El medio ambiente en la minería

EL MEDIO AMBIENTE EN LA MINERIA 50 in opening world markets and encouraging cooperative, disciplined trade policy-making has won broad popular support from consumers and producers alike. For developing countries in particular, trade provides an economic Iifeline. Secure market accesss abroad is far more important to their develop– ment prospects than reliance upon uncertain aid floM. Their membership in GATI provides the legal guarantees that the lifeline wiU not be cut by dis– crimination or protectionism from their trading partners. Trade is a valuable ally for a11 countries in efforts to protect the environment. It helps generate the income that is needed to pay thecost involvcd and it heJps allocate resourccs around the world more efficiently. The principal obstacles prevcnting it from making a greater contribution at present are the- delay in concludingthe UruguayRound negotiations and failure in some areas to assign proper values to environmental resources. Removing the first is GATI's responsibility and immediate priority. Dealing with the second is, tó a large extent, a task for environmentaJ policy and domestic resource management, not for trade policy. Much of the recent confusion over linking trade with the environment in an antagonistic relationship has occurred because of poor understanding of the proper role that trade policies can play. This has becn reflected in claims that the GATI somehow prevents govcmments from implementing sensible policies to protect domestic or intemational environmental resources. Reducing trade restrictions and distortions encourage us to use resourcesmore efficiently. That goes Cor environmental resources as much as for any others, but the meaning of the term ttefficient" needs to be made clear in tbis cantext: it refers to the powerfulrole that prices play in the market economy. There are situations in aIl countnes where governments intervene and set prices to capture social rather than purely economic values, and allocate resources accordingly. The rationale is often to deal with situations involving the poorest scctions of society, or with long-term planning when the market does not discount back to the present effectively, or with common resources where no market operates at aIl. AH three can be relevant in the case of environmental resources. One of the keys to long-term environmental protection and sustainabJe development lies in pricing resources properly, so lhat markets can carry out their function and serve environmental policy~makers as well as they serve tbeir economic counterparts. Pollution taxes, production and consumption controls, and technical regula– tions and standards are typical oC measures employed nationally lo try to get the "prices" oC environmental resources right. The GATI is a flexible instru– ment, and when policies such as these affeet imports as well as domestic