Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Resources Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol

A critical review of the social aspects of mine closure

⁎
Nicholas Bainton , Sarah Holcombe
Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM), The University of Queensland, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper maps out the publicly available literature on the social aspects of mine closure to identify the major
Social closure themes and gaps that inform the current knowledge base on this topic. Our broad purpose is to characterise the
Divestment social dimensions of the mine closure process. In doing so, we draw attention to the ways in which this
Resource extraction knowledge base has been produced, and the sorts of topical issues that have received the most attention across
Social performance
the literature. Our review is framed by two critical issues: the real costs of mine closure are poorly understood;
Social impacts
and significant sections of the mining industry engage in deliberate strategies to avoid mine closure or ex-
ternalise the costs of closure, and the pursuit of these strategies can cause, or greatly add to, the social costs of
mine closure. These issues are explored through a basic framework of accountability that connects notions of
procedural fairness (the administrative elements of mine closure) with ideas on social risk (the things that
mining companies are accountable for).

1. Introduction
The excitement and fanfare that surrounds the opening of a new mine is
never present when it finally closes. (Laurence, 2006: 83)
This pragmatic statement from Laurence frames a fundamental
challenge for the global mining industry: to shift from the dominant
‘front-end’ approach to mining to better account for the social, political,
and economic impacts that occur when a mine closes.1 This challenge
highlights critical questions around the conventional proposition that
resource development can form part of a larger process that contributes
to sustainable development at the local or regional level. Determining
whether these development outcomes have been achieved will require a
more complete accounting of the distribution of the costs and benefits
arising during different phases of the mine life-cycle, and in particular a
more nuanced understanding of the social aspects of mine closure.
In a broad sense, the social aspects of mine closure encompasses the
socio-economic, political, cultural and institutional impacts that arise at
the end of the project life-cycle; the planning and management pro-
cesses that are required to mitigate these impacts; and an overarching
emphasis on the post-mining future. The social impacts of closure are
often connected to the level of local dependency upon resource ex-
traction – for the economic base, infrastructure and service provision,
and governance. Or in other words, the extent to which local or regional
access to different types of capital in the non-mining economy is con-
tingent upon the operation of a mining project.
Compared with the substantial body of literature detailing the socio-
economic, cultural, and political impacts of mining, there are relatively
few publications that specifically address the social aspects of mine
closure and associated issues of planning and managing ‘the social’
domain towards the end of the project life-cycle. This same point was
made by Caroline Digby during her keynote address at the 2012 Annual
International Mine Closure Conference, when she observed that ‘even a
cursory scan of the table of contents of the proceedings over the last
seven years indicates how little attention there has been to the people
side of mine closure’ (Digby, 2012: 34). Likewise, in comparison to the
data on global mineral reserves, or the future demand for different
mineral resources (Ali et al., 2017), relatively little is known on a global
scale about the current rate of mine closures and the trajectory of
planned closures in different jurisdictions, let alone the social liabilities
that accompany these closures.2
The most recent estimate of the global mine closure liability was
published in 2002 by the World Bank. At the time, it was estimated that
at least 25 major mining operations across Africa, South America and
the Pacific would close by 2012, some of which employed close to

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: n.bainton@uq.edu.au (N. Bainton).
1
For our purposes, mine closure refers to a formal process of planning and managing the decommissioning of a mine site, mitigating impacts and legacy issues,
environmental rehabilitation, and eventual relinquishment of leases (e.g. ICMM, 2008).
2
While ‘abandoned’ or ‘deserted’ mines are not the topic of this review, abandoned mines present major financial, environmental, safety and social liabilities for
many countries (e.g. Unger, 2014, 2017).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.08.020
Received 19 July 2018; Received in revised form 26 August 2018; Accepted 31 August 2018
0301-4207/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Bainton, N., Resources Policy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.08.020
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
10,000 people (World Bank and IFC, 2002). A preliminary review of the
Australian context, for example, indicates that numerous major opera-
tions across northern Australia are slated for closure in the next two to
ten years (between 2020 and 2028).3 Several of these are iconic mines
with established local communities and townships. There are a number
of other well-known operations approaching closure across South
America, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific.4 All of these mines are situated in
complex social and economic landscapes with existing social legacies
such as economic dependency, impacts upon sustainable livelihoods,
landscape transformation, and demographic change. These legacies will
invariably influence mine closure outcomes.
