. I will be interested to see in the report they have produced how their work intersects with other existing global guidelines – from industry and international institutions – as many of the issues they raise are already subject to varying degrees of regulation and direction.
Cindy opens with a nice historical overview of four key historical stages of extractivism, where the motives and influence of state and corporate actors shift through time, from classical to post-extractivism. Narrowing her focus to Local Content Policies in the bauxite industry in Guinea, she notes the obstacles that arise in the implementation of the relatively rigid government policy – from differing agendas and capabilities at different levels of government to the creation of new avenues for corruption. The disconnect between existing corporate initiatives – under the banner of CSR – and the recently introduced but not necessarily more effective state LCP policy is a theme I recognise from work in Papua New Guinea.
Kath Moore reports on an EU project that focuses on small-scale mining and small ore bodies in the European context. This fascinating project appears to hold potential to significantly reduce the energy requirements and waste from the sector, but as Kath points out it would require a shift in policy and societal images of mining in many parts for such operations to be possible, even when operating in line with best-practice.
Finally, Yanina describes a research project that looks at the alignment of the corporate driven focus on Social Licence to Operate (SLO) and the broader societal goals encapsulated by the SDGs in Latin America, finding that the two agendas have yet to intersect in a productive way. The focus on partnerships (SDG17) – between the corporate sector and civil society in particular – to drive development is seen as a critically important element going forward.
So, thanks again to all four presenters – together they raise interesting questions about the place and development of policy – and I look forward to an interesting engagement with their presentations in the forum.
Thank you everyone for your fantastic presentations. Thank you Glenn for chairing this panel and for summarizing the videos. I find the research contributions extremely fascinating and it is so amazing to see how they are all connected in some way or another.
The vision for sustainable management in mining presented by Nadine echoes really well the current zeitgeist of numerous ideas on how mining can be reformed and improved. The vision is very comprehensive and includes the most important and pressing issues in my view. What I was wondering, when speaking of the ‘governance networks’, and also connecting to my own work on the implementation of mining sector reforms, who and how this vision should ideally be implemented. Of course, this is the tricky part of having a vision and ideas of change. Are the governance networks you mention national or local? It sounds a bit like a national government-mandated plan. But then, in a country like Brazil, we all know the current administration and their *note the sarcasm here* ‘love’ for sustainability and justice regarding any environmental issue, including mining. And if it is locally implemented, what if the national support is absent? Also, successful policy implementation as we all know is contingent on the compliance of the mining industry. I think your vision is great and a fantastic action plan that is the starting point of more work regarding the implementation. Certainly a lot of food for thought.
The presentation on ASM in the 21st century by Kathryn is really interesting. My research does not focus on ASM, but from my work on Guinea I know that it is such an important pillar of mining, and you also mention the immense opportunities of ASM. It is great to hear how ASM has the potential to be an important diversification tool through the mining of small deposits. It is interesting to hear what the potential of ASM is, especially given the technology that can be used. Ofc, all I can hear is the *employment bell*, as ASM is significantly more labour intensive than large scale mining. And in countries that are hit by significant unemployment and subsequent migration, it will be interesting to see how the findings from the IMP@CT project could have some inspiring ideas that could be implemented widely.
The presentation on the SDG’s for the mining sector in Latin America by Yanina touches so many interesting aspects. Iappreciate it when you say the social licence to operate ‘can be rhetorical’ as this clearly resonates with my work on mining sector reforms, mainly Local Content Policies. I recognize similar obstacles in our projects, such as the capacity and role of local government. The very interesting factor here are the companies. As you say (and again, like in the case of Local Content Policies in Guinea), ” it is not clear if companies are supporting SDGs”. You talk about the actors’ knowledge of SDGs. I wonder if perhaps it might not only be the different knowledge, but also a different understanding of SDGs among the actors. So even if they know the SDGs and what they mean, do they interpret it in the same way? This might differ, particularly with regards to their interests….
Thanks everyone, I am looking forward to a fruitful discussion!
Greetings from rainy Norwich, UK,
Cindy
Thank you Cindy – I was very much enjoyed most of your presentation though my computer froze and decided to let me no further with the last little bit! In response to your comment above: yes, the implications for artisanal mining in Africa are interesting. The IMP@CT project is as much geology, metallurgy and engineering as it is social sustainability and we have been in contact with NGOs supporting ASM in parts of Africa, particularly with respect to technical solutions.
My colleagues in Finland have lead the charge in terms of redefining the ASM concept. They were significantly challenged by the philosophical bias that small-scale was ultimately connected to artisanal mining in a development context, and therefore needed a new framework to consider ‘small-scale’ in a European context. They have written a policy brief as one of the deliverables of the project, which can be downloaded here:
https://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_nbn_fi_uef-20200587/index_en.html.
They have further redefined the concept of technologically-advanced small-scale mining as separate from artisanal mining, in a manuscript that is accepted for publication in an upcoming volume of the journal Resources Policy. In both the policy brief and the manuscript, they describe the societal issues surrounding employment levels.
From a technical point of view, it is worth noting that automation is an objective of the mining industry to improve the economies of scale. Automation significantly changes the level of required training in workforces, which resonates with your description of the progress of a mining operation and local employment levels. For selective mining of small, geologically complex and variable ore deposits, there are extreme technological challenges to automation of a mining and processing solution – so there remains a need for a physical workforce. Even if an automated solution can be found, it is likely to be extremely complex and expensive, and more suitable to a long-term operation. Workforce relations and training requirements are therefore different in the approach to short duration mining operations that we have been investigating. We tackled these issues by working through them on the ground in the Balkans last year. We can really appreciate the amount of work there is left to do – and that translation to other parts of the world is not straight-forward, though an exciting prospect.
Many thanks also from my side to all presenters in this session for the really interesting talks and to Glenn for chairing and summarizing!
I see so many linkages between the single talks and I learned a lot from each of them.
Cindy, you referred to the governance level and the situation in Brazil. As our vision is thought very broadly and globally, we did not refer to specific governance level. In Brazil, governance should most importantly be thought on the federal level, i.e. the state of Minas Gerais, but also on river basinlevel. With the current political development in Brazil, however, any hope for improvement was destroyed. Bolsonaro cut budget and personell of the environmental agencies even more, so there is no capacity for proper control of licenses, surveys or monitoring, for sanctioning, and certainly not for stakeholder involvement and prospective and integral planning – which is so urgently needed.
Glenn mentioned the comparison to existing global guidelines, which is still to be done. You are right, numerous guidelines are in place already – on global, national, and local level. However, the main problem surely is their implementation in practice. This links perfectly to Yanina and Rajiv’s case study on SDG implementation. I am very much looking forward to the results of your additional 6 case studies.
Apart from the Brazilian case study, my co-authors and me are now working on a case study on artisanal mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here, the definition of artisanal mining differs from Kathryn’s small-scale mining. For this reason, I found your talk very informative, Kathryn, learning about the different meanings of “small-scale”. And the approaches tested in the IMPACT project are really impressive. Such positive examples, that demonstrate in real-life that it actually works, is what is needed much more.
Cheers from rainy Germany,
Nadine