Minerals, Wealth and Progress - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 47

Social Sustainability
The social circle of sustainability addresses issues such as poverty, health, education, local
empowerment, and maintaining culture and heritage. Although social norms change over
time, sustaining social and cultural systems is important. Social sustainability has obvious
links with economic development in terms of addressing poverty and local input into eco-
nomic decision-making. Links with environment development focus on the allocation and
distribution of natural resources to future generations as well as local empowerment over
natural resource management.

Ecological Sustainability
The ecological circle of sustainability is concerned with maintaining the physical/chem-
ical and biological environment to preserve resilience and the ability of natural systems
to adapt to change, protecting from degradation the ecological processes and cycles that
are fundamental to life on Earth. An obvious link with economic development is through
the supply of raw materials for production and the use of the environment as the final
waste sink. One link with social sustainability is through the level of local participation
in natural resource management. Closely related to ecological sustainability is the con-
cept of carrying capacity, both in terms of human population that can be supported by
Earth and the ability of our environment to assimilate finals waste products. All mine
developments intrinsically involve 'trade-offs' between potentially conflicting goals, such
as mineral exploitation and respecting traditional land rights, or economic growth and
environmental conservation. The challenge is to optimize trade-offs between and across
the three spheres basic to sustainable development - the ecological sphere, the economic
sphere and the social sphere (Barbier 1987; Holmberg et al . 1991).
It is easy to appreciate that sustainable development is a challenging concept, and pri-
orities will differ from industry to industry. Table 1.6 summarizes key elements appli-
cable to the mining sector as suggested by the Conservation Strategy Committee to the
Saskatchewan Round Table on Environment and Economy, Regina, 1986.
Patrick James, CEO of Rio Algom Ltd., was among the first to urge that mining, like
other forms of development, must contribute not only economic value to stakeholders,
but also environmental and social value. In the June 1999 Mining Engineering, he also
observed that 'as an industry, we will gradually find ourselves unable to operate anywhere

All mine developments
intrinsically involve 'trade-offs'
between potentially confl icting
goals.

CASE 1.5
The Almadén Mine in Spain: A Treasure Chest but without
Sustained Development

The Almadén mercury mine has been in operation for over
2000 years. Yet it is a typical example of a mining opera-
tion that has resulted in non-sustained development. During
most of its history, the mine has operated as a state-run
enterprise and was used as a treasure chest of the Spanish
Crown. Twice it was used to guarantee enormous sovereign
loans. Little if any of the rents went back to the local
communities and little attention was paid to developing the
area or to diversifying the local economy. The community
never participated in the decisions that most affected it. Its
members seldom had any alternatives to the mine
and have seen the state as obliged to give them employ-
ment. The very high quality of the deposit took away

the need of the parastatal management to innovate and
increase the productivity of the operation. The Almadén
deposit is the largest, richest mercury deposit known to
exist. It contained over 30 percent of the world's known
reserves of mercury and its grade has been six times
the global average of mercury mines. Since
management's main concern has always been to
maximize production, the productivity and
profi tability of the operation were
never made priorities.

Source:
World Bank 2002