Two additional points compound this situation. First, the real costs
of mine closure are poorly understood. This is true for companies and
other stakeholders including host governments. Second, significant
sections of the mining industry engage in deliberate strategies to avoid
mine closure, and the pursuit of these strategies can cause, or greatly
add to, the social costs of mine closure. Once it is acknowledged that a
large section of the industry deliberately aims to avoid absorbing the
full cost of closure, this raises a number of critical issues concerning
accountability and capability to manage the social aspects of mine
closure. We shall explore these issues through a basic accountability
framework that connects notions of procedural fairness (the adminis-
trative elements of mine closure) with ideas on social risk (the things
that mining companies are accountable for).
In light of these trends, this paper maps out the publicly available
literature on the social aspects of mine closure to identify the major
themes and gaps that inform the current knowledge base on this topic.
Our broad purpose is to characterise the social dimensions of the mine
closure process. In doing so, we draw attention to the ways in which
this knowledge base has been produced, and the sorts of topical issues
that have received the most attention across the literature. This brief
review brings together a body of literature that is diverse and often
fragmented, and provides a foundation for a longer-term research
agenda on mine closure and social performance management (see
Bainton and Holcombe, 2018; Owen and Kemp, 2018).5 In support of
the critical task of building a deeper knowledge base on this topic, this
review captures a range of materials that are illustrative of the social
aspects of mine closure as an emerging field of practice and a corre-
sponding field of enquiry.6
2. Mine closure as a social process and a governance issue
An earlier study on the social aspects of mine closure in the
Philippines highlighted that ‘mine closure is more than a managerial-
3
These include Argyle, Ranger, East Weipa, Telfer and several operations in
the Pilbara, while Century Mine now continues under a form of ‘economic re-
habilitation’.
4
Some of these include Yannacocha and Pierena (Peru), Phu Bia and Sepon
(Laos), Hidden Valley, Ok Tedi and Simberi (Papua New Guinea), Waihi (New
Zealand), and Vatakoula gold mine (Fiji), and Mintails and Richards Bay (South
Africa) to name but a few.
5
In Bainton and Holcombe (2018) we have mapped out an agenda for
priority research areas that will help to fill the knowledge gaps we identify in
this review, and support the critical task of building greater capability across
the industry (and within governments and host communities) to better under-
stand the socio-economic possibilities and limitations of mine closure.
6
We primarily draw upon literature from the late 1980s to the current time
of writing, which partly reflects the period when the social dimensions of
mining, and mine closure, started gaining more industry and scholarly atten-
tion. For instance, some of the earliest socio-economic research on mine closure
was undertaken in Canada in the early 1980s (e.g. Hegadoren and Day, 1981).
This review has been limited to publications in English, and the regional foci of
the vast majority of the research that we have located has concentrated on
Canada, the United States, South Africa, western Europe and Australia, with
Latin American research also developing as an emerging field, along with
Southeast Asia.
2
Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
technical-engineering aspect within the life-cycle of a mine. It is a social
episode in the lives of individuals, households, families, communities
and local governments’ (Chaloping-March, 2008: 864). In this way,
mine closure is perhaps best understood as both a process and a discrete
event in the life-cycle of a project. While the end of production typically
represents a significant moment in the life of a project, mine closure
encompasses more than the decommissioning of the processing plant,
or the physical rehabilitation of the mine site.
From a social perspective, the process of mine closure is an episode
or a moment in the ebb and flow of life in the surrounding communities
– a moment that can stretch from several years to several generations as
the memories and legacies of mining persist well past formal extractive
activities. This process often surfaces a range of interrelated and con-
flicting interests, values, and agendas among the various stakeholders,
or ‘resource actors’, who are connected to a project, each of whom will
have their own visions of a post-mining future (e.g. Halvakz, 2008).
How and why mining projects close will vary from project to project,
such that the challenges and opportunities of the mine closure process
will vary between projects. These challenges and opportunities will
encompass and overlap with a diverse range of socio-economic issues
and processes, and legal requirements.
