Siddon Challenges Mining Industry to Achieve Land Use Harmony

Speaking at a recent meeting of the Mining Association as part of Mining Week in British Columbia, Siddon said the term does not mean having enough ore in sight to keep a mine going, but is more accurately “an exercise to keep living things living.”

Expanding on what he calls “an agenda for the future,” Siddon said resource developers and conservationists must work together to find a balance and determine what is sustainable in an affluent world.

“We are faced with global limits to the life support systems of this earth,” Siddon said, adding that recent changes in society’s values toward the environment represent a brand new challenge for the mining industry.

The new policy of cooperative resource planning represents a challenge for conservationists as well, Siddon pointed out. “Conservationists are idealists who must realize society cannot put the brakes on everything. While it’s important to heed their warnings and give these groups their due, we must at the same time be realists.”

Siddon said the task for the mining industry and other resource users is to convince conservationists and society of the economic benefits of development and of the need to have jobs and growth along with protection of the environment. Such dialogue will make it easier to find solutions to problems and make it impossible for people to categorize themselves as either conservationists or developers, Siddon said.

This “new attitude” appears to already at work in British Columbia where polarization between environmentalists and resource users has escalated in recent years.

Just days before Mining Week in British Columbia a public awareness campaign was kicked off in late February, Tony Petrina, president of Placer Dome Inc., addressed the issue in a meeting of the Mining Suppliers Association.

“We support the idea of recreational and wilderness parks and agree that the uniqueness and beauty of British Columbia should be preserved,” Petrina said. “Whenever possible, however, parks should be located in areas of low mineral potential.”

Noting that currently 20% of B.C. is closed to mineral exploration and mining, Petrina said that no country or province is so wealthy that it can afford to lock up its natural resources.

“The wilderness experience is important,” he said, “but so is the gainful employment which is provided by the mining industry.”

Petrina urged suppliers to lobby all levels of government on the need for a balanced land use policy that would better serve the economic and recreational goals of all citizens.

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