PERU: Balancing Enforcement and Stability: Peru Purges Non-Compliant Miners

On July 4, 2025, Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines announced that it had formally removed 50,565 informal miners from the country’s REINFO (Integral Registry for Mining Formalization) program. This decision leaves just over 31,500 miners still enrolled. Officials explained that most of the cancelled permits were due to four years of non-compliance, inactivity, or failure to submit required documentation such as environmental management plans. The ministry emphasized that the purge was necessary to restore credibility to the formalization process, which was initially designed to bring small-scale and artisanal miners under legal regulation and to combat illegal extraction. In practice, REINFO has been criticized for being exploited as a loophole by operators who used temporary permits to occupy concessions and evade enforcement.
The announcement immediately sparked controversy and heightened tensions in mining regions.
Representatives of informal miner associations accused the government of acting unilaterally and warned that thousands of livelihoods were now at risk. Many miners argue that slow bureaucratic processes, unclear requirements, and shifting deadlines made compliance extremely difficult. Within hours of the announcement, some groups threatened demonstrations and road blockades in critical copper corridors, demanding a pathway to re-enrollment or an “unconditional amnesty” to avoid criminalization. For formal mining companies, these protests signal a growing risk to supply chain continuity, particularly in Apurímac and Arequipa, where large copper transport routes are vulnerable to disruption.
This move underscores the profound challenge Peru faces in balancing enforcement with social stability and economic inclusion. While formalization is essential to protect the environment and ensure transparent production, the abrupt removal of tens of thousands of miners also exposes communities to sudden insecurity. The situation highlights a broader tension at the heart of Peru’s mining sector: without policies that combine rigorous oversight, efficient bureaucratic support, and credible incentives for compliance, informal mining will remain both a social and operational fault line. As the government tightens controls, maintaining community dialogue and offering viable pathways to legitimacy will be critical to sustaining trust—and Peru’s broader social license to operate in the mining sector.

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