Por: Jorge Luis Vargas Olarte, gerente general, Varmin.

Abstract

Social conflicts and protests against mining in our country are mainly due to the lack of order in the development of our activities because the population and our leaders have not established a "vision of the future" for our country, therefore, there is a lack of a Long Term Development Plan to promote social and economic growth, especially in the most disadvantaged sectors of the rural population.

To this end, we believe that mining should be incorporated as a relevant sector in the process of territorial planning and decentralization, and also as a key factor in the "Long Term National Development Plan".

Given this context, it is necessary to remember that the country's decentralization process, due to the shortcomings in its implementation, the lack of capacity of public managers and the scarce citizen participation, has not met the objectives set. 

However, Peru's economic growth over the last 20 years has improved the income and quality of life of the coastal population. The poverty rate in cities dropped significantly from 59% (2004) to 20% in 2019, but not in rural areas. This inequality, a result of the current growth pattern, has privileged the coast and continues to marginalize the economy of the highlands and the Amazon jungle. 

The centralism of Metropolitan Lima, which concentrates the main centers of finance and commercialization, health and education, hinders the development of rural areas and does not allow for the democratization of growth under equal conditions, which is the origin or main reason for the national protests. Promote decentralization with taxation and tax distribution of 100% for each region where production centers are located, establishing offices, tax domicile, real domicile, with health and education services for everyone: employees, workers, and families of the top management of each company, in locations close to the sites, should generate shared prosperous conditions of coexistence in harmony with the surrounding communities and populations.

Transforming a society as centralist as Peru's requires sustained changes in the economic, political, institutional and cultural structure. In this sense, the macro-regional and national development vision must be carried forward as a State policy.

To achieve this purpose, a development model for the management of the "Mining of the Future" is proposed, applied to the mineralized deposits located in the central-south macro-region (Ica, Huancavelica, Ayacucho, Apurímac, Cusco and Ucayali), a proposal prepared under the guidelines of project management for good governance, aligned with the vision of the country's development, set forth in the National Agreement - "Peru's Vision for 2050". Mining, gas and oil sites have been considered for this purpose because of their location and the need for multiple local and regional services, as well as the financial resources available to the sector, which should lead the decentralization process and the creation of macro-regions (see Figure 1).