Miners hope to police own ranks

Mining companies are looking to create a group of companies accredited for responsible mining.

“Ideas have been brought out to set up a group of mining companies that do self-evaluation and policing ranks, so members of that group are really responsible miners. Mining companies attest to the responsibility of the other companies,” said Enrico Nera, president and chief executive officer of Carmen Copper Corp., whose environmental sustainability efforts have been awarded by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for Best Mining Forest.

When asked about the standards these companies would have to attain to be a part of the group, Nera said: “We still have to sit down and agree on what standards, whether they’re higher than the DENR standard or to maintain it at just that. The challenge here is to raise the bar and really extract the best from these mining companies. We’re looking at starting it within 2017.”

The group is said to be targeting mining companies in the Philippines, to benchmark their practices with Australian standards, “which are one of the best in the world.”

They aim to collaborate with local government units which, as their beneficiaries, may also help assess the impact of the mining communities. They would also like to work with some members of the DENR in terms of environmental regulations.

“All of these are just in the drawing board, but these are ideas that are popping up. We are learning from the experience of the past year, and we really have to step up and start policing ourselves,” said Nera.

Carmen Copper is a subsidiary of Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. /