The social dimensions of resource extraction have always presented
a major challenge for the extractive industries, both large-scale mining
and oil and gas activities. These dimensions include social and eco-
nomic impacts, human rights, gender considerations, cultural heritage
and human development, among others. These challenges and risks are
particularly acute towards the end of the project life-cycle when mul-
tiple pressures align. These include financial constraints as production
rates decline, unfulfilled socio-economic development expectations,
and increased complexity surrounding legacy issues, to name but a few.
Mine closures can, therefore, have significant adverse effects on local
economies, contribute to impoverishment, trigger the loss of key ser-
vices, and lead to out-migration. Poorly managed closure processes
exacerbate these impacts and can damage corporate reputations, where
operators are held responsible for the social mess that they have left
behind. It is increasingly the case that stakeholders expect mining op-
erators to proactively manage the multi-dimensional impacts of closure
– just as they are expected to manage impacts at other stages of the
mine life. But as Owen and Kemp (2017a) have recently argued, the
mining industry has not yet developed or embedded the sorts of ‘social
performance capabilities’ that are required to consistently identify key
social risks and trends, undertake analysis and manage operations in
complex socio-political environments and minimise social impacts.
Thus it is for good reason that industry critics have called large-scale
mining a ‘harm industry’ (Kirsch, 2014). These shortcomings are ex-
acerbated towards the end of the project life-cycle when companies
have less incentive and less resources to invest in these assets. As such,
there is an urgent need to better understand the social aspects of mine
closure because, to borrow the title of an earlier World Bank mining
report, ‘it's not over when it's over’ (World Bank and IFC 2002).
On the other hand, mine closure can create new opportunities.
Harnessing and adequately resourcing and managing these in an in-
tegrated way has the potential to create the foundations for long-term
development. From a social perspective, optimised mine closure pro-
cesses would enhance (rather than detract) from local capital – pro-
duced, natural, human, financial, social and cultural – to create the
foundations for a more sustainable post-mining future. Repurposing
infrastructure and mining landscapes, reskilling and redeploying la-
bour, establishing alternative economic opportunities, strengthening
local livelihoods and food security, and effectively addressing social
and environmental legacy issues that may have emerged during op-
erations are among the many possibilities of the mine closure process.
There are, however, few detailed case studies of such successes; there
are more ‘possibilities’ than precedents. This will remain the case so
long as large sections of the industry aim to externalise the costs of
closure. From this perspective, addressing the social aspects of closure,
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

or a full accounting for the costs of closure, is less about planning and off event, is also evidenced by the range of terms that are applied to
managing the end of the project life-cycle, and more about the gov- different kinds of activities that occur towards the end of the project
ernance regimes that are required to ensure that companies do not life-cycle such as ‘care and maintenance’, ‘decommissioning’ or ‘relin-
evade their closure responsibilities (see Marlow, 2016). quishment’. Local project stakeholders may not always understand the
difference between some of these activities and terms, especially when
they result in similar material outcomes (or deprivations) at the local
3. The language of closure
level. When companies describe the final stage of the closure process as
‘abandonment’ (even if they are not ‘deserting’ or ‘abandoning’ the
The ‘language’ or terminology used to describe mine closure, espe-
mine in the conventional sense), this can create anxiety among host
cially its social aspects, differs across the literature and in practice. The
communities and give companies a false sense of their ability to ‘walk
term ‘social closure’, or cognate variants like ‘social mine closure’, is
away’ from projects. Moreover, social impacts rarely cease when pro-
gaining currency across the global mining industry as a shorthand re-
duction goes on hold – rather, some impacts tend to intensify as new
ference for the social aspects of mine closure. The term has been in
‘closure effects’ emerge.
circulation for at least 10 years, with the International Council for
Mining and Metals (ICMM) producing one of the earliest known pub-
4. Locating the literature
lications to adopt this term (Fleury and Parsons, 2006).7 The increasing
use of this term represents an attempt to bring ‘the social’ in to focus, as
The publicly available literature on the social aspects of closure
a corrective to the predominance in the mine closure literature and
includes applied international conference presentations and published
planning paradigms on the technical-environmental and physical im-
proceedings; peer reviewed journal articles and books; and industry
pacts of closure. There are, however, some inherent limitations with
orientated literature (e.g. policy documents, guidelines and toolkits).
this shorthand term. For instance, the term may be interpreted to imply
Anecdotal evidence indicates that much of the knowledge on the social
that the social aspects of mining can be ‘closed off’ in a similar linear
aspects of closure remains in private holdings (such as company and
time-bound fashion as the physical aspects of a mining operation. Such
consultancy documents), or with individual expert practitioners (e.g.
