News:
Project Prepares for Public Consultation

MMSD Cycle of 23 Global Workshops Completed

In Brief

Heads Up For... Draft Report Consultation Activities

For a printable version of the MMSD news bulletin, click here.

News:

Project Prepares for Public Consultation

Consultation Draft Report Available In March

On 4 March 2002, subject to the review of the Project's Assurance Group, MMSD will reach one of its major landmarks - the start of the process of public comment and consultation on its Draft Report. MMSD will implement a system to facilitate access to and comment on this Draft, which will be modified in light of the comments received. (The Final Report will be available in May 2002.)

The Consultation Draft will present, in preliminary form, the principal conclusions of MMSD's process of consultation and research, spanning the last 21 months. The Draft will describe the minerals sector and its relationship with concepts of sustainable development, and propose an Agenda For Action for immediate and future actions.

A number of activities are being planned to obtain the highest possible level of input. Regional consultation events will be carried out in conjunction with the Project's Regional Partners in March and April 2002. In bringing the first set of conclusions to the regional level, these fora will ensure that regional concerns and perspectives are adequately reflected in the global Report.

Top of Page

In addition, Project staff will organise and participate in a number of international events seeking additional views on this first set of findings. Some of these events are described in this issue of the MMSD News Bulletin below. A tentative schedule for MMSD participation in a number of these events is as follows:

Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, Toronto, March 10-13
World Mines Ministers Forum, Toronto, March 13-15
North American Regional Forum, Reno, Nevada, March 18-20
Australian Regional Forum, location to be announced, March 19-20
Prep Com III for World Summit on Sustainable Development,
New York, March 25 - April 5
South American Regional Forum, Lima (tbc), April 1-3
Southern African Regional Forum, location and dates to be announced.

NB: Please check the MMSD website regularly for confirmed dates and venues. More information on these events will be posted shortly.

What you can do: if there are events during the Draft Report consultation period which you believe would be appropriate for getting response to the MMSD report and conclusions, contact mmsd@iied.org.

MMSD has designed a rigorous process for review of all comments and criticisms to ensure that all ideas received are given proper consideration. This will include a response system to log all entries in a 'comments repository', from which they can be referenced to the most appropriate part of the report. All comments received will be posted on the Project's website on a weekly basis and will not be attributed unless specifically requested. Acknowledgement of receipt will be provided to all individuals and organisations that contact MMSD, and all comments given to the Project Assurance Group for their review.

Top of Page

In addition, all comments received will be assembled into a separate document that will be available when the Final Project Report is published. As a reminder, MMSD will continue to abide by its Principles of Engagement throughout its Draft Report consultation process.

The Draft Report will be disseminated to many of the key individuals and organisations that have participated in MMSD activities, as well as many others in the mining and minerals sector who have not been part of the MMSD process. As a second step, the Project will endeavour to achieve the broadest possible distribution of its Consultation Draft. MMSD hopes to disseminate it beyond the individuals and organisations already identified and is requesting suggestions of other parties who might be interested in commenting and participating in consultation activities.

What you can do: to request a copy of MMSD's Consultation Draft Report be sent to you or another individual or organisation, write to mmsd@iied.org and specify whether you would prefer an electronic version or a hard copy.

MMSD's Consultation Draft Report is currently being reviewed by the Project's Assurance Group prior to their seventh meeting, which is scheduled to take place in London on 18-19 February.

MMSD Cycle of 23 Global Workshops Completed

MMSD's workshop on Indigenous Peoples' Relationships with the Mining Sector ended last week in Perth, Western Australia. The meeting was attended by 67 participants, including indigenous people and individuals from community organisations, governments, companies, universities, research institutions and consultancy firms. This meeting follows up on the discussions held in Quito, Ecuador on 27-28 September 2001. (See article in News Bulletin No. 17.)

