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Abstract
Despite, and because of, all the technological progress, mankind is as much as ever dependent on the steady availability of a wide range of natural resources such as air, biological resources, energy, land, minerals, and soils. The enormous and accelerating growth in the demand for these resources recorded during the 20th century is likely to further accelerate during the 21st, driven by continued demographic growth, new technologies and the desire of many as yet underdeveloped, but sometimes highly populated, countries such as Brazil, China, India and others to access the same standards of living as developed countries. Competition for resources was always a powerful driver of both conflicts and of damage to our fragile, life‐supporting environment. In a sustainable development context, humanity needs a well‐distributed economic growth while avoiding negative environmental and social impacts. Intra‐generational and inter‐generational equity are requisites, as well as the careful management of the global environment. This paper focuses on mineral resources issues, as seen from a European, a geological survey and broader sustainable development perspectives, attempting to identify domains where actions are required. There are a number of issues that will shape the future of the EU mineral resources industry, and from there the many downstream economic sectors using minerals and metals: governance, access to land, availability of the technical competences needed by the industry and its related institutions (environmental agencies, geological surveys, mining directorates and inspectorates), research and development, trends in globalization, cooperation with developing countries, environmental impacts, and security of supplies. Factual data and information are needed to better appreciate the mining sector's impact, to support decision makers in their strategic choices, to inform stakeholders, to compare mining with other economic activities and, more generally, to render the debate more objective. EuroGeoSurveys, the Association of the European Geological Surveys, calls for a European Mineral Resources and Metal Strategy. In a context of growing global competition for mineral and other natural resources, and despite their vital importance to the EU economy and to the developing world, mineral resources issues receive insufficient holistic attention in the EU‐level policy debate and policy making. This results in inconsistencies and discrepancies in the implementation of the Lisbon competitiveness strategy, the EU sustainable development policy and the EU development policy. It weakens, rather than strengthens, the competitiveness of the EU minerals industry. The Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources could be a framework for such an EU Mineral Resources Strategy.
Notes
1. website: www.iied.org/mmsd/
2. Available from: www.etm‐smr.org
3. The acronym EC will be used in the reminder of the text.
4. Without minerals from domestic basis, and in many cases from colonial empires, most of Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA (all former and/or current mining regions) would not enjoy the level of development they enjoy at present.
5. A detailed list of reporting organizations, mainly companies, is available on CorporateRegister.com, the world's largest online directory of corporate non‐financial reports.
6. For a description, information, data on small‐scale mining see the Communities and Small‐Scale Mining website and Knowledge Center: www.casmsite.org
7. USGS Minerals Information: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/
8. Eurostat trade (ComExt) and production (Prodcom) databases: http://fd.comext.Eurostat.cec.eu.int/xtweb/mainxtnet.do
9. The 2006 editions of European Mineral Statistics, with 2000–2004 data, and the 2006 edition of World Mineral Production, with 2000–2004 data are available: http://shop.bgs.ac.uk/bookshop/product.cfm?id = WMS04EUR
10. The 2006 issue with data up to 2004 is available: http://www.bmwa.gv.at/BMWA/Schwerpunkte/Energie/InfoPublikation/WeiterePublik/wmd2006.htm
11. The gate to manufacturing.
12. EU trade data organized following international nomenclatures is available from the COMEXT database on the Eurostat website: http://fd.comext.Eurostat.cec.eu.int/xtweb/
13. European Aggregates Association. Its aggregates statistics are available online: http://www.uepg.org/index.php?pid = 122
14. Moll et al. (2003) estimate that construction minerals, a statistical category almost identical to aggregates used in the text, represents 40% of the EU‐15 Direct Material Input.
15. Calculated from Eurofer (the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries) steel production and trade statistics, accessed at http://www.eurofer.org/cgi‐bin/stats_index.pl on 15/11/2006
16. The Brundtland Commission definition of Sustainable Development involves intra‐ and inter‐generational equity.
17. In constant 2000 US$.
18. For a list of companies reporting according to the well‐recognized Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines on sustainable performance see the GRI website: www.globalreporting.org
19. EU 31: EU‐25 (plus Bulgaria, Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Romania, Switzerland).
20. The definitions of these terms are available on the World Bank website: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/XTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20421402∼pagePK:64133150∼piPK:64133175∼theSitePK:
21. The Cotonou Partnership Agreement is available here: http://ec.europa.eu/comm/development/body/cotonou/index_en.htm