MARTA MIRANDA

Marta Miranda is Senior Program Officer for extractive industries in the World Wildlife Fund’s Macroeconomics for Sustainable Development Program Office (MPO). Prior to joining the MPO, Marta spent nine years at the World Resources Institute, where she conducted research on global extractive industries policies, with a national emphasis on Venezuela, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. While at WRI, she also helped establish the Venezuela chapter of Global Forest Watch, a project aimed at tracking development and change in the world's forests. Marta has edited and authored several peer-reviewed articles and books, including Mining and Critical Ecosystems: Mapping the Risks; The State of Venezuela's Forests: A Case Study of the Guayana Region; and All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Balancing Conservation and Development in Venezuela's Frontier Forests.

Originally from Portugal, Marta holds an M.A. in Geography from San Diego State University and a B.A. in Geography from the State University of New York, Geneseo. Ms. Miranda is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.

Marta was the author of Chapters 1 and 4, and also served as the overall substantive editor of the framework.

DAVID M. CHAMBERS, Ph.D.

Dr. Chambers is the president of the Center for Science in Public Participation, a non-profit corporation formed to provide technical assistance on mining and water quality to public interest groups and tribal governments.

David has 15 years of management and technical experience in the mineral exploration industry, and for the past 15 years has served as an advisor on the environmental effects of mining projects both nationally and internationally. He is a registered professional geophysicist (California # GP 972) with a Professional Engineering Degree in Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and a Masters Degree in Geophysics from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Chambers received his Ph.D. in Environmental Planning from Berkeley. His doctoral dissertation analyzed the U.S. Forest Service's efforts to plan for and manage minerals on the National Forests.

He has provided assistance to public interest groups on proposed, operating, and abandoned mines in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin, British Columbia, Labrador, Kyrgyzstan, and Northern Ireland. This assistance has often been in the form of technical reviews to assist groups in submitting comments on the environmental deficiencies of proposed mines as a part of mine permitting or Environmental Impact Statement reviews, as well as suggesting mine-development alternatives that are more environmentally sound than the developer’s proposals. Much of this assistance has focused on analyzing the potential adverse affects on surface and groundwater quality of acid mine drainage from tailings pond discharges and runoff from waste rock piles.

Dave was the author of Chapter 2: Ensuring Environmentally Responsible Mining

CATHERINE COUMANS, Ph.D.

Dr. Coumans is Research Coordinator and responsible for the Asia-Pacific Program at MiningWatch Canada. MiningWatch Canada is a non-profit organization supported by environmental, social justice, Aboriginal and labour organisations from across Canada.

As Research Coordinator, Catherine has supervised Canadian and international research projects and authored peer reviewed reports on topics such as full cost accounting for mining, revitalizing economies of mining dependent communities, and participatory health research with women in mining communities and with women mine workers. Her publications in journals and books on mining include a chapter in Moving Mountains: Communities Confront Mining and Globalization; The Case Against Submarine Tailings Disposal, in Mining Environmental Management; Research on Contested Ground: Women, Mining & Health, in Pimatisiwin; and Canadian Companies in the Philippines: Placer Dome, in Undermining the Forests.

Catherine works with regional Non-Governmental Organizations and, in most cases, directly with mining affected communities in India, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Kanaky-New Caledonia. Her work has particularly focused on indigenous peoples affected by Canadian mining companies in this region. She has provided expert testimony on mining in two congressional inquiries in the Philippines, as well as before the Constitutional Court in Indonesian.

Catherine’s academic engagement with mining’s impact on communities dates back to her Ph.D. research on the island of Marinduque in the Philippines in 1988-1990. She holds an M.Sc. (London School of Economics) and a Ph.D. (McMaster University) in Cultural Anthropology and carried out Postdoctoral research at Cornell University. She has taught at Cornell and McMaster.

Catherine is the author of Chapter 3 and its associated appendixes.