Social conflicts in Peru
Introduction.
The mining activity represents 10% of the national GDP, becoming one of the main economic activities, and in turn helped increase employment by 0.6% compared to 2018;However, according to the Ombudsman’s Office, social conflicts over socio-environmental issues represent a 67.2% of a total of 134, having the communities dissatisfied and claiming for the breach of agreements and lack of respect for the cultural and environmental environment.
Mining companies indicate that communities are being an obstacle to the development of mining activity and employment generation, while communities believe that mining companies are only generating economic development only for themselves, regardless of even environmental issuesor social.
Developing
The Government must first carry out a review and improvement of the regulation and the law of prior consultation approved in 2011 in order to cover legal “empty” that benefit only one of the parties involved. This law establishes that the mining holder who hires a specialized consulting company which will be responsible for preparing the EIA (Environmental Impact Study), but who guarantees that this company is not being pressed to carry out an EIA in favor of the mining holder, by theopposite should be the State who hires the consultant, seeking to be totally impartial and independent of one of the parties involved.
In addition, another poor point in this law is that the population involved does not have the right to be able to demand the unfeasibility of the mining project in consultation in case it goes against its development rights, because the final decision is only taken by the entitycompetent state based on the "observations" that the population can give. It is also important to mention that there is a deficiency in the negotiation stage, and in many cases, it is not even taking place, according to the Laley website.PE (2018), of 73 social conflicts in mining only two of them had dialogue, this because they are based on article 19 of the Regulation of the Law that indicates that the MEF may accept the internal evaluation act as an actprior consultation, denying communities to participate in a negotiation.
The Government is not actively supervising compliance with the agreements treated or the lifting of the observations made by the communities in the previous consultation stage. For example, the community of El Tingo in Cajamarca, had a conflict stating that the Gold Field company has not fulfilled the environmental cleaning agreement signed in a plan adopted after the province of Bambamarca was requested in emergency because 137 people had theContaminated blood of heavy metals. Another clear example is that of the community of Huancané in El Espinar – Cusco, where they demand from the mining company Glencore Antapaccay that fulfills the commitment to replace contaminated water sources and implement development projects of communities.
conclusion
We consider that mining companies and the State are not actively involving communities, or respecting the decisions and agreements adopted in the consultation stage. The Government must improve the regulation and the law of prior consultation in order to cover legal “empty” alignments in the experience of the results of these 08 years elapsed since its approval, as well as actively participating by supervising compliance with the accepted agreements or the liftingof the observations made by the communities. Finally, we want to emphasize that the main purpose of avoiding social conflicts is not to fall back into tragedies such as the one lived in Bagua with 33 dead, Conga or Aunt Maria,
Bibliographies
1. Álvarezx, a. (March 30, 2019). Management.pe.
two. Barnay, b. (July 30, 2019). Idehpucp.
3. Ombudsman. (August 2018). Ombudsman.
4. Molleda, J. C. (November 8, 2018). The law.pe.
5. Wayka. (February 7, 2019). Wayka.pe.
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