Miners urged to lead the way on development issues
Date: 03-May-02
Country: UK
Author: Andy Blamey
"The world is not yet ready for some kind of global mining convention where all the governments get together and decide how to regulate the industry," MMSD Project Director Luke Danielson told a news briefing in London this week.
"There an enormous need for the industry to step forward and initiate the process," he said.
MMSD, which is backed by a range of major mining companies and institutions such as the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme, has completed its final report after two years of consultation and research. A hefty tome of over 400 pages will be published next month, but the full text should be available from Thursday at the MMSD website, www.iied.org/mmsd/, Danielson said.
The question of sustainable development is a key one for the future of the industry.
"The minerals industry has long felt in certain places that the fact that its products were needed was an adequate justification for anything it did," Danielson said.
"Meeting market demand for mineral commodities is not all that society expects from this industry."
While stressing that the sector had already made progress in recent years, Sir Robert Wilson, chairman of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto , told the briefing that further moves in this direction were crucial.
"We have to face the constant challenge of how to achieve trade-offs between the economic benefits, social implications and environmental consequences of our actions," said Wilson, who is co-chairman of the MMSD sponsors' council.
"The industry recognises that it needs to change its behaviour patterns."
MINING PROTOCOL
MMSD's Danielson called for the introduction of a mining protocol to cover the key issues.
The protocol would need a consensus on the various sustainable development issues, a verification process and a system of incentives to ensure that goals were met, he said.
The mining industry would take time to frame its reponse to this and other MMSD recommendations, such as a commitment to address the legacy of abandoned mine operations and the legalisation of artisanal and small-scale mining, Wilson said.
"At one level you will see individual companies responding - Rio Tinto will be revising our statement of business principles in the wake of this debate," he said.
On a broader level, "the protocol does seem to me to be something that will happen," he added.
While the public image of the mining sector remains largely negative, Wilson denied suggestions that industry participation in the MMSD project was essentially a public relations exercise.
"We're not going to get a better perception (of the mining industry) without better performance," he said.
"If the industry delivers more effectively, perceptions will change over time."
He added, however, that a number of the MMSD recommendations would require active participation from governments, local communities and inter-governmental bodies as well as the industry itself.
"There are boundary issues between individual responsibility and government responsibility, but where is that line to be drawn?" Wilson said.
MMSD's Danielson recognised that the onus for change should not fall solely on the mining industry.
"While industry clearly has a lot to do it is also clear that no amount of leadership from industry alone will be a total solution," he said.
