Mining operations with sustainable environment approach creates an opportunity for sustainable balanced social environment development of local communities.
Mining exploration in Europe countries has a long lasting history. Old mines restoration and new exploration concessions are expanding in all Euroasia states. Mining concessions for exploration are owned by foreign or domestic companies.Mining and mineral processing has played a vital part in the history and economy of the Europe economies.
Richly endowed with mineral resources such as coal, copper, chromite, lead, zinc and other base metals it boasts some of the largest deposits in Europe. Capitalizing on such mineral assets will be a priority for South & Eastern Europe in order to boost local economies and attract foreign investment.
To secure the environmental, economic and social sustainability of such new or restarted operations, the countries will need to redefine and enforce a legal framework for sustainable mining practices. Increase of transparency of environment topics in natural resources industries was low and ignored. The Reputation Risks in mining projects, which is important for investors and financial markets participants, is often being influenced by bad investors strategies toward wide circle of stakeholders ( communities, medias, NGOs)
MiningWatchSEE will monitor and report on the natural resources exploration projects and its environment impacts, primarily focused on mining industry.
While mining and natural resources exploration has historically affected its surrounding environment, advances in technology and changes in management techniques mean that many negative impacts are now avoidable.Transparency of informations, stakeholder relations and community relations enables the natural resources exploration in accordance with best world standards. Such practice was neglected in most cases in East and South Europe due to the lack of communication platforms monitoring natural resources exploration.
Increasingly, mining companies are making efforts to reduce the environmental impact of mining and minimize the footprint of their activities throughout the mining cycle, including working to restore ecosystems post-mining.
Sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The principles of sustainable development involve integrating economic activity with environmental integrity, social concerns, and effective government systems. These principles have had a growing influence on the development of environmental and social policy in recent decades, and have been adopted and promoted by a number of international organizations, including the United Nations and World Bank. Performance Standards developed by International Financial Institutions like IFC or EBRD are accepted by a number of commercial banks, the financiers and stock market actors supporting natural resources exploration. SEDAR & SEO as well as the practice of most of the commodities-financial markets oblige mining and other natural resources actors to implement the transparency with all stakeholders.
With goal to transfer the best practices and know how from developed environment monitoring institutions to South East Europe we will try to trans-pond the best available knowledge and information’s available.
Modern mining is an industry that involves the exploration for and removal of minerals from the earth, economically and with minimum damage to the environment. Mining is important because minerals are major sources of energy as well as materials such as fertilizers and steel. Mining is necessary for nations to have adequate and dependable supplies of minerals and materials to meet their economic and defense needs at acceptable environmental, energy, and economic costs. Some of the nonfuel minerals mined, such as stone, which is a nonmetallic or industrial mineral, can be used directly from the earth. Metallic minerals, which are also nonfuel minerals, conversely, are usually combined in nature with other materials as ores. These ores must be treated, generally with chemicals or heat to produce the metal of interest. Most bauxite ore, for example, is converted to aluminum oxide, which is used to make aluminum metal via heat and additives. Fuel minerals, such as coal and uranium, must also be processed using chemicals and other treatments to produce the quality of fuel desired.
There are significant differences in the mining techniques and environmental effects of mining metallic, industrial, and fuel minerals. The discussion here will mostly concentrate on metallic minerals. Mining is a global industry, and not every country has high-grade, large, exceptionally profitable mineral deposits, and the transportation infrastructure to get the mined products to market economically. Some of the factors affecting global mining are environmental regulations, fuel costs, labor costs, access to land believed to contain valuable ore, diminishing ore grades requiring the mining of more raw materials to obtain the target mineral, technology, the length of time to obtain a permit to mine, and proximity to markets, among others. The U.S. mining industry is facing increasing challenges to compete with nations that have lower labor costs—for example, less stringent environmental regulations and lower fuel costs.
