Minerals, Wealth and Progress - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 48

TABLE 1.6
The Key Elements of Sustainability

● Non-renewable resource development should not threaten the environment and the renewable resources upon which future generations depend.

Mineral wealth should be maintained from one generation to the next.

●

● Sustainable mining balances economic growth and protection of the environment through sensible trade-offs that consider all costs and benefi ts in the
decision-making process.

● It is critical to recognize that mining will affect the social structure and culture of local people and to consider these impacts as part of the decision-
making process.

● It also must be recognized that the building of local capacities does not happen overnight. Thus, the process should begin as early as possible

● Reducing, reusing, and recycling resources should be encouraged, while avoiding the waste of the resource base by ineffi cient mining techniques

● Policy and taxation decisions should consider the economic health of the mining industry.

Source:
Conservation Strategy Committee to the
Saskatchewan Round Table on Environment and
Economy, Regina, 1986.

if we are incapable or reluctant to effectively combine economic, environmental and social
goals everywhere we do business'.
In summarizing the major challenges the mining industry faces, Sir Robert Wilson, exec-
utive chairman of Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest mining company, writes in the June
2000 Mining Engineering that mining finds itself in increasing disfavour in the United
States, Canada, Europe, and many other parts of the world. He adds that industry's trad-
itional responses - to say that criticisms are ill-founded, to remind critics that they depend
on mineral products, and to engage in education, advertising and public relations cam-
paigns - have all been to little or no avail. Mining's reputation continues to deteriorate, he
concludes. Sir Robert urges the mining industry to change its dialogue with stakeholders,
especially with non-government organizations, and supports a new global mining initia-
tive to seek 'independent analysis of issues that will determine the future of mining and
that these issues are social and environmental as well as economic' ( www.geotimes.com
2006). In summary, however, on a global scale, this topic concludes that mining is a sus-
tainable activity which will continue for as long as human civilization itself.

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