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

as mines inspectorates, national and international experts, and academic institutions in association with key stakeholders, and; conducted by industrial actors within mining and related branches. Dialogue with key stakeholders such as national and international NGOs, affected citizens, and so forth will need to be pursued. Dialogue is re- quired in order to support the conduct of all the works described above. At the current time, such work should likely be limited to a focus upon the specific tasks above. It could be formulated and coordinated by international bodies and experts in liaison with national environmental agencies and academic institutions and conducted by consortia of international experts and academic institutions in association with national academic institutions. when should these actions be taken? These items are closely related to those listed in Section 6.3, as such, implementation of such frameworks should be undertaken as soon as is practicable. Again, these are preventative measures and the costs associated with their implementation are minor in comparison to the economic, environ- mental and health related benefits they can yield. 105. Dirk van Zyl of the Mining Life-Cycle Center at the University of Nevada (personal communication: University of Nevada, 2005, 28 July) notes that lack of capacity is a major barrier to the devel- opment of a culture of “Mining for Closure” or sustainable mining practices. He calls for concrete actions that can be taken to initiate the process, and in this regards points to the actions of Peru in the early 1990s as an example. The first step taken in that country was for each mine to develop an environmental review (in essence an “impact assessment”) to identify all the steps that would have to be taken to bring it up to acceptable environmental performance. He notes that “community performance” can be added to this. In Peru, foreign consultants (US or Chilean) performed much of the initial work but they developed local contacts and associations and many opened country offices. The mines also had to set a time- table for implementing all the steps and provide a cost estimate – a process that could cover more than five years. These first steps initiated the development of capacity in Peru at all levels: mining companies, consultants and regulatory personnel. While Peru did not require closure plans as part of the environmental review, van Zyl considers it very appropriate to do so if this path is followed in SEE/TRB. He adds that another approach that may accelerate the process is to organize a series of short courses through Uni- versities – a measure that may require initial and intense building of academic capacity in this regard. Such courses could involve review the basics and then development of an environmental and closure plan – with all steps being focused on development of the culture at that level. Van Zyl stresses that capacity building of in- country consultants/engineers will be of much more benefit to developing the a culture of “Mining for Closure” than to have for- eign consultants do the majority of the work.

establishment of transboundary notification and disaster response systems linked to the parties mentioned above; establishment of monitoring programmes, and/or early warning systems for the assess- ment of ongoing chronic pollution, and for the detection of pollution events; capacity building for governmental and regu- latory actors involved, or to be involved in ac- tivities such as those listed above. who should act and who should participate? In this text, items related directly to Mining for Clo- sure and broader SEE/TRB mining related issues are addressed. The key tasks are listed first, the par- ties who should be involved second. Capacity building within institutional actors such as governmental regulatory agencies, mines inspec- torates and so forth is needed in order to support legacy management and as preparation for future mining and minerals processing activities. Such work could be formulated and coordinated by inter- national bodies and experts in liaison with national environmental agencies, and in liaison other key stakeholders. It could be conducted by consortia of international experts and academic institutions in association with national academic institutions. 105 Capacity building within industrial actors such as miners, mineral processors and their associated in- dustry bodies will be required to support manage- ment of abandoned and orphaned sites and as prep- aration for future mining and minerals processing activities. Formulation and conduct as above. • • • Mining for Closure issues Hazard and risk-related uncertainty reduction via fo- cused information collection needs to be undertaken. Such work could be formulated and coordinated by national environmental agencies in association with international and national experts, and conducted by mines inspectorates and national experts. Management of risks associated with the legacies of mining and minerals processing activities is vi- tal. Such work could be coordinated by national en- vironmental agencies and transboundary constella- tions of such agencies; formulated by bodies such Broader environment and security related issues

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MINING FOR CLOSURE