A possible agreement between a Brazilian mining company and local communities in Ica affected by a planned mining project is worth watching. The company is Nexa Resources and it is looking to develop the underground mine of Cerro Lindo in Ica, producing zinc, copper...
Glacial melt, as we have written many times, is a major threat in the long term to availability of water along the Peruvian coast. But in the short term it provides the water required to provide for Peru’s burgeoning cash-crop agriculture. The Chavimochic irrigation...
On 6 January, five of the seven members of the newly created National Judicial Board (Junta Nacional Judicial, JNJ) were formally sworn in to take up their functions, following their election on 30 December. The other two were suspended following allegations of links...
As we went to press the Constitutional Tribunal (TC) had yet to rule on the case brought by the former president of Congress, Pedro Olaechea, to declare President Martín Vizcarra’s dissolution of Congress on 30 September unconstitutional. However, Carlos Ramos, the TC...
On 19 December, the Cohidro consortium of Sinohydro and CASA withdrew its Environmental Impact Assessment on the grounds that it was unable to respond in time to the environmental evaluation agency SENACE’s requests for scientific and technical studies listed in the...
An end of year article by Francesca García in El Comercio reviews the pending agenda for 2020 in the field of extractives and social conflict The report summarises the views of three people: Rolando Luque, associate for the prevention of social conflicts and...
The last week brought new insights into how the Peruvian political system has worked over the last few years. José Luis Sardón has been one of the seven members of the Constitutional Tribunal (TC). This is the ultimate adjudicator as to what is constitutional or not...
On 5 December, a court in Espinar published a judgement about the contamination of heavy metals and its effects on the population of this province in Cuzco. The court recognised that there had been a violation of the local communities’ right to life, health and...
Incensed by more than 50 years of oil spills across their forested territory, a meeting of Quechua leaders has voted to end cooperation with Petroperu’s staff and withdraw further permission for their entry into Quechua lands. The meeting was called on 17 December to...
BP and Petroperú last week signed six contracts by which BP will conduct pre-exploration activity in the offshore Salaverry basin in waters off the regions of La Libertad and Ancash. The pre-exploration phase will last for two years and will help establish the...
Indigenous leaders attending the climate change meeting in Madrid took to the stage to insist the “Hidrovia won’t pass”. A decision to go ahead with this final component of a controversial mega programme could come as soon as April 2020, two decades after Brazil and...
The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) has published an updated version of a manual produced in 2009 that sets out grievance procedures within the mining industry. ICMM is a private sector organisation "dedicated to a safe, fair and sustainable mining...