The Case:
In 2025, Peru increasingly relied on enforcement as a primary response to conflict, informality, and disruption in its mining sector. Police and military deployments, emergency declarations, and regulatory crackdowns were used to reassert control in extractive regions facing insecurity and illegal activity. While these measures often produced short-term containment, they repeatedly failed to deliver durable stability.
Where legitimacy was weak or contested, enforcement became a substitute for governance rather than a complement to it. The result was a recurring pattern: control without consent reduced symptoms but intensified underlying instability.
The Facts:
At the start of 2025, enforcement actions expanded across several mining regions, particularly in areas affected by illegal and informal extraction. States of emergency, increased security presence, and targeted operations were framed as necessary to protect formal operators, workers, and public order.
By mid-year, the limits of this approach became evident. In zones such as northern La Libertad and other mineral-producing areas, security interventions temporarily suppressed visible activity, only for conflict and illegal operations to re-emerge once deployments scaled back or shifted geographically. Informal actors adapted quickly, relocating operations or changing tactics, while communities reported heightened mistrust toward state authorities.
In the second half of the year, enforcement-heavy responses coincided with rising operational costs and uncertainty for both public authorities and private operators. Projects faced reputational damage, strained relations with local communities, and repeated disruption. Despite sustained intervention, underlying grievances—related to livelihoods, territorial control, and exclusion from formal economic pathways— remained unresolved. By December, it was clear that enforcement alone had displaced conflict rather than resolved it.
Why This Case Was Important in 2025
Peru mattered in 2025 because it challenged the assumption that stronger control necessarily delivers stability in the minerals sector. Enforcement proved effective at managing immediate risk, but ineffective at producing lasting alignment where legitimacy was absent.
The case also revealed a strategic cost. Enforcement-first responses narrowed the space for dialogue, weakened institutional credibility, and increased long-term exposure to repeated intervention. Stability achieved through force proved fragile, requiring constant reinforcement rather than building durable order.
Peru’s experience reinforced a broader lesson from 2025: without credible pathways for inclusion, formalization, and trust-building, enforcement becomes cyclical—and governance remains incomplete.