ID: 2234
Presenting Author: Oscar Hierson Benites Bonifacio
Session: 537 - Mining Across Land, Sea, and Space: Understanding and Communicating Social Impacts
Status: pending
Challenges to Achieving Effective Citizen Participation in Mining Projects in Perú
Peru is one of the world’s leading producers of copper, silver, and zinc thanks to formal mining. The contribution of this activity to exports and its share in the GDP have greatly helped maintain the country’s economic stability. However, despite its macroeconomic benefits, mining activity has been subject to various conflicts. Although most of these are linked to illegal mining, formal mining has also faced criticism, mainly related to the outcomes of environmental assessments.
The Peruvian regulatory framework requires proponents to conduct an ex-ante evaluation to determine whether the project is environmentally viable. A fundamental component of the environmental assessment is citizen participation. In mining activity, citizen participation becomes even more relevant because a large portion of projects are developed in areas inhabited by indigenous or native peoples. In this context, citizen participation functions as a mechanism for including populations historically excluded from the decision-making process. Nevertheless, implementing a citizen participation process is a complex task due to the structurally unequal historical relationship between mining activity and indigenous populations. For this reason, the analysis presented in this article addresses the challenges faced by communities and proponents in achieving effective citizen participation to combat misinformation, such as the requirements of the regulatory framework on citizen participation—which often does not align with reality—and the instrumentalization of the process.
Oscar Benites is a sociologist and a specialist in the implementation of citizen participation processes for investment projects in the mining sector.