By Danilo Valladares

GUATEMALA CITY, Feb 16, 2010 (IPS) - Ecologists in Guatemala see a recent ruling by Canada's Supreme Court, which ordered Canadian mining companies to carry out rigorous environmental assessments, as a positive precedent that could help improve environmental controls over the mining industry in this Central American country.

In a case that focused on a Red Chris mining company project in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not split projects into artificially small parts in order to avoid comprehensive environmental impact studies.

In its verdict, the Court stated that under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, entire projects must be environmentally evaluated, and the government "cannot reduce the scope of the project to less than what is proposed by the proponent."

The ruling also said the Canadian government had acted unlawfully by excluding public input from its assessment of the planned Red Chris mine, which would process 30,000 metric tons of copper and gold a day in a pristine wilderness area.

The legal decision was met with applause and hope by environmental organisations in Guatemala, where two Canadian mining companies operate, because they believe it could have positive repercussions in terms of environmental safeguards and public participation in decision-making.

"The ruling exerts a kind of pressure for Canadian companies to live up to legal standards and not try to conceal the real impacts of their activities on the environment," Uriel Miranda, legal adviser to the Comisión Pastoral de Paz y Ecología (COPAE - Pastoral Commission on Peace and Ecology), told IPS. 

Read more at IPSNews.net