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Presentations >> Mining and Sustainable Development: An Introduction MINING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELPOMENT: AN INTRODUCTION
Sustainable Development and Mineral Resources - An Introduction: D. Shields, USDA Forest Service, Ft. Collins, CO Mineral resources are extracted because the sale generates wealth use provides a stream of benefits. However, the intrinsic characteristics, such as durability, can make them not only useful, but also problematic. Mineral extraction, processing use and disposal can entail environmental and social costs. Thus, a dynamic tension exists between demand for minerals and demand for control or mitigation of the negative impacts of mineral development, use and disposal. Sustainable development offers a framework within which to examine the question of to fulfill these two objectives. This paper introduces sustainability concepts, as applied to minerals and mining. Mining, Minerals and sustainable Development - A Review of the Global Activities and Outcomes: L. Danielson, Sausalito, CA. The Mining Minerals and Sustainable Develpoment project is the largest effort yet undertaken to survey the entire range of sustainanble development issues affecting the minerals sector on a global level. The work of this two-year project of consultation and research is summarized in the project report, Breaking New Ground, and accompanying compact disk. Major results of the project include clearer definition of the issues at the global and the broad regional level, an assessment of how different sectors see these issues, and proposals for ways forward to an increased contribution of the mining and minerals sectors to sutainable development. Mining Minerals and Sustainable Development North America: An overview of Activities and Results: R. Hodge, Mont Joli, PQ, Canada Through its 18-month existence, MMSD North America set out to generate a strategy for change-- a blue print that would provide specific suggestions for action to ensure that the contribution of mining and minerals to society's transition to sustainable develpoment was the greatest possible. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the program, outputs, and major conclusions of MMSD North America. National Level Indicators to Measure the Contributions of Mineral and Energy Systems to Sustainable Development in the USA. D. Shields, USDA Forest Service, Ft. Collins, CO; L.Wagner, US Geological Survey, Denver, Co; and D. van Zyl, Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV The Sustainable Minerals Roundtable (SMR) was established in 1999 to develop a set of national level indicators to measure the contribution of mineral and energy systems throught sustainable development in the US. Since then over 15 meetings have been held in many regions of the US to receive input from multiple communities of interest the USDA Forest Service, the US Geological Survey and Univ. of Nevada-Reno co-chair the SMR. Indicators are organized under four criteria: legal and institutional, productive capacity, environmental impacts, and socio-economic. This paper will review the process followed by the SMR and present policy indicators. The Minerals and Metals Indicators (MMI) Initiative: Measuring the Contribution of Canada's Mineral and Metal Sector to Sustainable Development: W. Ripmeester, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada Natural Resources Canada has the federal government lead in the multi-stake-holder Minerals and Mines Indicators (MMI) Initiative. The aim of MMI is to increase the capacity for integrated decision making and instrument choice by stake-holders, leading to improved performance and enhanced contributions to Canadian quality of life. MMI will accomplish this through development of: 1) a framework that relates national scale indicators of sustainable development that portray, over time, the "collective national status" of progress towards achievement of SD-related goals in Canada's minerals and mining sector. Building Capacity to Understand and Implement sustainable Development Concepts in the Mining Industry: D.Van Zyl, Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV Sustainable development as a concept is broadly accepted and has been embraced by many mining companies. However, widespread implementation at operations is still lagging. Such implementation only takes place when there is a clear understanding of the concepts and how they are to be implemented. This paper will explore ways that such capacity can be developed in the industry. It is clear that many activities of mining companies already contribute to sustainable develpoment; however, some changes in approach could result in much more powerful outcomes. An understanding of the concepts of sustainability, combined with the support of upper management, will enable personnel at all levels to contribute to sustainable development. |
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