Mining job for conservationist

The mining industry has to address issues of concern such as pollution

By the BBC's Rodney Smith

In a remarkable coup, the world mining industry - frequently the target of the anti-globalisation lobby as the darkest of capitalism's black princes - has recruited a leader from the side of the great and the good.

Leading US conservationist Dr Jay D Hair has been appointed director general of the International Council on Metals & the Environment, the global mining industry association.

The ICME will shortly evolve into the International Council on Mining & Metals, the ICMM, when it will move to London under the leadership of Seattle-based Dr Hair.

Dr Hair's curriculum vitae includes a 14-year spell as president and chief executive of the US National Wildlife Federation and he is the immediate past president of the Swiss-based IUCN, the World Conservation Union.

Change

Dr Hair will be the interface between the extractive industries and civil society and government. His appointment is evidence of the extent of the change taking place in world mining.

The Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development programme - an analysis of the future of the mining industry and how it should meet the challenges it will face - has been developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a multi-industry organisation that seeks to address issues of the environment and conservation that face all industries.

Responding to an imminent MMSD report will be Dr Hair's first challenge on behalf of the mining industry.

Meanwhile, the nine leading mining companies that make up the Mining and Minerals Working Group of the WBCSD (Anglo American, BHP/Billiton, Codelco, Newmont, Noranda, Phelps Dodge, Placer Dome, Rio Tinto and WMC) have established a separate organisation, the Global Mining Initiative, specifically to bring to the debate independent analysis of the issues facing the industry.

These are significant, including access to land and resources, exploration, project development, governance and a host of related issues that they believe can be better managed in the future to ensure transition to the ultimate aim, sustainable development.

Already the GMI is working on one of the thorniest issues facing the global mining industry, the use of cyanide in gold reduction.

Danube polluted

Poisoning, often of rivers, occurs more frequently than the mining industry used to like to remember.

Last year, a tributary of the Danube in Romania was poisoned when cyanide leaked from a mine owned by the Australian miner, Esmeralda Exploration.

In the 1980s the Summitville Gold Mine in Colorado was responsible for America's worst ever case of cyanide pollution.

This is just one of the issues being addressed by the GMI, as it seeks to draw up a Cyanide Management Code that will be a model for future behaviour, and which should help to prevent accidents like these in future. International mining is coming of age.