Peru’s National Environmental Certification Service for Sustainable Investments (Senace) was created in response to social protests a decade ago against open-pit mining projects. The government aimed to ensure proper environmental evaluation of large development projects while providing stakeholders with sufficient information and investors with clear permitting rules. In 2012, the Peruvian Congress unanimously approved Senace’s creation, making it a unit of the Environment Ministry. Though the transfer of environmental-evaluation responsibilities to Senace was slow, Senace Executive President Alberto Barandiarán tells EcoAméricas the agency has performed successfully, even in the face of the pandemic. In the past five years it has approved 52 environmental-impact assessments (EIAs) for projects representing investments of US$21.2 billion—the bulk of it for copper mines, which have made Peru the world’s second leading copper producer behind neighboring Chile. EcoAméricas correspondent Lucien Chauvin spoke with Barandiarán recently by telephone. [Log in to read more]

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