A restoration project on formerly mined land in Derbyshire, EnglandOur aim is to rehabilitate as much of the affected land as possible during the mine's operational life.
This generally results in a better rehabilitation outcome, reduces costs in the long run, and reduces our closure liabilities.
The Anglo American Environment Way
The Anglo American Environment Way outlines our performance standard for rehabilitation.
All of our projects and managed operations are required to:
- Conduct a risk-based evaluation of rehabilitation alternatives, including costs and maintenance requirements
- Determine, and take into consideration, the existence of any inherent risks to the rehabilitation area (eg, old mine workings, acid generating material, unstable slopes or any other potential sources of latent disturbance to the site)
- Plan and design environmental programmes and operational controls, including integrating the rehabilitation activities with the site’s biodiversity management, land stewardship practices, socio-economic management plan and mine closure plan
- Agree rehabilitation requirements with the relevant stakeholders
Objectives and targets
Our rehabilitation objectives and targets for all our operations are to:
- Keep the disturbed operational footprint to a minimum
- Where disturbance does occur apply reclamation to the site as soon as possible after the source of the disturbance is removed or completed
- Keep the loss or contamination of rehabilitation materials (e.g. backfill and soils) to a minimum
- Where possible and applicable, keep rehabilitated areas free draining
Mine closure
During 2008, Anglo American formally launched its Mine Closure Toolbox to help operations with strategic long-term mine-closure planning. The toolbox expands the focus from financial provisioning for rehabilitation and physical closure to planning for long-term sustainability taking into account socio-economic, physical and bio-physical challenges.
Find out more about mine-closure planning