Centre for Environmental Rights – Advancing Environmental Rights in South Africa

On 21 May 2021 the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy published a draft National Mine Closure Strategy 2021 under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002.

Comments must be submitted to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy before 23 July 2021.

According to the draft document, the objectives of the strategy are:

1. “To manage the closure of mines in a demarcated area in an integrated and sustainable manner, hence ensuring that these mines work together to achieve self-sustaining ecosystem after closure:
2. To ensure that mines do not impact negatively on the livelihood of adjacent/interconnected mines in a demarcated area;
3. To promote a strategic approach to managing water at mining and mineral processing sites so that water is more efficiently managed and valued and to develop a post closure mine water strategy for an area;
4. To make provision for post-closure stewardship and socio-economic sustainability, to continue monitoring the implementation of individual and regional mine closure plans;
5. Integrate environmental management and related closure activities with socio-economic interventions and aligning these with development of a post-closure economy, by rationalising current wasteful spending on Environmental Management, Social and Labour Plan and Corporate Social Investment by reducing duplication of efforts and spending and aggregating available funding for coordinated regional projects.”