Importance of ethical-environmental relations in mining: a sustainability approach

Abstract

Mining and sustainable development are opposed for three fundamental reasons: mineral resources are not renewable, their irrational exploitation does not guarantee their use by future generations, and the practice of mining attacks ecological systems. This article defends the idea that mining should be open to a concept of development that not only covers economic growth but also social and cultural progress as a condition for an effective and rational economy-ecology relationship in decision making. For this, the mining company needs an effective and rational management as an environmental business policy in which the application of legal-administrative norms for the execution of good mining practices is not enough. It is essential the application of knowledge, norms, values and moral principles that result in the effectiveness of good environmental practices, so it is urgent the implementation of an environmental code of ethics, of deontological character, that provides the miner with knowledge, skills and procedures in the work activity that favors the formation of individual responsibility towards nature and the social commitment of their work.