The impact of UK mining in Peru
According to the Peru Support Group (PSG), mining provides half of Peru’s export income, totalling $8 billion in 2001. “Alongside its potential to bring in foreign money, mining is often a highly disruptive activity, generating significant social and environmental impacts. With local concerns about potential impacts running high, the mining question is back on the agenda, and with UK companies holding nearly 50% of all foreign investment in mining in Peru, it is of particular interest to the UK public and Government.”
The potential for mining to contribute to Peru’s development and alleviate poverty is clear, and noted in IM, February 2006, p17. However, translating the mineral wealth into human development raises major questions for government, mining companies and communities. PSG believes that managing this wealth effectively and ensuring equitable distribution of the impacts and benefits of mining is a key challenge.
Such challenges are illustrated in the area of Rio Blanco, in the far north of the Peruvian Andes, close to the Ecuadorian border. It is a remote, rural area of highlands and cloud forest, rich in natural biodiversity, including the near-extinct Peruvian tapir. Most importantly, however, these balanced ecosystems supply much of northern Peru, and in particular its desert coast, with water.
Eight mineral concessions in Rio Blanco, totalling 6,472 ha of land are being explored by UK-based Monterrico Metals and advanced plans are in place to extract up to 10 Mt/y of copper ore. The day before UN World Water Day, the PSG will be hosted a public meeting and discussion on the impact of UK mining in Peru, to raise awareness of the risks that the mining industry poses for Peru’s natural environment and the communities who live there.
Nicanor Alvarado Carrasco, a community leader and environmental campaigner, presented local concerns about the Rio Blanco mining concession at the meeting on March 21. "The Peruvian State, and mining companies themselves, must adopt better policies to promote financial transparency. The State must support local procurement and the use of local services in mining operations, and facilitate local peoples employment in the mining industry.”
Carrasco will also be representing the concerns of local communities in a testimony to the European Parliament on March 30. Along with others, he is asking the Peruvian Government for a policy that "promotes and prioritises sustainable agriculture, agribusiness, and eco-tourism before mining activity as a source of generating employment without polluting the environment".
The PSG works to raise awareness of Peru in the UK, providing information and organizinge events as well as lobbying and campaigning on issues of human rights, poverty and development in Peru. Over the last 20 years PSG says it has developed a strong constituency of members and contacts with a strong interest in Peru. VIMA is a grassroots environmental organisation that promotes the defence and preservation of natural resources and encourages a culture of environmental awareness in Peru.
www.perusupportgroup.org.uk