Professor A McDonald and Dr Ken Atkinson
1st April 2002 – 30th March 2003
Canadian Government Institutional Research Award
The mining industry continues to play a vital role in sustaining employment, export earnings and regional development. These benefits, however, need to be weighed against considerable environmental and community disbenefits from pollution, disposal of waste, threats to human health, loss of amenity due to noise and visual intrusion, and the social and economic challenges when mining ceases. Increased public awareness of these issues and a greater political will to tackle them, have resulted in remedial policies and actions by federal, provincial and territorial governments and by the mining companies themselves. The project will characterise these remedial strategies, evaluate their success in regulating negative impacts, and will assess their role in enhancing the environment of particular communities, and of Canadian society at large. Comparative studies will be made with policies and actions in the UK and other countries where appropriate, and an improved system of ‘best practice’ will be presented. This analysis will be coupled with the international commitment to an emergent paradigm of sustainable development, and a context of increasing globalization.