The costs and benefits of large-scale mining to local communities and the evolution of the relationship between mining companies and communities is a subject that has become important in countries spanning the globe. To date, however, it is also a subject on which there has been a dearth of comprehensive research. In a context in which this relationship is changing rapidly —albeit unevenly and unsystematically —the need to develop tools that will allow the assessment of the impact of different approaches to this relationship has become paramount. To address this need, a project on large mines and the community was launched in three traditional Latin American mining countries — Bolivia, Chile, and Peru —where mining has been an important part of the economy for centuries. Given the relatively long and extensive mining history of the three countries, it is believed that these studies will provide important lessons to other countries in the region and around the globe. It was also decided to include studies from Canada and Spain so as to compare the experiences of developed and developing countries and to share lessons learned. The experience of Canada, with its well-established mining industry and involvement of aboriginal peoples that live in many of Canada's mining regions, has important parallels with the Latin American situation. The study of the Almadén mercury mine in Spain, the oldest active mine in the world, looks into a community profoundly affected for over 2,000 years by a mine that is now facing closure.
