This week, Peru has announced two new bilateral initiatives
in its fight against illegal mining. On Monday, the Peruvian Ministry of Energy
and Mines reported
that Peru and Colombia had updated their commitments regarding the exchange of
information, norms, and the establishment of a roadmap and processes to share
experiences and cooperate jointly on illegal mining.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Energy and Mines announced
that, thanks to a new agreement signed between the MEM and its Ecuadorean
counterpart, Peru and Ecuador will establish a new relationship of cooperation
to fight illegal mining along their shared border. Although neither of these announcements is
revelatory, taken together, they indicate that Peru understands the problem of
illegal mining and the importance of fighting it in cooperation with its
neighbors.
In oil-related news, the Peruvian government just cannot
catch a break over its famous Lot 192 oil field. First, the Peruvian Congress
caved to local protestors in Loreto and replaced Pacific Stratus Energy with
state-owned oil company Petro-Perú as operator of Lot 192. Now, the National
Society for Mining, Oil, and Energy (SNMPE), the leading extractive sector
trade association in Peru, has blasted
the Peruvian government for undermining the rule of law by canceling the
contract.
The SNMPE said in a strongly-worded press release that, “In
Peru, laws should not be approved or legislated by social pressure that
undermines the Constitution and legal security at the expense of economic and
social development. (…) The political class represented by the National
Parliament has delivered a terrible message to investors that believe in Peru.”
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