that the social domain can be ‘project managed’ in the same way as the
undocumented practice-based knowledge). This same observation ap-
decommissioning of the plant site, and that social responsibilities can
plies to other social performance practice domains, such as resettle-
be straightforwardly ‘relinquished’. This may drive a focus on achieving
ment, or social risk assessment. This highlights a fundamental issue
a ‘closure of the social’, which in turn may promote a narrower or more
across the industry with regards to the management and use of data on
short-term view of the social domain. The term potentially obscures the
the social aspects of mining (see Owen and Kemp, 2017b; Kemp et al.,
dynamic, complex and changing nature of the social aspects of mining.
2017).
For these reasons, we find that the term ‘social aspects of mine
The most thorough research and case study material on the social
closure’ allows for a broader understanding of the ways in which the
aspects of closure can be found in three main sources: the Annual
different phases of the project-lifecycle have different social con-
International Mine Closure Conference and its published proceedings;
siderations or aspects that need to be understood and managed. A focus
scholarly journals orientated towards industry practitioners and policy
on ‘social aspects’ is therefore wider than ‘social impacts’ or ‘social
makers; and several edited volumes and monographs on the social as-
projects’. The closure process is also linked with terms like ‘economic
pects of mine closure. There are also occasional industry funded studies
rehabilitation’ or ‘economic transition’, or simply ‘transition’ (e.g.
that are publicly available (e.g. Everingham et al., 2013). For the pur-
QGDSD, 2016). The term ‘economic rehabilitation’ has been most
poses of this section, we briefly describe these sources, and in the fol-
commonly used in relation to the rehabilitation and recovery of conflict
lowing sections, we draw out the primary themes from across this
zones (by the World Bank for instance). Likewise, given the level of
material.
conflict that often accompanies resource extraction, the term might be
The bulk of the literature is written from an industry or practitioner
an apt description for some mining projects (UN Development Program,
perspective, and tends to incorporate socio-economic planning as an
2008). It has only been adopted relatively recently by the mining in-
aspect of the mine life-cycle planning process. This may reflect the fact
dustry to describe an intentional processes to mitigate the economic
that there are so few documented examples of successful closure and
impacts that can accompany the end of mining activities. It can involve
relinquishment, so the focus remains on planning for closure during the
re-mining a mine that is closed or in ‘care and maintenance’, and that
mine's operation. It also means that the literature is rarely written from
may have been regarded as uneconomic. With more effective recovery
a critical social or political perspective that questions the underlying
methods and processing technology, re-mining tailings and mine waste
capitalist assumptions concerning resource extraction, land use and
could be more viable via a smaller scale economy. While this creates a
development (e.g. Owen and Kemp, 2017a; Kirsch, 2014). Rather, as we
longer project tail, and some communities may support mine extension
indicated above, this literature proceeds from the basis that mining can
with some remaining economic opportunities, mineral resources even-
contribute to sustainable development. Likewise, while this literature
tually run out, and there is a risk that planning for mine closure may
aims to highlight the importance of managing the social impacts of
stall or be indefinitely avoided as the project becomes uneconomical
mine closure, it rarely unpacks what this should entail.
(Owen and Kemp, 2018: 13).
Over the past two decades, a number of publications, standards and
Although a focus on ‘economic transition’ sharpens attention toward
guidance documents have emerged that have prompted global (in-
some of the core considerations for long-term sustainability, the eco-
dustry) discussion on the social and economic aspects of mine closure.
