Developing a Pan American Hub for Environmentally and Socially Compatible Mining



 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Rapid economic development in emerging economies is causing socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America where a large fraction of the mineral commodities are mined. Rifts between affected communities, industry, and governments disrupt the steady supply of metals and will require an internationally prepared workforce and active participation of impacted regions to deliver holistic solutions that address key aspects of mining capacity, environmental impacts, and social issues. We believe the solution to these problems is to develop transdisciplinary step change solutions in an international collaboration with professionals and community members from distinct disciplines. This application is for the second conference in a series of three on the theme of environmentally and socially compatible mining. The first conference was entitled, "Latin American Conference on Compatible Mining: Protecting Vulnerable Populations and the Surrounding Environment" and took place in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in September 2014. At the conference delegates from nine Pan-American countries coined the term "compatible mining" and defined it as: the collaboration of the diverse stakeholder groups (community, industry, government, academia, etc.) involved in and impacted by mining to achieve mining with minimal negative environmental and social impacts. The second conference is planned for Lima, Peru and will be co-hosted by Pontificia Universidad Catόlica de Peru (PUCP) with tentative meeting dates of March 6-9, 2016. The proposed title for the second conference is, "Developing a Pan American Hub for Environmentally and Socially Compatible Mining." The second conference will have two major goals. The first is to fully develop and start to implement the Pan American Hub. One day of the conference will be devoted to this planning effort. The second goal will be to discuss and develop a theme focused on mitigating exposures of communities to toxic pollutants from mining. An important component of this effort is to empower and engage impacted communities as informed partners in regional decision making processes so that environmental health concerns are adequately addressed by mining operations and regulatory agencies.