This event was characterised by a great commitment to, and understanding of, the issues concerned, as well as a high degree of openness. The perspectives at the workshop included those of indigenous individuals from various parts of Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Indonesia, Panama, Papua New Guinea and Peru. Other non-indigenous representatives also contributed experiences from other parts of the world - including Kyrgyzstan, the USA and Zambia - where indigenous and tribal peoples have significant interactions with the mining sector.

The outcomes of this workshop will be prepared in time to inform MMSD's Consultation Draft Report. A full report on this workshop will be available in the next issue of the MMSD News Bulletin.

For more on MMSD's activities regarding indigenous peoples' issues, visit our Indigenous Peoples page.

This workshop and the January Finance Dialogue bring to a conclusion the 23 workshops and experts' meetings which have been organised by the Project's London-based Work Group to identify issues and develop information for the MMSD Report. Over 700 people from a wide variety of backgrounds have attended these workshops.

Top of Page

In addition, there have been other regional workshops and similar consultation meetings organised by MMSD's regional partner organisations in South America, Southern Africa, North America, and Australia, and by national research teams in some other countries.

The proceedings of many of these workshops are already on the project website and can be found through our Workshop Reports page. Proceedings of the other meetings are in preparation or in the process of review by participants. We intend to have all of these available by the start of the public consultation period on 4 March 2002.

The final MMSD workshop on 'Finance, Mining & Sustainability', hosted jointly with UNEP and the World Bank, was convened in Paris on 14-15 January 2002. It explored the role of financial institutions in funding mining and minerals projects and was based around a number of key themes: sustainability performance in mining and its relationship to traditional concerns of risk and return on investment; understanding, measuring and ensuring the performance of sustainability in mining; reputational issues and stakeholder perspectives; moving ahead - what the finance sector needs from the mining industry; and framing a plan of action - effective sustainability reporting which meets the needs of the financial community.

The workshop utilised plenary and break-out sessions to achieve a balance between the different stakeholder groups present, which included financial institutions, export credit agencies, government, labour, the mining industry and non-government organisations. In terms of future progress, the workshop posed three questions to participants: What do you see as the most important conclusion that should be followed up? What follow-up action do you intend to take as a result of this meeting? And, what role could MMSD, UNEP and the World Bank play in the follow-up?

A number of the presentations from the Paris conference are available on the Global Finance Dialogue page of MMSD's website. The report from this meeting will soon be finalised and also posted on this page.

In Brief

Regional Draft Reports
Two Regional Draft Reports prepared by MMSD Regional Partners are now available for comment. For the MMSD Australia Draft Report see http://www.ameef.com.au/, and for the MMSD South America Draft Report see http://www.mmsd-la.org/. MMSD's Regional Processes will be holding a number of their own multistakeholder events to debate the Regional Draft Reports in the coming weeks.

MMSD Attends World Economic Forum
At the recent World Economic Forum in New York, MMSD was involved in the Governors Meeting for the Mining and Metals Industry on 3-4 February 2002. MMSD led a discussion on 'How Can We Anticipate Environmental and Social Costs over Long Periods of Time in Light of Changing Law and Values.'

Speaking about how decisions taken in the past have consequences today, Project Director Luke Danielson emphasised the contrast between activities that temporarily degrade environmental quality and those where the impact continues after the industrial activity closes: the focus of concern should be on those 'long-term' or 'irreversible' impacts that result in reductions of natural or human capital. He added that industry would continue to be looked to for funding remediation of legacy sites so long as there is no other clear mechanism for getting them stabilised.

OECD Global Forum on International Investment
MMSD participated in the OECD Conference on Foreign Direct Investment and the Environment, subtitled 'Lessons to be Learned from the Mining Sector,' which was being held last week (7-8 February 2002) in Paris. For further information, see http://www.oecd.org.

Heads Up For... Draft Report Consultation Activities

World Mines Ministers Forum
MMSD is part of the Organizing Committee of the World Mines Ministers Forum (WMMF) scheduled for March 2002. The Project will chair a half-day panel during the Forum which runs from 13-15 March in Toronto. MMSD's session will be on the afternoon of 14 March, under the title 'Governance Issues and Mining.' This meeting will provide an opportunity for attendees to comment on, debate, and contribute to MMSD's Consultation Draft.

