ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the two intertwined themes of the book: how resource development transformed communities and how what the industry learned in the process can transform resource development. It explains the changes as experienced by the communities most affected by Minera San Cristobal (MSC), and a few of the more obvious wider impacts. The chapter looks at what residents of San Cristobal themselves had to say about the transformation experienced. It also looks at broader applications of the social licence concept to whole industries, whole economic sectors, and to government. San Cristobal is doing best at keeping the traditions alive. The problems faced by MSC drew attention to some of the broader dimensions of the concept of the social licence to operate. Conceived as stakeholder acceptance, the social licence concept overlaps in interesting ways with political science concepts like institutional legitimacy and the social contract.
