Examples of coupled human and environmental systems from the extractive industry and hydropower sector interfaces

Large-scale corporate projects, particularly those in extractive industries or hydropower development, have a history from early in the twentieth century of creating negative environmental, social, and health impacts on communities proximal to their operations. In many instances, especially for hydr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2016-12, Vol.113 (51), p.14528-14535
Main Authors: Castro, Marcia C., Krieger, Gary R., Balge, Marci Z., Tanner, Marcel, Utzinger, Jürg, Whittaker, Maxine, Singer, Burton H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Africa
Animals
Benchmarking
Community-Institutional Relations
Conservation of Natural Resources
Environment
Environmental impact
Environmental law
Extraction and Processing Industry
Geography
Health Policy
Humans
Hydroelectric plants
Impact analysis
Laos
Malaria - prevention & control
Mining industry
Natural Gas
Papua New Guinea
Public Health
Religion
Renewable Energy
Sackler on Coupled Human and Environmental Systems
Social impact
Social Justice
Social Responsibility
Social Sciences
United States
Water
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Summary:Large-scale corporate projects, particularly those in extractive industries or hydropower development, have a history from early in the twentieth century of creating negative environmental, social, and health impacts on communities proximal to their operations. In many instances, especially for hydropower projects, the forced resettlement of entire communities was a feature in which local cultures and core human rights were severely impacted. These projects triggered an activist opposition that progressively expanded and became influential at both the host community level and with multilateral financial institutions. In parallel to, and spurred by, this activism, a shift occurred in 1969 with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in the United States, which required Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for certain types of industrial and infrastructure projects. Over the last four decades, there has been a global movement to develop a formal legal/regulatory EIA process for large industrial and infrastructure projects. In addition, social, health, and human rights impact assessments, with associated mitigation plans, were sequentially initiated and have increasingly influenced project design and relations among companies, host governments, and locally impacted communities. Often, beneficial community-level social, economic, and health programs have voluntarily been put in place by companies. These flagship programs can serve as benchmarks for community–corporate–government partnerships in the future. Here, we present examples of such positive phenomena and also focus attention on a myriad of challenges that still lie ahead.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1605678113