Other panels at the forum include those being organised around the themes of 'Mining And People,' 'Creating a Positive Investment Climate' and 'The Role of Geoscience in Creating Investment.' Among those joining MMSD on the Organizing Committee are the World Bank, UNEP, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Natural Resources Canada.

See http://www.wmmf.org for further information.

Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC)
MMSD has found it much easier to engage with and explore the concerns of large minerals companies than with the 'juniors' who are also a vital part of the sector, particularly in exploration. In part, this is because junior companies find it much harder to spare the personnel to attend meetings or workshops.

The Project is therefore eagerly anticipating the opportunity to present its preliminary conclusions and findings on 12 March 2002 at the upcoming PDAC meeting in Toronto - a meeting that annually attracts not only a wide range of larger companies, but also a very large attendance from smaller enterprises.

See http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/conv/index.html for further information.

ICMM Members Workshop to Debate MMSD Report
The International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM) are holding a two-day Members Workshop to debate the Consultation Draft of MMSD's Report on 11-12 March 2002 in London. This workshop will provide an opportunity for ICMM's members to get involved in MMSD's review process. The workshop will include a question-and-answer session about the Consultation Draft and various group discussions. The outcomes of these debates will be provided to the ICMM Executive Work Group for their further consideration and action.

For more information about this meeting, see http://www.icme.com.

MMSD's Assurance Group will meet on 18-19 February 2002 to discuss the Consultation Draft of the Project Report before it is made available to the public in early March 2002.

MMSD's Regional Partners will meet in London on 5-6 March to discuss the integration of regional perspectives into the global Report and the possibility of future multistakeholder networks related to the minerals sector in the regions.

MMSD Publications Corner

Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining - Global and Country Reports

MMSD's activities on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) have spawned a Global Report and a number of reports from regions or countries where ASM is a major issue. These reports have now all been posted on the MMSD website, and below is a recap about one of the most fruitful areas of MMSD's research to date, which we hope will be compiled into a book-length volume to complement the work on ASM in the Final Report.

The goal of the MMSD research activity on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) was to develop an understanding of how the ASM sector can better contribute to sustainable development. The Global ASM Report, coordinated by Projekt-Consult GMbH, is a global baseline assessment on the importance and nature of artisanal and small-scale mining, drawing on 13 country and regional studies, prepared by local researchers in different areas of the world where this activity represents an important source of livelihoods. Other MMSD work, such as the country study from India, also addressses ASM in some detail.

Top of Page

The country and regional ASM studies were conducted in the main by researchers based locally in the countries or regions concerned and were based around the following research tasks:

• to characterise the current legal status of artisanal and small-scale mining in the country or region;
• to characterise the actual status, role and importance of artisanal and small-scale mining in the country or region;
• to identify and describe the range of practices in mining, processing and environmental control currently in use across the sub-sector, and any significant changes that may have occurred during the past 10 years;
• to inventory the support activities for small-scale mining that have functioned or been initiated during the past 10 years, including financing or credit schemes, producer associations, and formal technical assistance projects or training programmes;
• to develop a preliminary bibliography of published work related to small-scale mining during the past 10 years;
• to list and describe the interactions which have occurred during the past 10 years between small-scale miners and medium and large exploration and mining companies (state-owned, private foreign owned, or private domestic owned), both negative and positive;
• to record some examples which describe positive change or successful interventions in any of the various theme areas;
• to compile a list of resource people and contacts with experience or current involvement in the support, evaluation, administration or control of small-scale mining activities in the country or region being studied;
• to produce a written summary, highlighting the most important features of artisanal and small-scale mining in the country or region being studied.

On 19-20 November 2001, a workshop was held in London to give ASM researchers, small-scale miners and others a chance to review these reports. (See article in Bulletin 18.)

For more details on these studies, see the ASM page of the MMSD website.

MMSD Home | Top of Page

Copyright © 2002 IIED - All Rights Reserved