Mining for Closure: Policies, practises and guidelines for sustainable mining and closure of mines

reduce impacts on local communities in terms of environmental, social and economic im- pacts of mine operations; reduce organizational exposure to contingent liabilities related to public safety and environ- mental hazards and risks; lower the risk of regulatory non-compliances; increase the degree of acceptance or reduce the resistance from key stakeholders (in particular local communities and land owners), improve access to land resources from govern- ments; improve access to capital from reputable lend- ing institutions; provide potential for reduced cost of capital and liability insurance; provide continual feedback upon the manner in which community expectations are being achieved. In general terms the pursuit of Mining for Closure should be attractive as it has been clearly shown that the manner in which a mine is planned can have major positive influences on the magnitude and duration of impacts over the life of the devel- • • • • • • • •

opment and following its closure. Further, and as the points above indicate, such approaches are the most inclusive with regards to communities and other external stakeholders. how can these issues be pro- gressed? It has been demonstrated throughout this discourse that the successful implementation of (integrated) Mining for Closure approaches is dependent upon the presence of relatively strict financial assurance tools addressing mine closure and reclamation. 101 Thus, these issues can be progressed via adoption of such measures should fulfil a number of criteria : Legislation should provide that the owner or operator is responsible for execution and com- pletion of successful reclamation activities to an appropriate and agreed technical standard. Where long-term care is involved, the opera- tor should be responsible to provide it until relieved of liability. • •

101. Note that the majority of material here is drawn from Miller (2005). His work was summarised in Section 2.3.1.

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MINING FOR CLOSURE