Tribune. At the end of a long process of dialogue between the members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), one hundred and twenty-eight resolutions and recommendations relating to the protection and management of biodiversity will be definitively adopted. To date, one hundred and ten have already been validated by electronic voting. The others were discussed during the Congress, including Motion 67 on reducing the impacts of mining activity on biodiversity, adopted on Friday, September 10.
Extractive activities are in essence a source of social and environmental disturbance, a priori not very compatible with the notions of sustainability or preservation. However, setback to the implementation, still far too timid, of low-carbon energy policies, the demand for metals is growing exponentially, and particularly in the countries of the South where deposits are abundant, while the deep seabed whets the appetites of the States. and businesses.
Fair redistribution
Non-renewable mineral resources play a major economic role in eighty-one producing countries (half of the world’s population, nearly 70% of whom live in extreme poverty) and represent a quarter of the gross world product. Natural energy resources (mining and petroleum) can be an engine of growth, development and poverty reduction and their exploitation play a major economic role if countries adopt a logic of control and equitable redistribution of mining rent and manage to use these revenues to get out of too much dependence on these resources.
As part of the establishment of a new low-carbon economy, Latin America is in an excellent position to meet the demand for metals (mainly copper, iron, silver, lithium, aluminum, nickel, manganese and zinc); Africa is also positioning itself on the market through its reserves of platinum, manganese, bauxite and chromium.
On the other hand, on these two continents and beyond, vast spaces, including the territories of indigenous peoples, are disfigured by gold mining activities, legal or illegal, on a small or large scale, and in most often artisanal practices without control of mining discharges and waste, as well as by the gigantism of the extractive activity of large industries whose “good practices” are still too often cosmetic, dictated by communication objectives and generating numerous conflicts and the effects of local exclusion sometimes multiplied by ill-conceived practices of ecological compensation.
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