Sudbury’s environmental remediation expertise is being exported to Peru
The City of Greater Sudbury and the regional government of Moquegua, two international mining centres, have signed a letter of intent of cooperation during the recent PDAC mining show in Toronto earlier this month.
According to a city news release, this alliance letter recently signed is a formal relationship builder between the Nickel City and this region of Peru with the intention that it will mutually “stimulate economic development, workforce development, battery and microchips development, research and remediation technology, and curricula transfer, helping people and businesses on both sides of the Americas thrive."
One example of this cooperation is already underway.
This first initiative involves a team of scientists and companies from Sudbury that are taking on the remediation of the Coralaque-Tambo watershed in this region of Peru, an area of two million people, dealing with water quality issues.
The “Sudbury Method,” often referred to as the city’s ongoing regreening effort, which began in the late 1970s to restore a blackened landscape caused by the mining and processing of nickel, has served as a model for jurisdictions around the globe to remediate environments damaged by mining, smelting and other heavy industrial activities.
Moquegua Governor Zenon Cuevas Pare first learned of the city’s environmental cleanup story at the 2019 PDAC conference. Through the Core Foundation Corp., the region of Moquegua has made political and academic connections with Laurentian University and Sudbury mining and innovation organizations such as CEMI/MICA, and MIRARCO.
The Core Foundation is an international matchmaking organization that facilitates makes connections between academic, industry and government to support innovation and economic growth.
Governor Cuevas signing an MOU with the Core Foundation Corporation at PDAC 2020 to create CIMERA, an international mining cluster specializing in environmental remediation between Canada and Moquegua.
In a statement, Mayor Paul Lefebvre called this alliance “an important step as we continue to foster international municipal cooperation between Greater Sudbury and Moquegua.
“With a range of interests, including mining research, education and innovation, I am confident this agreement will serve both regions. Greater Sudbury is a global leader in the mining sector, with decades-long experience in regreening and rehabilitation, and this agreement will provide new opportunities for collaboration with our Peruvian partners.”
Ricardo Torreblanca, president of Core Foundation, said: “Sudbury and Moquegua want to explore new opportunities to collaborate, to drive more growth and innovation in a period of economic change. We hope Peruvian companies will join this great effort developing in southern Peru through the UCSM- CORE Institute."
