Mining for a better environment
Coal mining in Ukraine has many ef- fects on society and the environment. Te spoil dumps that disfigure the landscape are one, and an important one, because of the physical damage they cause. Decision-makers and prac- titioners need help to develop their ability to reduce the environmental and social risks linked to mine closures.
Tere is ample experience from other countries, many of them in Europe, whose coal industries have contracted sharply in recent decades, and who have had to learn to cope with shat- tered communities and poisoned environments. UNEP has published ‘Mining for Closure: Policies, Prac- tices and Guidelines for Sustainable Mining and Closure of Mines’, to help ensure mines are closed sustainably. Existing regulations also need to be periodically revised and constantly enforced if mining is to benefit society rather than threaten it.
Te Mining for Closure approach
• defines the end result for mining land and sets forth concrete ob- jectives for implementation;
• ensures that the mine closure plan is an integral part of the pro- ject life cycle;
• prepares the mine closure plan early in the process of mine de- velopment and in consultation with the regulating authority and local communities;
• explicitly includes environmen- tal, social and economic aspects in planning for mining opera- tions;
• allows for review and evolution stretching from the pre-mine planning phase, through con- struction, mining and mine clo- sure to post-mine stewardship.
As more specific items, such process- es should incorporate: • the concerns and participation of other stakeholders in reclamation objectives;
• plans for action if ownership re- verts to the state despite all efforts to ensure otherwise;
• the preservation of mine manage- ment and geological records;
• early delineation of project credi- tors’ claims on the site;
• legal considerations for ownership, both now and in the past;.
• maintenance of control over tenure if leases expire and another party wants to obtain rights to the surface or sub-surface;
• adequate capacity among regula- tory personnel;
• ongoing research and testing of re- mediation strategies and technolo- gies and integration of results in
mining for closure review pro- cesses;
• surveillance of the views and desires for involvement of lo- cal communities (in particu- lar where such parties wish to check the quality of information they are receiving – demanding a role in site-monitoring and ac- cess to information to ensure ac- countability of the operator and governments, for example);
• the maintenance of communica- tion between private and public bodies to improve closure policy and regulations;
• ongoing searches for financing measures for clean-up; disaster response; spills management and so forth, particularly for or- phaned sites, i.e. sites where le- gal owners cannot be identified or do not exist (anymore)
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