13: The Environment: Cost or Constraint?

Mining has a clear adverse environmental impact. There is no getting away from the reality that mines cause a major disturbance of the natural environment. There are, of course, often various mining methods available and the degree of disturbance can vary enormously, depending on which is chosen. It is also true that certain types of mine design lend themselves to rehabilitation and there are cases when rehabilitated ground may actually deliver superior environmental values to the original site. Nevertheless, meeting the world’s material needs without seriously compromising the environment is a key constraint.

Furthermore, mining is extremely disruptive to communities that live or work in proximity to the mine, processing plants, tailings dams, transportation and utility corridors, ports, power stations and so forth. Increasingly, deposits are being exploited in areas without a mining tradition which are often populated by ethnic groups that are different to, and often alienated from, those that dominate the state and national governments. These populations have often been left behind by such development as may have occurred, whether by neglect or choice. Virtually overnight, mining companies introduce extremely capital-intensive, high-tech production methods, staffed by highly qualified and well paid staff. The project is, in effect, an enclave of an advanced industrial economy. This can have devastating effects on the stability of the traditional society, the basis of its subsistence economy, health, social relationships and so forth. This therefore is the next great challenge: how can the mining industry extract the resources that the world needs without destroying indigenous societies, and indeed deliver something of sustaining value so that these societies continue to make progress during the mining period and thereafter.