Monday, July 20, 2015

Peru assembles regional alliance to combat illegal mining

On Monday, the Peruvian government announced that it had established a regional alliance with Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia to coordinate the countries’ activities in their fights against illegal mining. Peruvian High Commissioner for mining formalization, illegal mining interdictions, and environmental remediation Antonio Fernández Jerí told reporters, “As with drug trafficking, illegal mining is very large. As a result, we need to look for strategic allies, and this is what we have done. We have a technical working group with Ecuador, and with Bolivia and Colombia. We need to complete the deal with Brazil.”

As part of the terms of the alliance, the various countries are exchanging data on illegal and informal mining, and best practices regarding mining formalization and artisanal mining. Fernández explained that, despite these recent advances, the countries still have not been able to carry out large joint operations against illegal mining because “an identical normative framework” still needs to be created.


In oil related news, the Federation of Native Communities rejected the proposed extensions of Pluspetrol’s presence in the Peruvain Amazon. The Peruvian government is auctioning off the rights to operate Lot 192, which for years has been run by the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol. However, the indigenous groups of the Tigre River have accused Pluspetrol of ignoring its environmental and social responsibilities, and asserted that they would not allows Pluspetrol to operate any longer in their territories.

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