Identifying and Evaluating Impacts - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 438

arise from project impacts on the living or physical-chemical environment, particularly
from health, social, or economic impacts on minority and low-income groups.
To ensure that environmental justice is promoted, that is to see that the mining project
is implemented in a socially equitable fashion, socioeconomic studies need to identify any
ethnic and racial minorities and low-income population groups in the affected communi-
ties. Moreover they should address, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse
human health and environmental effects of the mine development on minority and low-
income groups. Central to the Equator Principles is that priority is given to mitigating
impacts on identii ed minorities and low-income groups. It is important to determine if
minority, low-income, or otherwise disadvantaged groups in the project area would be dis-
proportionately affected by mine development and to i nd ways to mitigate such effects if
they cannot be totally avoided.
Environmental justice is based on communication with and participation of formal and
informal community leaders, in an informational outreach programme. Public outreach should
not be seen as a one-time solicitation of project support, but as a continuous process. Regular
community contacts are integral to community consultation and participation programmes for
mining projects. Concerns of grass roots groups should be sought through consultation, and
carefully documented. While this is not a new requirement, mining companies have not always
actively sought out or heeded the opinions of all peoples affected by their plans and actions.

9.10 GROUP DECISION-MAKING IN ENVIRONMENTAL
ASSESSMENT

In environmental assessments, task specialists typically research baseline conditions in the
absence of the project, they review the mine proposal identifying activities with potential
effects on the environmental component(s) of their particular expertise, and eventually
they draw initial conclusions regarding impact signii cance, applying (or not) established
methodologies of their disciplines. In this traditional approach, environmental assess-
ments are considered as syntheses and critical appraisals of scientii c information on par-
ticular environmental aspects of mining. They usually involve targeted data collection,
models and analyses, result in a report, and are considered complete when they are deliv-
ered to whoever asked for the assessment, usually the mine proponent and environmental
approval authorities. Recent research has developed a broader conceptualization (Moser
1999), acknowledging that environmental assessment is more than the collection of inde-
pendent points of view. Assessments encompass the outcomes (models and analyses, and
reports) and the social, dynamic, and iterative processes that lead to and follow them -
the communicative, social interactions among assessors and project engineers, and those
among other stakeholders, scientists, interested groups, and potential assessment users such
as regulatory authorities, approval authorities or managers. Applied in this broader sense,
environmental assessment can serve a variety of functions (Miller, Jasanoff et al . 1997):
●

integrating disparate knowledge from many different disciplines and expertise into
consensus answers;

●

disseminating this consensus to, i.e. informing and educating stakeholders and the
decision-maker community;

●

identifying gaps in understanding;

●

re-evaluating the relevance of knowledge claims; and

●

providing opportunities for (new) stakeholders to interact and develop common
ground with respect to choices of selected project components.