Tool 4 – Closure Planning and Implementation

When establishing objectives and targets for closure planning the following should always be considered:

• Regulatory requirements, including national or regional action plans to implement the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
• Effective consultation with key stakeholders
• Competing interests need to be understood and reconciled
• All available information on biodiversity
• Technical limitations
• Pre-mining land uses and extent of biodiversity degradation
• Is mitigation or enhancement intended?
• Post-mining and tenure and land uses
• Integration into whole-of-lease biodiversity management
• Minimising secondary impacts
• Opportunities for biodiversity improvement

Rehabilitation and pollution prevention

• Implement good practice rehabilitation
• Look at what is achievable and do not raise false expectations with stakeholders
• Look at what other mining operations have achieved
• Consult with local volunteer projects to learn more on native vegetation
• Consider the provision of habitat or re-establishment for rare or threatened plant and fauna species
• Consider using important functional species for erosion control
• Guard against using non-native species
• Consider using compatible biodiversity with priority land use eg the production of food, medicines or cultural values