Sustainability of Informal Artisanal Mining in the Peruvian Andean Region

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the sustainability of informal artisanal mining in the Peruvian Andean area until the year 2022. The research is basic and non-experimental in design and ex post facto in scope. The sample consisted of crime prevention statistics on socio-environmental conflict from guardianship institutions and a television program on mining. Our research procedure focused on gathering secondary information for a documentary review analysis based on past proven and disseminated facts. Informal artisanal mining is strengthened in the Peruvian Andean area due to the following influencing factors: support represented as the social license granted by communal assemblies; the flexibility of governmental management in relaxing compliance related to formalization and preventive laws regarding environmental protection; the resistance to formalization and the 50% increase in socio-environmental conflict; and the 25% increase in production costs related agricultural activities, which promotes the displacement towards mining activities. The environmental sustainability consequences are as follows: limited reconversion of agricultural land-use change in one-third of the communal territories at the headwaters of the basin, which generates the displacement of environmentally friendly economic activity, and a parallel positive action is the impossibility of modification or intervention affecting water surfaces and wetlands due to communal agreements that mining companies must respect during operation.