DOING THINGS WELL IS NOT ENOUGH
To illustrate his viewpoint, Gómez Rey turns to an example he himself recognises as “very radical”, but he argues that not all the implications of doing things well are necessarily positive. “What is needed in order to kill well? Completely end the activities and life of a person, which can be achieved in innumerable effective ways. That, however, does not make killing good,” he stresses.
As a further example, he talks of his experience of once living in a town that heightened his love of nature. “I went back five or six years later when a very large mining project was going on, and I found that a lemonade no longer cost 1,000 pesos but 3,000, and only those working in the mine could afford to pay for one. This has such a big effect on people who need to buy a cure or a drink but do not have the means, so they end up stealing. A high rate of prostitution had also resulted.”
One element could be highlighted from this mining activity, namely that it was well carried out in technical terms, but it was clear that the situation had additional impacts. “I believe that environmental protection is not simply a question of doing it well,” the expert says, repeating that someone can steal efficiently, kill efficiently...or mine efficiently, so it is necessary that this ‘well done’ mining does not alter the social situation or dynamics. “We need to minimize pressures on people and on the environment.”
THE INTRICATE DEPTHS OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
As part of his search for a middle ground, Gómez has found a key ally in the interdisciplinary approach. “This work includes all disciplines, and each discipline has a different rationale, and each different rationale impacts on the way in which legal order is seen and how each activity is carried out,” he maintains.
This reality involves an additional ingredient for the case of mining, and environmental law has certain peculiarities that set it apart from other fields of more dogmatic tradition and with more rigid and structured features. “Environmental law feeds on passions, discourse, emotions; but also on anthropology, sociology, accountants, mathematicians, economists, and so on. And all this distils into the need to create rules. Such rules must have all the logics of the world, and this makes it very pretty but also somewhat chaotic.”
“It’s not totally subjective either, but it is a little bit more friendly with the changes. It’s a law area that has to react to the untimely alterations in nature (such as the landslide caused in Mocoa, April 2017, by the the overflowing of three rivers), so for this reason it is much more dynamic. And the responsibilities involved in all these disciplines—and, in a flash, passions— make it a much more agile law.”
Returning to the book, Mining Activity in Moorlands, Wetlands, and Forest Reserves, Gómez Rey points out that current laws are in place to protect ecosystems, but legal regulations are one thing, while another thing entirely is how they translate into practice. And, here again, many things on the ground depend on the points of view of each agent involved.
“If you ask a biologist studying the interrelation between living beings in moorlands, any mining activity is going to be egregious and make for a very alarming panorama; these tend to be the visions of some organizations. But if you look at it from the point of view of the operator who has managed to extract thousands of tons of gold or coal from a 1000-foot pit, this is the best mining option around! It’s just a little bitty hole for such a tonnage! Obviously they will tell you it’s a great thing.”
The research provides the further example of the surface gravel put down, thanks to mining, on rural roads, and this is so necessary for farmworkers to transport their products and avoid intermediaries. It’s a requirement for the country, so mining does bring positive aspects. “But you have to conjugate all the variables, and this is the point we are trying to make.” Bringing three lawyers, two psychologists, and an anthropologist to agree on something is no easy task, Gómez Rey admits.
But he summarizes the objectives of environmental law in two fundamental actions: “One, make our behavior apt for the protection of natural resources and to attend to emergencies if they occur. Two. Regulate anthropocentric activities that might affect society and the environment, such as mining, the exploitation of hydrocarbons, and infrastructure.”
