2021: Draft National Mine Closure Strategy
On 23 July 2021 the Centre for Environmental Rights submitted written comments on the Draft National Mine Closure Strategy 2021.
The submission is available here.
In our comments, we commend and support the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) on its intention to publish the draft national mine closure strategy thereby facilitating increased certainty and best practice in ensuring consideration of all issues relating to mine closure, decommissioning and rehabilitation. We are concerned however that the Strategy’s problem statement does not acknowledge what is considered elsewhere in the strategy around how it is the communities that bear the burden of the various risks emanating from mining. We submit that this is crucial in ensuring community impacts and needs are responded to. While the draft national strategy is welcomed, we urged the DMRE to continuously ensure that regional mine closure strategies are in line with the national strategy, as far as these regional strategies are not yet developed, we urge the DMRE to consider their development to aid in the process of mine closure.