The pioneers in progressive mine rehabilitation is one of the greatest assets in departmentalizing mining stereotypes. Environmentally friendly procedures and more and more miscellaneous ecosystems are becoming the standard as companies regard local ecosystem rehabilitation as a part of the on-going mining process.

To better understand these progressive rehab techniques, here are some words from Idemitsu Australia Resources Corporate Sustainability and Environment Manager Dr. Jan Green and Parsons Brinckerhoff Team Manager, Alex Cockerill.

“There’s an increasing focus on establishing complex and diverse natural ecosystems as part of mine rehabilitation,” she says. “With progressive rehab, it takes a much shorter time after the mine closes before the original flora and fauna can take over naturally.”

Her existing project is a 6- to 7-year-old mine that will sooner or later go back to a box gum woodland with white box gum trees. She explains that one of the biggest challenges is keeping up with the mining as it happens.

A strict schedule of clearing between summer and autumn allows species, for example, to nest in the winter and raise young in the spring. Cockerill says the team salvages hollow logs and timber for the provision of supplementary fauna habitats within the rehabilitation, and collects the seeds of local species of plant from the adjoining forest for propagation in a nursery.

By means of local species, it provides them a better chance of growing for the reason that the topsoil is recreated with greater accurateness. Sequentially, local fauna, from invertebrates to birds and mammals, are attracted to familiar landscapes.

“With the progressive establishment of increasingly complex vegetation structure and diversity these ecosystems encourage more local species back onto the mine site,” Cockerill explains.

“It’s then supported by biodiversity monitoring to target measurable performance criteria throughout the life of the mine and rehab,” Dr. Green says.

Dr. Green believes progressive rehab should be the norm and there’s good reason for that.

“We are mining in a state forest and to rehabilitate progressively is part of the approval conditions,” she admits, “But progressive rehab is better in terms of the environment and community acceptance.”

Deserted mines and plateaued soil heaps are not natural and can take expanded time to renew because of erosion. But gradually rehabilitated mines have extra defiance to erosion. This is because spoil piles are benched with draining slopes and layered with mulch.

“Importantly, progressive rehabilitation limits the time the ecologically valuable topsoils are stockpiled”, Cockerill says. “Reusing these topsoils progressively will maximise the survival of soil biota and the potential natural regeneration from the forests, soil and seed bank.”

But the biggest challenge may be communication. It is difficult to fight misinformation, especially when it comes to mining and the environment explains Dr. Green. “The most important thing you can do is to engage with the local community, the regulators and interested groups to design and deliver a landscape that everyone has had the opportunity to discuss,” she says.

Even though we always say there could be such a thing as responsible mining, sadly, mining can often have distressing effects on the environment.  Mining necessitates the use of many seriously harmful chemicals such as, Mercury, Cyanide, Sulfuric acid, Arsenic, and Methyl mercury. These can have acutely dangerous effects on water.

Because these chemicals are used the whole time of mining process, consequently these chemicals will seep into the ground.  Because of the chemicals seeping underground the groundwater becomes polluted and even if pipes were used to dispose of the chemicals, the chemicals often leak from the pipes.

What is causing it to become more of a burden is that these chemicals are often disposed in close by bodies of water, thus causing water pollution.  Moreover, when this happens worse part is, when the chemicals are released into the bodies of water, it frequently results in the loss of aquatic plants and animals.  When run-off of the chemicals takes place above ground, it is harmful for nearby vegetation and plants.

Gold mining has equally devastating effects on water.  The process that is required in mining gold has negative effects on water.  River dredging is just one way which gold is mine.

River dredging is a method in which gravel and mud is suctioned from a specific part of the river.  The gold will then be sifted out of this gravel and mud then the gravel and mud will be returned to the river.

Most of the time, the gravel and mud is returned to an area of the river that they did not originally come from.  Making the natural flow of the river disturbed resulting to deaths of multiple fishes and plants in the river.

Water and land has no much of a difference when it comes to the consequences mining gives.  The process of mining alone entails a large area of land is cleared.  Mining means digging through the earth to find the minerals or substances for which they are seeking.  Worst, mining often requires large-scale deforestation.

In addition, deforestation means loss of numerous types of animals, and wildlife.  Besides deforestation, large areas of nearby vegetation must be cut and trimmed to clear a road for the mining workers to even reach the area that they are mining.

Recurrent deforestation of neighborhood areas can put the whole species at threat for becoming scarce, or shoddier, extinct.  When vegetation is not detached through the procedure of mining, it dies because of land pollution from the chemicals.  What’s more, when the chemicals soak into the soil, it makes the soil inappropriate for new plants to grow in it.  No organisms can live in the polluted soil; it will die due to the pollution.

The process of mining results in a type of liquid waste in some occasions.  Instead of being properly disposed, this liquid waste is sometimes disposed in the mining pits.

This frequently takes place in countries in which the mining policies are not as firm as other countries.  When the pit becomes overflowing with this liquid waste, it turns into a sluggish and hazardous pool of liquid.  It is hazardous because diseases normally develop in it.

by Iron Ore Rebound

Many shelved expansion plans reignited after bottoming three months ago iron ore prices bounced back. China’s vast demand for resources like iron ore which occurs only once in a century mining boom sustained Australia’s economy.

Speculations were assumed that the mining boom was over after iron ore prices
dropped to a three-year low in September. It reached for as low as or even below
$US90 a tonne.

According to commodity analyst Jonathan Barratt, who runs Barratt’s Bulletin, “I think
it was a lot of concerns obviously with what was happening in the [United] States,
concerns about the Chinese economy, concerns about more supply coming onto the
market. There was just an overall general amount of nervousness.”

With the Purchasing Managers’ Index coming in at 51.5 last month, it only proves that
China is picking up. And according to the latest survey of the Chinese manufacturing
industry by HSBC shows it is picking up. As China’s economy picks, iron ore prices
have also surged back to $US145 a tonne. Since may 2011 this has been the best
result. This shows that the industry is expanding modestly

Jonathan Barratt says the Chinese economy appears to have bottomed.

He then observed, “We’ve had a changeover in government, and the new leaders of the
Chinese Community Party have an expansionist view.”

“China believes that it’s got to expand in order to placate its people, and obviously by
expanding it requires primary imports.” He added.

He says developments in India are also driving the iron ore price.

“We’ve actually seen 93 mines actually shut. The Supreme Court of India actually shut
the mines due to the fact that they were contaminating ground water. Now that in itself

has caused a supply restriction to the market, which has certainly helped the market,”
he observed.
“Now that was a bit of a surprise, so we will probably will see a little bit more lift in the
price of iron ore.”

And over December, iron ore prices have jumped by around 25 per cent.

That has seen iron miners, kick-start mothballed operations, although miners are also
keeping a close eye on rising costs. Every company must also try to remember to
prevent scam.

Jonathan Barratt expects prices to stay high because big miners like Rio Tinto and BHP
Billiton have shelved some expansion plans.

“We found it quite incredible that a lot of the big miners actually pulled back on their
projects, where they actually shelved a lot of expansionary views, which in my mind was
very short-sighted,” he said.

“Because effectively what they’re going to do is they’re going to also cause a crimp in
supply, because they’re not going to meet market expectations and that should further
sustain prices at these levels.

“So you’re going to see the economies pick up. They’re going to demand and they’re not
going to see the supply out there to meet that demand, so prices will continue to trade
higher.”

Prevent scam in mining, this also costs money and is also as frustrating as price hikes.