EIA, Audience and Citizen Participation

(Originally published in the blog “Grupo de Diálogo")

“EIAs AND THE CITIZEN PARTICIPATION”, UNAVOIDABLE DEBATE IN THE SECOND MEETING OF GDMDS

On April 27, it was carried out the second meeting of the year: “EIAs, AUDIENCES AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: An unavoidable review”. More than a hundred of people took part with great interest in this meeting organized by THE MINING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIALOGUE GROUP(GDMDS).

After almost ten years of uninterrupted work, the GDMDS still brings together different participants involved in the mining and sustainable development issue. In this occasion, the meeting started at 9:30 am with the participation of leaders from NGOs, mining companies, regional governments, municipalities, communities, consulting firms among others. In the section “Reports”, the local participants, who arrived from different parts of Peru, informed about the Southern Peru mining projects: The Chancas in Apurimac, Tía María in Arequipa, Anglo American Quellaveco in Ilo and Compañía Minera Volcán in Cerro de Pasco. The compensation of the mining companies operating in Huallanca district – Ancash was also mentioned.

The main subject started with Clara Garcia’s analysis, Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, who raised questions in order to facilitate the citizen participation procedures: Should we start going through the inclusive procedures at the exploration stage?, Do we need more workshops about mining projects?, Do we need to build a baseline with the participation of the civil society?, At which stage do we have to encourage the formation of participating monitoring committees and technique tables?

Gerardo Castillo from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú expressed his concern over the topic beyond the legal approaches, and emphasized the main role of the key participants specially the Government who has to guarantee the access to information as well as take it as part in a continuous process. He thinks that the Corporate Social Responsibility approach is insufficient, and it needs the Government intervention in order to guarantee the co-responsibility between company and community.

Dario Zegarra, External Affairs Manager of the Conga Project of Yanacocha shared his experience in the Conga Project (Cajamarca), where in view of the uncertainty and distrust of the local community, they decided to inform the population about the common social opportunities by pointing out that the local representatives with social legitimacy would participate in training, monitoring, and controlling activities. He said, “By building trust we build citizenship that is the way”

Julia Cuadros from CooperAcción said that the citizen participation should strength the representative democracy: „One thing is to bring the Government closer to the citizens to let them decide and other thing is to try to legitimize - through the citizen participation- decisions made a priori by the administration, giving to them a cloak of collective decisions showing the feeling of the community, but that in the practice it represents the Government feeling”. Since the auto regulation is insufficient, a stronger Government with enough resources and mechanisms to supervise the transparency of the process is required
Humberto Olaechea, from the Committee de Lucha para el Desarrollo de Arequipa (Fighting Committee for Arequipa Development), agreed that as soon as a concession is granted, the Government must start communicating the concession to all the interested parties and assigning responsibilities to the pertinent authorities. He also said that although the agreements of this meeting are important, the personal compromise to generate the required changes is needed.

Clara Garcia thanked for all the received suggestions and recommendations, and emphasized the importance of this meeting. Finally, with the objective to have a short-term proposal about the subject, it was established the working group: Participation, advisory and EIAs. The commission is integrated by Alicia Abanto from Ombudsman's Office; Ada Barrenechea from B&R Asociados; Iván Ormachea of Prodiálogo; Alonso Ortiz from Labor Ilo; Ángela Chávarri, environmental and social matter consultant; Armando de la Flor, lawyer from the PUCP; Jorge Carbonell from Río Tinto Exploraciones; Darío Zagarra from Proyecto Conga Yanacocha; Sandra Carillo and Lenny Merinno, professors from the PUCP; Anel Huaripata from CEDEPAS; Cresenciano Guzmán; Jennifer Peréz from Labor Moquegua; Humberto Olaechea from the Comité de Lucha de Arequipa and Sandro Venturo from Toronja Comunicación Integral.

Lectures and reports:

• Environmental Impact Assessment – Extension of open pit Raúl Rojas – L Plan Work Center Pasco
• EIAs – Public Audiences and CP – Humberto Olaechea
• EIAs – and Citizen Participation – Julia Cuadros
• Southern Perú en Tapairihua
• Citizen Participation and EIAs– in the Peruvian mining – (Gerardo Castillo)

More information about the Conga Project:

• Conga Project – Environmental Impact Assessment
• Conga Project – Social Impact Assessment
• Video: Conga Project – Public Audience

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