nomic aspects of mine closure are only one of the many social aspects
The World Bank Group's Mine Closure and Sustainable Development vo-
that require consideration. Even if the term ‘transition’ denotes a cer-
lume (Khanna, 2000) was one of the earliest considerations of the
tain movement from one ‘phase’ or ‘stage’ in the project life-cycle to
global scale of mine closure challenges, highlighting that it was only
another, it is ambiguous and captures the potential for both planned
until recently that mines were simply abandoned. At that stage, few
closure or sale of an asset, or worse – unplanned closure or abandon-
governments had mine closure legislation, and those that did focused
ment. It can also obfuscate deliberate attempts to avoid closure by
on environmental mitigation, rather than socio-economic impacts. This
placing the mine in permanent ‘care and maintenance’ or through
was followed by a shorter publication by the World Bank Group's
strategic divestment. That mine closure is a process, rather than a once-
Mining Department and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
aptly titled It's Not over When it's over: Mine Closure Around the World
7
See also Heymann and Botha (2016); Stacey et al. (2010); Costa (2015); (2002), which provided high level guidance on the integration of the
Adey and Whitbread-Abrutat (2013). social and environmental aspects of closure. In 2002, the International

3
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) published the land-
mark Breaking New Ground report, which summarised the findings from
the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) review
process (IIED, 2002). The report acknowledged that mine closure can
be a ‘traumatic’ experience for host communities and highlighted the
importance of the social and economic dimensions of mine closure
planning (IIED, 2002: 220). However, overall the MMSD report paid
relatively limited attention to mine closure – which most likely re-
flected a prevailing concern with the conflicts that engulfed the in-
dustry in the 1990s, and the task of rebuilding ‘trust’ in the industry to
enable access to new resources, rather than a focus on closing down
existing assets.
A range of industry peak bodies such as the International Council for
Mining and Metals (ICMM), the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA),
and the Mining Association of Canada (MAC), and private sector
lending agencies like the IFC and the Asian Development Bank, have
established standards around mine closure.8 These standards are sup-
ported by various guidance materials and ‘toolkits’ on planning and
managing the mine closure process.9 Much of this focusses on the need
for ‘integrated planning’ that combines environmental, financial, phy-
sical, and socio-economic elements of closure. Despite this growing
body of guidance, in the end, it remains unknown the extent to which
different companies and governments, or mine affected communities,
have drawn upon these available resources, or how useful they have
been for individual operations advancing through the closure process.
Further work is required to understand the effectiveness of specific
forms of guidance, and the barriers to uptake and implementation.
The largest body of literature is located in the published conference
proceedings for the Annual International Mine Closure Conference. The
Australian Centre for Geomechanics and the Centre for Land
Rehabilitation at The University of Western Australia convene this
forum, and as a result, the conference tends to focus on the technical
and environmental aspects of closure – reflecting wider industry in-
terest and depth in these fields. It is predominantly attended by industry
staff and consultants, which partly reflects the emphasis on solving
operational challenges, and the relatively high cost of participation. As
a result, non-industry voices are rarely heard in this forum; there is little
room for community organisations to discuss their experience of mine
closure.10 Nevertheless, in the absence of other regular forums for en-
gaging with the social aspects of closure, and acknowledging the above
limitations, it has emerged as the primary global forum for presenting
research and practice-related insights and lessons on this topic, and its
published proceedings now provide one of the largest collections of
work in this field.
Two edited volumes explore the social aspects of closure in depth.
The 1992 edited volume Coping with Closure: An International
Comparison of Mine Town Experiences, comprises 18 chapters that dis-
cuss and compare closure experiences across five countries: Finland,
Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia (Neil et al., 1992). Primarily
written by planners and political scientists for policy makers, it remains
the most comprehensive single volume on the range of factors that
influence the social impacts of mine closure. The 2015 edited volume
Mining and Communities in Northern Canada: History, Politics, and
Memory, traces the legacies of the region's encounter with industrial
mining in the twentieth century (Keeling and Sandlos, 2015). Most of
the chapters emerged from a research project based at Memorial Uni-
versity called ‘Abandoned Mines in Northern Canada’, which sought to
8 5.1. Procedural dimensions
See for example IFC (2007); MCA (2015); MAC (2008).
9
See for example (Anglo American, 2013; APEC, 2018). It is understood that
the ICMM is in the process of updating its guidance. For a more detailed review
of these guidance materials, see Bainton and Holcombe (2018).
10
Similar criticisms have been made of academic conferences in general,
which can be prohibitively expensive for junior scholars, or community orga-
nisations (who may form part of the conference subject matter).
4
Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
illuminate the complex historical geography of mineral development, as
well as its impacts on local communities and environments. Several
chapters specifically focus on mine closure legacies, or what the editors
describe as the ‘zombie-like after life of many mines, and the manner in
which the history of these places is reflected in the contemporary rea-
lity of nearby communities’ (2015: 20). Chaloping-March’s (2017)
publication Social Terrains of Mine Closure in the Philippines is one of the
few single-authored monographs on the social aspects of closure.
