CINCIA-ACIERTA: Alliance for Science and Ecosystem Recovery Quarterly Report April 1, 2022–June 30, 2022

This report describes CINCIA-ACIERTA activities and results for the period April 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022. Notable achievements during this quarter include CINCIA being asked by lawmakers to provide testimony in two congressional public hearings in the process to create a new national law on artisanal scale mining (ASM) and one government hearing on illegal artisanal scale mining in rivers. These invitations further evidence CINCIA's growing prominence as a national expert organization on the issue of ASGM and environmental solutions in degraded landscapes. CINCIA and the Ministry of Environment's Peruvian Amazonian Research Institute (IIAP) signed a Specific Agreement to develop the first mercury analysis laboratory in Loreto. This agreement paves the way for the replication of CINCIA's highly successful Mercury Science Program in Loreto, a region in the North Peruvian Amazon where illegal mining and mercury pollution is starting to grow, threatening some of the most biodiverse rainforest ecosystems in the world. CINCIA and the Regional Government of Madre de Dios worked together to produce a major public investment proposal for the restoration of ASGM degraded lands in three regions of Madre de Dios. The Public Investment Project (PIP) titled "The Recovery of Terra Firme forest ecosystems in La Pampa: districts of Inambari, Laberinto and Tambopata, Madre de Dios" emerged from the first class of a CINCIA-created Government Planner Diploma Program, developed to increase expertise in the MDD Government planner corps for securing funding for post-ASGM landscape restoration. CINCIA and the Lima-based think tank, The Group for Analysis of Development (GRADE), kicked off a major study to look at the policy barriers to landscape restoration of post-ASGM mining areas in the Peruvian Amazon. GRADE specialists traveled to MDD to start data collection and field work on what is expected to be the first study on ASGM policy barriers and solution of its kind in Latin America. CINCIA's work on ASGM continues to attract the attention of the global press with 16 media articles, and visits from film crews from NBC Nightly News and the French national media. This media coverage is a result of CINCIA's innovative outreach strategy to raise national and international awareness of the extraordinary environmental damage caused by illegal artisanal gold mining, and create support for demand-side reforms in global gold supply chains to avoid gold that drives tropical deforestation and mercury pollution in the Amazon. Challenges during this quarter included the high level of turnover of key government officials at key agencies such as the MDD Regional Directorate of Energy and Mines (DREHM-MDD) and the Ministry of Agriculture Development and Irrigation (MIDAGRI). This has required renewed efforts by CINCIA to engage with incoming appointees and staff to maintain long-standing relationships and keep efforts moving forward. Uncertainty regarding the upcoming MDD Regional and Municipal elections is increasing. With a slate of candidates that may favor the return to a more permissive stance on artisanal mining (a stance which has resulted in unprecedented environmental losses), CINCIA is building relationships with key technical government stakeholders as a mitigation strategy to hedge against future weakening of political resolve on sustainable development, regulated mining, and environmental protection within local governments. The regional and municipal election season is in full swing, with elections scheduled for October 2, 2022. Political turbulence in Peru at the national level continued, with unstable governance prevalent in both the executive and legislative branches of government. This was evidenced by the replacement of four government ministers this quarter: Ministers of Interior, Energy and Mines, Agrarian Development and Irrigation, and Transportation and Communications. National legislation efforts to create an Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Law in FY2022Q3 included several public engagement events hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Mines or Congressional subcommittees. CINCIA was formally invited to two of these events during the quarter. On June 6, 2022, CINCIA was invited to the Small-scale and Artisanal Mining Working Group meeting, where they provided input on the draft law. Major activities planned for next quarter include building out the new Joint CINCIA/IIAP Mercury Analytical Laboratory in Iquitos, and starting field sampling operations for the Loreto Mercury Baselines Study in the Nanay River watershed. CINCIA will also kick off several studies to test novel methods for restoration of post-ASGM landscapes, including the use of topsoil replacement and heavy machinery methods for acceleration of ecosystem recovery, natural regeneration as a tool for ecosystem restoration, and the role of fauna in restoring forests and wetlands in post-ASGM areas.