Book review Mountain Movers: Mining, Sustainability and the Agents of Change, Daniel M. Franks. Earthscan (2015). 178 p., ISBN-13: 978- 0415711715, $53,95 (paper) Mountain Movers deals with two decades of transformations in the mining industry aimed at adopting a sustainable development agenda. The outcomes of reforms and their future prospects are presented and discussed from the perspective of an industry insider turned policy-and-knowledge broker. Using oral and written testimonials of industry initiatives, Daniel M. Franks revisits important episodes of local activism, global campaigns and the ensuing industry and government responses, and maps the evolution of some of the most far-reaching initiatives since the late 1990s. The thematic scope of this volume is ample; the five chapters of the book deal respectively with the issues of (1) rights, (2) environmental management, (3) development, (4) conflict, and (5) transparency, yet it remains accessible to a diverse audience and provides references to the most recent and relevant scientific literature on these topics. This book may fail to satisfy the scholar searching for fresh theoretical developments or detailed method- ological discussions; nonetheless, it remains an important contribution to the production of “relevant knowledge” about the industry. The main questions structuring the book are: how far has the industry come in the process of change? Where has change occurred and, what are the key drivers? First, change is visible in the degree of openness of important sectors of the industry towards developing and implementing a sustainability agenda. Several major players in the industry, such as core members of the International Council of Mining and Metals and International Financial Institutions like the International Financial Corporation, have taken actions to adopt a concrete sustainability agenda, but the majority of actors have not yet been “touched” by the process of change. In short, the industry as a whole is still in its infancy as it relates to institutionalizing sustainable practices as the core of its business model. Second, there is abundant evidence of the emergence of institutions designed to change attitudes and behaviors towards issues such as community consultations, revenue reporting and contractual and value-chain transparency. Franks is cautious about celebrating the accomplishments of these institutions and makes an elegant effort to challenge the widespread assumption that change is nothing more than just hot air. It is evident in this volume that perhaps one of the main achievements of reform so far has been the realization that the industry is globally connected, therefore any attempt for change must consider the positive and negative feedbacks originated in governments, international institutions, consumers, and both the natural and built environ- ments. In short, there are no short-term easy-fixes. Third, unlike other stories about the recent transformations of mining, in Mountain Movers, actors both at the margins and in the center of the industry play an important role in producing positive change. In this book, “radical activists” raise awareness about the outcomes of specific projects and the cumulative effects of mining while “corporate idealists” translate civil society and industry demands into potentially actionable beliefs and strategies. Given that this is not a linear relationship, the difficulty in producing a ‘good fit' between aspirations and practices is partially determined by how the efforts of advocacy and engagement can come together at the right time to affect not only corporate behavior but also governments and international institutions. Timing is important because conditions for change depend on windows of opportunity that seem to emerge in the convergence of multiple streams (as in John Kingdon’s model for agenda-setting), each one channeling inputs from many scales of decision-making. The role of corporate entrepreneurs in taking advantage of these opportunities from their leadership positions is key to push for transformations bringing in the inputs from advocacy to create room for new forms of engagement within the industry. Franks gives special attention to the difficulties of achieving reform within an industry dominated by an engineering culture whose “emotional judgment” gives a low priority to the impacts of mining, placing them far from the core aspect of the business. In the past two decades, long processes of dialogue propelled by activists who became industry advisors and other entrepreneurs helped garner support to constructively challenge this prevailing culture at a scale never attempted before. For example, the Global Mining Initiative sought to enforce independent auditing over the implementation of sustainable development practices. The intri- cate dynamics leading to these initiatives show that changing the engineering culture and the prevailing ideology of self-regulation requires more than just the existence of new ideas or political will. In order to produce change, policy instruments must be negotiated and implemented, and advocacy groups and practitioners must develop tools for monitoring actions in a rapidly changing context where the lack of a constituency makes government involvement highly contingent. Franks ends the book highlighting great challenges. Perhaps the principal is the need to match growing environmental and social footprints, as well as concerns of communities and governments with proactive measures that create trust among stakeholders and prove effective. Early evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies is but one element in the way forward. Much can be done by resuming initiatives to keep mining off highly threatened ecosystems and protected areas in order to preserve their integrity and the livelihoods associated with them. New organizational tools need to be put in place to build on the capacities developed within the industry in the last decade, and the professionalization of key business functions, such as http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.01.005 2214-790X/ The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2015) xxx–xxx G Model EXIS 187 No. of Pages 2 Please cite this article in press as: P. Cisneros, , Extr. Ind. Soc. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.01.005 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Extractive Industries and Society journal homepage: www.else vie r.com/locat e/e xis