- This March 1 and 2 in Argentina, new conditions will be defined for the Standard that governs the largest international initiative for the transparency of oil, mining and other extractive industry activities.
- Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and more than 50 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania are part of the EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative).
Lima, February 28, 2023.– Oil spills, water contamination and socio-environmental conflicts related to extractive activities are situations that affect thousands of residents; Regarding the latter, the Ombudsman of Peru has reported that «socio-environmental cases continue to be the ones with the highest number (64.4%).
Situations like this cause great concern to improve the standards of transparency of environmental and social information on the impacts of oil, gas and mining activities in the international EITI initiative; evaluation that will be carried out on March 1 and 2 in Buenos Aires.
In this regard, Vanessa Cueto, vice president of the Peruvian civil association DAR and representative of civil society of EITI Peru, stresses: «we believe that it is necessary that all requirement 6.4 of the EITI Standard be mandatory, thereby establishing that implementing countries must disclose information on the management and monitoring of the socio-environmental impact, the energy transition of the extractive industries, the quality of water and air, and even the impacts on people’s health”.
In this way, it is requested that it be mandatory, and not optional, to make available to the public the information at the project level of all environmental and social evaluations and monitoring, which shows the real impact of extractive activity on ecosystems and communities. .
Also, release information on all environmental licenses and authorizations, broken down by company and project, including how the authorities monitor environmental and social commitments; on energy transition commitments, including carbon prices and taxes, disclosure of subsidies, reserves, break-even/closing prices or energy transition scenario planning; and on prior consultation agreements.
This reality is not alien to Argentina, where the recent boom in mining activity, especially lithium mining, makes it particularly necessary to strengthen the transparency of the extractive industries.
On this point, Nina Sibilla, Democracy Coordinator of the organization Argentina Fundación para el Desarrollo de Políticas Sustentables (FUNDEPS), highlights: «Hence the importance of the implementation of the EITI standard for Argentina, not only at the national level but also at the subnational level, through the adapted implementation requested by the Argentine Government”.
«Faced with this situation, from Fundeps we consider it necessary for the EITI Board to approve the obligation for Member States and companies to make information on energy transition transparent as part of the EITI Standard,» emphasizes Sibilla.
+100 voices for transparency
Peru is not the only country that has raised its voice for this initiative to increase the levels of transparency that it demands from its members. Recently, more than 100 organizations from the American continent emphasized this request through a formal communication to EITI Board members
Said letter was signed by countries such as Guyana, where civil society also supports the call for Requirement 6.4 of the EITI Standard to be mandatory. In this regard, Vanda Radzik, as part of the EITI Guyana MSG-Civic civil society representatives, highlights that “extractive companies must provide full cost accounting of natural capital depletion in EITI reports. This problem must be defined as the uncompensated extraction of non-renewable and threatened resources and registered as an ecological debt”.
“In Guyana, this weakness ends up being a major incentive for the destruction of forests and rivers by the mining sector and the widespread violations associated with oil extraction. All businesses operating in urban, rural and inland communities must be held accountable.»
Likewise, also in countries like the Philippines, the request for greater environmental transparency in mining operations has been reiterated and that the responsibility of companies in this sector to comply with the EITI requirements be maintained. This is mentioned in one Philippine government communication to EITI Senior Management.
On this, Chad Llanos, civil society representative of the EITI Philippines, maintains that “The EITI is intended to reduce inequalities and guarantee sustainable development through a fair distribution of income from extractive industries. While this is very important, a glaring data gap is seen within the context of climate change and its adverse impacts on communities around extractive industries.”
The request for greater environmental transparency in extractive activities is a postponed, necessary and urgent claim because the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have suffered serious effects, such as the spill of more than 11,000 barrels of oil that occurred in the Peruvian sea last year. at the La Pampilla Refinery, operated by the Repsol company, where civil society and local populations denounced the lack of transparency, and even the company was fined. Therefore, to care for water resources, Amazon forests and fragile ecosystems, environmental transparency cannot be optional.