LUCKILY, while surfing channels, I caught an interview of a friend, Walter Brown, the president of Philex Mining, who turned an otherwise plain-jane business chat into a more interesting one stressing what their company does vis-a-vis the environment. From what I heard, and from what I know of the company from its past history, we actually have a mining company that walks the environmental talk.

One of the biggest violators of environmental concerns is usually the mining industry. Philex, per Walter Brown, builds total environmental concern into its business and operating plans. They don’t react to problems of this nature; they anticipate them and put plans into motion that either neutralize or eliminate the more negative aspects of mining. They end up with more trees than found in the original areas. Tailings ponds are built way beyond specs and, hopefully, follow what is practiced abroad by way of putting in proper safeguards to prevent both spillage and leaching. Their employees are cared for as human beings, not as chattel. Even their work with tribal and local groups is planned beforehand, knowing full well the various problems they are up against in trying to navigate these potentially treacherous areas, many of which extend into the political realm.

All in all, it was an interesting talk. Not that I expected less from the man, knowing that Walter’s basic core human virtues and spiritual values do not allow him to play the game in the cheap or tawdry manner that some others do.