Preliminary readout of fairly specific techniques in sustainable mining:
- Economic sphere:

• maximize human well-being
• ensure efficient use of all resources, natural and otherwise, by maximizing rents
• seek to identify and internalize environmental and social costs
• maintain and enhance the conditions for viable enterprise

- Social sphere:

• ensure a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of development for all those alive today
• respect and reinforce the fundamental rights of human beings, including civil and personal security
• seek to sustain improvements over time; ensure that depletion of natural resources will not deprive future generations through replacement with other forms of capital

• promote responsible stewardship of natural resources and the environment, including remediation for past damage
• encourage free enterprise within a system of clear and fair rules and incentives
• avoid excessive concentration of power through appropriate checks and balances relevant and accurate information
• ensure accountability for decisions and actions, which are based on comprehensive and reliable analysis
• encourage cooperation in order to build trust and shared goals and values principle of subsidiarity where possible.

Note: These techniques were published in a report by the INternational Institute for Environment and Development ("Breaking New Ground: Mining, Materials, and Sustainable Development) and have been corroborated and revised by experts in the industry.  These techniques will be specified shortly.
Research done by Brendan

ECOTOURISM
 

 Ecotourism can be utilized at three main levels to help support
 environmental protection and rehabilitation in the Amazon Basin Rainforest.

•   The most widespread, easy to implament ecotourism is for the general  consumer.  That is, making standard vacation packeges that are socially  responsible, but don't reduce luxary or relaxation.  This will appeal to  the widest audience, but might not have a huge impact on the environment.  The main benifits are that increased tourism will be  benificial to the economy, areas that are being visited will not be  pristene, but will remain natural to some degree to attract the  environmentally conscious tourists, and the global level of knowledge about the rainforest and local people will increase because of the greater exposure to the world.

• The are  ideal for high school age students and younger, though they can be  attrative to older people as well.  This would be a blend between  relaxing vacation and service projects.  Two ways that this could be effective are having a stable group that leads consecutive trips with different groups to the same area, or having the visiting students work with already active community groups.  Both methods could be  sustainable.  The benifits of this type of ecotourism are that large  projects can be funded and accomplished, therefore reducing the strain  on government funding for restoration projects, and that students of a  young age can learn about the importance of the rainforest on the global  community.

• The most indepth and restricted level of ecotourism is long term  research and community work.  This would be geered towards college students and researchers.  In this setting, people would stay for  extended periods of time greater than six months and work consistantly  on a project.  The benifits of thie level are conduction of high level research that will greater expose the area to the public view,  consistant, funded work in an area or on a project, and because at this  level the participants are deeply interested in the subject and have some level of expertese, they are able to contribute to the knowledge of the region, possibly doing work with local comminities with education,  health and sustainable farming practices.

AGRICULTURE

TERRA PRETA:
Scientists have lately been working on studying and reproducing a type of rare soil found in the Amazon Basin which they have named "terra preta."  This soil, unlike most of the soils in the Amazon, yields great productivity and long-lasting fertility. Furthermore, it seems to actually be the product of previous intensive agricultural activity in the Amazon. This indicates that some kind of sustainable, intensive agriculture is possible in the Amazon.
Since there are some very specific materials that are found in terra preta but not in normal oxisoils (the soil most common to the Amazon), it is possible that a sort of package could be made of these materials that could then simply be added to oxisoils to transform them into terra preta.
Although terra preta needs to be managed carefully and can bring its own complications with it, it could also have an extremely beneficial effect on agriculture in the Amazon, both by increasing the yield per unit acre (making it necessary to deforest less land) and by increasing the amount of time for which one plot of land can be farmed (also making it necessary to deforest less land).  Also, when the plots of terra preta are finally abandoned, the terra preta can still support some sort of vegetation, so the forest can return more quickly.
source of above information: article by Charles C. Mann called "The Real Dirt on Rainforest Fertility" which was published online in Science
Magazine in 2002

AGROFORESTRY:
wide range of options which boil down to the idea that
woody or herbaceous perennials are grown on land that also
supports agricultural crops, animals, native species. If well devised, such systems have many agronomic, environmental and socioeconomic benefits for resource-poor small-scale farmers. Enhanced nutrient cycling, fixing of nitrogen, efficient distribution of water and light (multistory canopy and differnd depth of roots), conservation of soil, natural suppression of weeds (by production of allelopathic compounds by perennials) and diversification of farm products.
perennial tree crop plantations: harvest of timber or tree products +
cycling of nutrients through roots + conservation of soil + long-term investment on land (encourages more stability in the settlements) + harvest of natural products.
Agroforestry has a lot to gain from the knowlege of the indigenous people who know how to model the forest in a profitable way without hurting it. They do not make a clear distinction between wildlife and domesticated life. Rather, they model their surrounding in a integrated system which takes the best profit out of the ressources of the forest. Ecological cycles are respected by allowing for buffer zones, sufficient fallows, regeneration of the soil and weed and pest control by methods to us unknown which come from centuries of trial and error and cohabitation with the forest.
 Marion  is currently devising a plan for such a farm which could serve as an experiment and then hopefully become a model for the sustainable life of the inhabitants of the forest. Such practices are very promising but they can only work if migration to the forest is slowed down, that is if the issue of land reform is adressed. Small peasants are forced to migrate to the forest because rich landlords own the land in the south and use it as a speculative tool. The land in the south is much more fertile than the land in the forest and a large amount of it is left uncultivated. Controlling the use of land through the monitoring scheme of SIVAM could be a way to help the implementation of the agrarian reform the government has had trouble enforcing in the last ten years.

CATTLE RANCHING
Here are a few options for ranchers to improve sustainability and profit:

• Keep cattle herds at  conservative rates for the land they're on - don't overburden the land and it won't burn out as quickly.
• Rotation of land - don't let the cattle  entirely destroy the land their grazing on and move them around in a  controlled fashion fairly often.
•  Incorporate trees in pasture land - it  doesn't have a negative effect on the cattle and could even be a tiny step  back to reforestation someday.

• For transportation of industrial commodities, i.e. lumber, mineral ores, oil, agricultural products, finished products from within the rain forest over long distances towards eastern factories and ports, railroads may be better for the enviornment than roads.  When new roads are created or old roads are improved, there tends to be a period of "spontaneous colonization, logging, mining, and land speculation that is almost impossible for governments to control" (Laurence et. al., "The Future of the Brazilian Amazon." Science Magazine).  We hypothesize that this effect would be eliminated or greatly reduced if railroads were built instead of roads, because railroads are less inviting to pedestrian or vehicle traffic.
• Citing successful implementation of this method elsewhere in remote areas, i.e. Alaska, airfields at all the urbanized areas will provide adequate transport for any citizens who wish to travel.  They only take a small piece out of the jungle, and the emissions from aircraft would be less than that of all the vehicles on major highways driving back and forth.  Airplanes really are a form of mass transit, even though they are not always thought of in that light.
• Within the urban areas in the Amazon, streets and roads are a necessity, but we cannot emphasize enough how we would like to see other modes of transportation in all other areas where it is feasible.  Mass transit, like busing, in the towns and cities would be a  definite boon to the environment by reducing emissions and reducing the number of vehicles, which then reduces the need for more pavement, more vehicles, more emissions, etc.