About two years ago, the mining industry and the entire world faced a crisis that hit severely the economy of many countries. This crisis lasted for a non negligible period of time during 2008 and 2009. Fortunately, many countries began its recovery and during 2010 this process started to consolidate. Now, it is expected that 2011 will be the year that will represent the definitive consolidation of economic growth for many countries in the region after facing the aforementioned world crisis. The mining industry is not an exception to this growth and it is backing it by launching large projects that consider considerable investment, which will require the optimisation of its asset management.

In order to manage current mining businesses, there are several key concepts that need to be considered. These include a social license to operate, environmental regulations, ground and water usage, power consumption, CO₂ emissions, safety and health and its direct relationship with increasingly environmentally-friendly technologies. Given the great progress of mining innovation in recent years, it has become necessary to analyse, share and discuss common problems and successful solutions regarding a wide variety of topics.

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) represents the interests of the Canadian mineral exploration and development industry. The association was established in 1932 in response to a proposed government regulation that threatened the livelihood of Ontario prospectors. A brief history of the association is available here. Today, 76 years after its founding, the association is a national organization with 6,000 individual members (including prospectors, developers, geoscientists, consultants, mining executives, and students, as well as those involved in the drilling, financial, investment, legal and other support fields) and 950 corporate members.