Abstract
A systems study of the global mining industry exposes marginalization that manifests as mining accidents, tailings and waste mismanagement, abandoned mines, habitat degradation, economic inequality, and geopolitical instability. Profit-centric mine planning strategies hinder efforts to integrate socio-cultural and evolutionary contexts into environmental management systems. To challenge reductionist approaches in mining sciences and engineering, this presentation introduces a holistic and integral framework for mine development and risk management with leading-edge concepts in complexity science, industrial ecology, integral philosophy, anthropology, deep ecology, depth psychology, and international development. The framework explores the role of human interiority and cultural dynamics in processes for developing sustainability in mines and incentivizes the emancipation and empowerment of communities through a circular socio-economic model. This multivalent research leads to a new frontier of eco-social policies and engineering applications for tailings management and mine reclamation aesthetics and coalesces social ethics with risk management theory and practice. A uranium mining project in the Kivalliq Region in Nunavut is reviewed to identify policy gaps and engage in a discourse on alternative integral strategies for future mineral exploration and the local participation of Indigenous peoples and communities. Cross-disciplinary actions for policymaking, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and sensitivity training are counseled at corporate, provincial, federal, and international levels.