Mine Rehabilitation 48 June 2014 Mined land rehabilitation – is there a gap between regulatory guidance and successful relinquishment? by Vanessa Glenn, Research Officer; David Doley, Honorary Research Fellow; Corinne Unger MAusIMM, Senior Research Officer; Nic McCaffrey and Phill McKenna, Research Officers; Melina Gillespie, Senior Research Officer; Elizabeth Williams, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, The University of Queensland T he rehabilitation of land disturbed by mining is a statutory requirement in Australia. Effective rehabilitation is essential for maintaining a ‘social licence to operate’. It reduces risk for mining companies by minimising residual risk payments, reducing administrative uncertainties at closure and creating an agreed transition to post-mining landscapes. Yet our experience and research indicates that in many cases there is inadequate guidance for companies on how to develop clear rehabilitation goals, plans and monitoring systems. Without clarity on rehabilitation requirements, it is difficult for companies to be confident that their rehabilitation will be deemed ‘successful’ by regulators. Further, without effective integration into mine operation planning and costing, successful implementation of rehabilitation plans will be difficult, with end-of-mine rehabilitation challenges arising at a time when there is limited scope to alter post- mining landforms or rehabilitation objectives. This poses challenges for attaining stakeholder approval and regulatory release. Rehabilitation guidelines are tools for driving rehabilitation plans that meet the expectations of government regulators. In this article, we describe the importance of rehabilitation guidelines and planning in Australia as part of mine closure planning, with a closer look at the recently-released Queensland rehabilitation guideline (EM1122; DEHP, 2014). Although it forms a foundation for rehabilitation planning, we suggest that EM1122 does not provide enough clarity for industry or the regulator. We recommend that additional guidance be produced to support the mining industry to achieve acceptable and realistic rehabilitation outcomes. We discuss potential improvements to guidance by outlining key requirements for rehabilitation monitoring design and the importance of considering fauna in monitoring and completion criteria. Rehabilitation guidelines – mine planning and regulatory context Successful mine rehabilitation depends upon the construction of stable landforms and the revegetation or redevelopment of their surfaces to provide habitat for native fauna, opportunities for productive land uses or other agreed and sustainable purposes. As mining is a relatively short- term use of land, rehabilitation planning should be incorporated in mine development and operational planning (ANZMEC/MCA, 2000) so that eventually the operator can surrender their environmental licence, relinquish their mining lease and transfer the land use and/or ownership to a third party. In Australia, rehabilitation goals are typically agreed upon by the mining company and government regulator and form part of an environmental licence, permit or consent with enforceable compliance conditions. Usually, the proponent proposes rehabilitation objectives that are based on guidance material provided by the regulator in the form of rehabilitation or closure guidelines (Figure 1). Figure 1. Summary of the role of Queensland rehabilitation guidelines in rehabilitation planning and mine closure. * In EM1122 assessing rehabilitation failure risk is recommended but no longer required during the planning stage. Stakeholder consultation is not necessarily required during post-planning stages.