Minerals, Wealth and Progress - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 45

developed to replace mining, once operations cease. These aspects are discussed in more
detail in Chapter Fifteen addressing community development.

Environmental View-point
From the view-point of the environment, sustainability means that environmental values
should not be lost or permanently degraded. In practice, this is achieved by rehabilitation.
In some operations, the total area can be rehabilitated to ultimately reach the same or bet-
ter environmental condition that existed prior to mining. In other cases, parts of the area
can never be restored to their preexisting condition. The walls of large open Pit mines are
the most obvious examples. In such cases, environmental compensation such as the use of
environmental offsets (see Chapter Seven) can be applied to ensure that there is no net loss
of environmental amenity.
Clearly, environmental sustainability is a complex issue, involving much more than the
rehabilitation of surface disturbance. Many aspects of the environment are involved and
need to be considered in evaluating sustainability. These include sustainability of:
●

From the view-point of the
environment, sustainability means
that environmental values should
not be lost or permanently
degraded.

community livelihoods;

●

indigenous cultures;

●

community values;

●

water resources - yields and quality;

●

air quality;

●

ecological functions;

●

biodiversity; and

●

visual amenity.

The measures used for sustaining or even enhancing these environmental components
are the 'building blocks' of environmental management as described throughout this topic.

The Three Circles of Sustainable Development

A widely held view of sustainable development is that it refers at once to economic, social,
and ecological needs ( Figure 1.14 ). According to this view there must be no single focus
(or object) of sustainability, but instead all of the economic, social, and ecological systems

FIGURE 1.14
The Three Circle of Sustainable
Development (SD)

Economic
System

For sustainable development to work
an environment of adequate govern-
ance is needed, expressed e.g. in terms
of rule of law, lack of corruption, qual-
ity of regulation and political stability.
Source:
Robinson and Tinker 1998

SD

Ecological
System

Social
System

Governance