Lawyer César Ipenza, member of the Illegal Mining Observatory, participated in the event “Building INDUMIN: Challenges for the new ASM law”, where he presented proposals to improve the aforementioned bill and offered a detailed analysis of the situation of the Comprehensive Mining Formalization Registry (REINFO).
Also participating in the event were Miyanou Dufour, Partner of Estudio Hernández y Cía.; Antonio Samaniego, corporate consultant at SRK; Miguel Incháustegui, director of Social and Corporate Affairs of Pan American Silver Corp; and Cecilia Julcarima, president of the National Small-Scale Mining Society (SONAMIPE).
During his presentation, Ipenza warned that one of the main problems of REINFO is that it allows marketing without a contract. “The majority of registrations in REINFO overlap with concessions granted to third parties under the same ASM law,” he stated.
Likewise, he explained that, if there is no agreement between the miners in the process of formalization and the formal holders of the concessions, the procedure cannot be completed. “If the Peruvian State diligently applied its own rules: how many REINFO would have to be excluded?” he questioned.
Likewise, it indicated a poor outlook for this process given that only 7% of those registered in REINFO are concession holders and the remaining 93% carry out activities in third-party concessions.
“What is coming is a public debate on the mining formalization process, but in the electoral context, even stronger than what we saw in 2024 and 2025,” he added.
Proposals for the ASM Law
The specialist questioned whether the prediction of the Small and Artisanal Mining Law (ASM Law) is, in practice, a rule of formalization rather than comprehensive regulation, since it includes mining in bodies of water and a chapter on mining easements.
For this reason, he provided proposals that should be included in this project to improve it, such as, for example, differentiating between small and artisanal miners from medium or large mining and promoting the strengthening of an ordinary formalization process; an inspection of the activities and processing plants by the Central Government, with supervision of OEFA, OSINERGMIN and the competent organizations in the sector.
Furthermore, that the Ministry of Energy and Mines assume the leadership of mining formalization, with effective anti-corruption mechanisms; the existence of general obligations and auditable environmental commitments; and the creation of special zones for small and artisanal mining.
Finally, the creation of a real registry under an effective control system of gold marketers and producers, as well as gold processors or transformers; promotion of the use of clean technologies, particularly associated with the reduction and elimination of mercury use and greater control of fuels; provisions related to the crime of illegal mining; inter alia.
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