| dc.description.abstract | The conflicts between pursuing mining activities to foster economic
development and protecting the environment in which such activities take place
is a recurring dilemma for mineral reliant countries like Sierra Leone. The
concept of sustainable development was designed on the international platform
to ameliorate such dilemmas. The concept functions as an arbiter to reconcile
biases between developmental goals and environmental objectives, by
advocating an integration of one in the other. This study presents sustainable
development as valuable recipe, by which mining ventures could be pursued as
an economic imperative (to meet the needs of present and future generations),
while protecting the environment and its components in the pursuit of such
developments.
The thesis begins with an introduction into mining in Sierra Leone. It illustrates
the international breeding of sustainable development in environmental
protection (as oppose to economic development), and emphasise the
importance of sustainability principles for sound legal and policy guidance at the
national level. It also establishes the applicability of the concept to mineral
resourced evelopmentsg enerally. Mineral-specificla ws and other legal controls
in Sierra Leone are then examined as a case study; their sustainability content
is ascertained and their capacity as a legal regime to direct or achieve
sustainable mining in that country is explored. Finally, aspects of
implementation of sustainable development in Sierra Leone's mining and its
domestic implications are examined.
This study shows that despite the definitional questions, sustainable
development has direct and primary relevance for environmental protection in
the economic exploitation of natural resources. It identifies a legal character in
the concept beyond legislative processes, and a flexibility in its principles that
allows for their interpretation within legal rules to enhance environmental
protection at the national level. It also illustrates the link between effective
implementation and ensuring sustainable mining. | en_US |
