The extraction of minerals from the earth presents opportunities, challenges and risks to sustainable development. This sourcebook provides a comprehensive overview of policies and practices to manage mining towards sustainable development - by incorporating social and environmental sustainability considerations in policies and legal frameworks, adopting regulatory and participatory tools to protect the environment and people, enhancing fiscal benefits from mining, and increasing employment opportunities.
The sourcebook synthesizes the available knowledge and the experiences of countries – primarily from Asia and Australasia, bringing them together in a way that is relevant for national and local governments, as well as for local communities. While the sourcebook focuses on the commercial-scale mining industry, it is also relevant for other natural resource industries – oil, gas, hydropower, and commercial-scale agriculture and logging.