Buying water and water rights: Water governance within mining contexts in Peru

Milagros Sosa

Abstract

Since the 1990s the Peruvian state has been actively promoting large scale mining investments in the country. This was done by modifying legislation and creating an appropriate context for –foreign and national- investors to develop business in Peru.  Under this supportive context, Yanacocha gold mine company started operations in 1993 in the northern Andes of Peru. It constituted first large investment of the country. Yanacocha’s mining operations are located at the headwaters of main river basins and impact land and water resources by removing large amounts of land and by depleting surface and groundwater sources. These actions affected peasant canals that were fed by those water sources. Mitigation and compensation measures were  thus implemented by the mine with the state’s consent. The case argues that the establishment of large mining operations in rural areas goes accompanied with a thorough re-structuring of how water is controlled and managed and it shows how the mine becomes a crucial and necessary actor for water governance in the area, having total control over water resources.  The case revises the process of mitigation and compensation that implied -as a main solution- the provision of treated water from the mine to the communities with a tempting addition of buying and negotiating water sources, rights and infrastructure.

Keywords: Water governance, rights, mitigation, negotiation, Cajamarca, Yanacocha, Peru.

See for more information:

For more information please contact Annet van Geen or Roy Huijsmans