Strategic Environmental Assessment: Firm Steps Toward a Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Mining Policy

Abstract

Written by a mechanical engineer from the Fundación para el Desarrollo del Quindío, this article presents the Strategic Environmental Assessment methodology designed for the Ministry of Mines and Energy under the Mining Districts Program. The author describes the process of building the tool, based on a Sustainable Competitiveness Map and the "My Life Story with Mining" workshop. The text documents 31 workshops held in 2008, highlighting that drug trafficking and public-order conflicts were identified as more harmful than mining itself, and presents the tool's cost reduction from 300 to less than 10 million pesos.