Modern Mining February 2015

SUSTAINABILITY IN MINING does SA’s mining sector rate?

Damang – a large-scale open-pit gold mine in Ghana in West Africa. Projects on this scale inevitably have major environmental impacts which need to be ameliorated using the best modern practice. The owner of this mine – Gold Fields – was recently rated as the top mining company in the 2015 Sustainability Yearbook (photo: Gold Fields).

South Africa’s mining legislation. “Just focus- ing on the letter of the law can result in a lot of ticking of boxes and that’s not necessarily helpful or effective,” she argues. “We need to get concrete results on the ground and there’s certainly a case to be made for focusing on out- comes rather than the methods by which we get to those outcomes.” The goal of achieving sustainability in min- ing means that the industry needs to have a

sustainability in the industry and – on balance – can be considered a great success. Having said this, it’s not perfect – and indeed is cur- rently in the process of being amended.” South Africa’s demanding BEE and sustain- ability requirements have been criticised on the grounds that they have deterred mining investors from ploughing money into South Africa’s mining industry. Digby rejects this argument, saying that the goals of the MPRDA and Mining Charter are eminently reasonable. “South Africa has a mature, stable mining sec- tor and there are potentially excellent returns for companies who choose to mine here – but they need, at the same time, to accept their responsibilities,” she observes. “They also need to accept that mining in the developing world brings with it a different set of impera- tives from mining in First World jurisdictions and that they’re going to have to partner with communities and promote socio-economic development to a far greater extent than would be the case in, say, Canada or Australia. If they don’t acknowledge this reality, then probably we’re better off without them.” Digby stresses that it is also important for mining companies to accept the spirit of

Community participation is an essential part of the mine planning process (photo: SRK).

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February 2015  MODERN MINING  33