The senior staff of our Centre and the Catholic University of Salta, together with local authorities, met at the UCASAL headquarters, with the aim of exploring challenges and opportunities for safe, sustainable and inclusive mining development in the province of Salta.
SMI-ICE-Chile was represented by Doug Aitken, Executive Director, and Francisca Rivero, General Manager. UCASAL was represented by its Rector, Rodolfo Gallo Cornejo, Vice-Rector, Alejandro Patrón Costas, and Viviana Santinón, Coordinator of IDEMIS at UCASAL. Local authorities also participated in the seminar, including Martín de los Ríos, Minister of Production and Sustainable Development of Salta, and Leonardo Matías Gualpa, Director of Legal and Technical Affairs for the Secretariat of Mining and Energy of Salta. The University of Queensland was represented by Eliana Burbano and Alan Wood, from UQ International Development.
Community leaders, academics, students, public sector representatives, and mining industry professionals attended this collaborative event with the mining ecosystem of Salta province. Their objective was to gain a better understanding of the role of mining in territorial development, with an emphasis on safe, sustainable, and inclusive mining development, in line with the Mining Skills training program. SMI-ICE-Chile launched this program last month in that Argentine province as part of a transnational Australian educational initiative aimed at strengthening the development of a skilled workforce in the critical minerals sector in Chile and Argentina.
At the beginning of his presentation, Doug Aitken expressed his special gratitude to the Australian government’s Department of Education for funding this project and to IDEMIS at UCASAL—the university’s Institute for Sustainable Mining Development—as a strategic partner in the development of the Mining Skills program in Salta.
Next, the CEO of SMI-ICE-Chile spoke about the crucial role of mining in today’s society, highlighting the opportunities opening up for the mining industry in Salta. “The global energy transition,” he explained, “requires a growing demand for critical minerals, which also confronts us with the challenge of climate change and its threat of rising global temperatures. If we want to decarbonize our economies, we need to change how we produce and transport goods. (…) Transitioning to electromobility requires quadrupling the production of critical minerals, which are produced in regions like Chile and Argentina. Therefore, we must work diligently to reverse the adverse environmental impacts of mining through environmental rehabilitation and conservation programs that ensure sustainable mining development and a sustainable supply chain, both locally and globally. Mining can be an engine of sustainable development that generates social and environmental value.”
The seminar concluded with a closing session where participants worked in groups to identify these challenges and opportunities at the local level.
