Minerals, Wealth and Progress - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 3

that environmental assessment is essential to integrate economic activity with environmen-
tal integrity and social concerns. The goal of that integration can be seen as sustainable
development.
Finally, there is a discussion of the World Bank's guidance on environmental assess-
ment. First formulated in early 1990, the Bank's approach to environmental assessment of
new projects has evolved into a set of standards for industry best practice. Now referred to
as the 'Equator Principles', these standards have been adopted by most major international
financing institutions.

1.1 HISTORY OF MINING

Mining has been an essential component of social development since prehistoric times.
Minerals have met uniquely human needs through the ages, including securing food and
shelter, providing defense, enhancing hunting capacities, supplying jewellery and mon-
etary exchange, enabling transport, heat and power systems, and underpinning industry
(Hartman 1987). Thus it is no coincidence that we associate most ages of cultural develop-
ment with minerals or their derivatives: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the
Steel Age, and today's Nuclear Age. Gold rushes in recent history contributed to settlements
in and development of large areas in Canada, California, South Africa, and Australia.

Minerals have met uniquely
human needs through the ages.

Early Mining

Experience of mining varies considerably. Some countries have a long history of mining,
either in the form of indigenous small-scale or large-scale, industrial operations, while
others show evidence only of recent mining enterprise. There is historical evidence of early
mining in Europe, Egypt, and China. In Europe the Iberian peninsula - modern Spain
and Portugal - became the focus of the imperial struggle between Rome and Carthage as
they fought over its abundance of minerals, including silver, copper, and gold, which in an
earlier period had already attracted the interest of the Phoenicians ( www.sispain.org ).
Mining, of course, has a long history in other parts of the world as well. In the Philippines
small-scale mining dates back to the 13th century with the Igorot people, who, for centuries,
mined gold and traded it with the Chinese. Historical records show that Southern Africans
from Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Tanzania have engaged in mining and smelting for
more than a millennium, trading gold with the Arabic world, India, and elsewhere in Asia.
In other areas, mining encouraged the thrust of European colonialism. The invasion of
South America, the 'El Dorado' of the 16th century, by Spain and Portugal, is well known.
The instructions of the Spanish King Ferdinand to Columbus were plain: 'Get gold,
humanely if you can, but at all hazards get gold' (Kettell 1982). Considerations of a shared
humanity were to play little part in the early search for and exploitation of mineral wealth.
By the end of the 19th century, very few regions remained untouched by the demand for
mineral resources to supply the industrialized world.
However, there are countries where mining commenced relatively recently. In
Indonesia, for instance, the first Contract of Work agreement (the legal agreement
between the host country and a mining company) was awarded to a US-based company,
Freeport McMoran, only in 1967. But even in 'new' mining countries, mining on a small
scale may have occurred for centuries.
The first mining was probably done by hand, breaking stones for implements, and work-
ing surface deposits of high grade mineral deposits such as copper. This was eventually

'Get gold, humanely if you can,
but at all hazards get gold'.