Mining can provide an important source of jobs and income, but sometimes the biggest losers of all are isolated rural communities in the vicinity of mining projects, where too-rapid social and environmental change can tear at the fabric of tradition and daily life. Such incidents have fueled an often contentious debate about how to identify areas that should be declared off-limits to mining because of their environmental and social sensitivity. These discussions have yielded general principles, but no specific framework for highlighting environmentally and socially sensitive areas. Mining and Critical Ecosystems: Mapping the Risks represents an attempt by the World Resources Institute and partner organizations in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines to bridge this gap. It is the first study to systematically assess and map global indicators of ecosystems and communities that are vulnerable to the negative impacts of mining. It is also the first to adapt such indicators to the particular circumstances of two countries where mining plays a large role in the national economy and which face important public policy decisions regarding the future of the mining sector.