Drawing upon ethnographic insights and archival material, she de-
monstrates how the mine closure process can become an intense locus
for competition and compromise among various social actors, high-
lighting the complex socio-cultural, economic, political, and business
realities that make up the social terrains of closure.
From a regional perspective, there is also a significant concentration
of literature on the social aspects of mine closure in South Africa in
respect to the Free State Goldfields (e.g. Marais, 2013a; Nel and Binns,
2002; see also Nel et al., 2003; Seidman, 1993) and the gold mines in
the Mpumalanga Province (e.g. Siyongwana and Shabalala, 2018). This
concentration of literature reflects the sectoral importance of mining
and related industries to the South African economy, and recent down-
scaling of the gold industry and the resulting impacts to downstream
industries and workers’ livelihoods, and the viability of mining settle-
ments (Binns and Nel, 2001). Similar to the Zambian Copperbelt, the
South African literature paints a grim view of the lives of miners, when
mining – the industry that industrializes, urbanizes, and transforms a
subsistence-based economy into a modern capitalist one – declines and
ceases (Ferguson, 1999; Larmer, 2017).
5. Procedural fairness and social risk in mine closure
We have argued that a more nuanced understanding of the social
aspects of mine closure is required for a full accounting of the costs and
benefits of resource development, and that this will require sustained
attention to a range of inter-related issues and themes. To this end, we
propose a basic organising framework that links two critical concepts
that emphasise the social aspects of the mine closure process: ideas of
procedural fairness, or ‘justice’, and social risk. In his definitive study
on ‘the idea of justice’, Sen outlines the foundations for the concept of
fairness, which broadly demands impartiality and the need to avoid
decision making based upon vested interests, personal priorities or
prejudices (Sen, 2009). This is useful to revisit in the context of closure.
Given the tendency for mining companies to avoid closure responsi-
bilities and externalise social risks, or to develop mine closure plans
with an incomplete understanding of the real costs of closure (in what
can amount to a form of wilful ignorance), the notion of procedural
fairness can be applied to identify those dimensions within the mine
closure process that require companies to consider how their activities
ultimately effect communities and other parties – or in other words,
commutative justice considerations (e.g. Macpherson, 1985). This is
coupled with the idea of social risk – encompassing forms of in-bound
and out-bound risk (Kemp et al., 2016) – to identify key risk liabilities
for companies, communities and governments. Together, the concepts
of social risk and procedural fairness (elaborated through Sen's idea of
‘justice’), reflect the basic areas of accountability for large-scale mining.
In sketching out these issues and themes – which we have grouped in
terms of procedural and risk dimensions – we have also aimed to
highlight the topical areas that have received the most attention across
the literature and the knowledge gaps that remain.
5.1.1. Integration and sustainability
Sustainability as a corporate objective and social expectation
permeates the majority of the literature on the social impacts of closure
(Petelina et al., 2015). Minimally, this entails integrating a closure
perspective into feasibility studies and environmental impact
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
assessments (EIAs), which should then highlight social impacts related
to closure that need to be accounted for throughout the project life-
cycle (Smith, 2007). For instance, in ‘Thinking about the end before you
start’ (Finucane, 2008), we are reminded that closure planning can be
an opportunity to influence project decisions and trigger improvements
in project design, which in turn can create opportunities to improve
outcomes and reduce project costs (see also Stacey et al., 2010; Fleury
and Parsons, 2006; Limpitlaw and Hoadley, 2006). However, successful
integration is often undermined by the failure to start early (see Dagva
et al., 2008; and, 2015). As numerous commentators observe, ‘despite
the importance of the closure process, in practice it is left to the ele-
venth hour, commencing only immediately prior to an operation's de-
commissioning phase’ (Lamb and Coakes, 2012: 627). Building on this
approach, Siwik and Clemens (2015) argue that local affected com-
munities must be part of the mine closure design process before the
mine is even operational, as the agreement to close, or what can called a
‘social licence for closure’, supposedly provides social acceptance to
operate (although see Owen, 2016).
Integration as a theme and as an operational practice has been ex-
tended to the internal development of resources and capabilities to
manage the various aspects of closure (Harvey, 2016; Owen and Kemp
2018). As Anglo American staff Heymann and Botha (2016) argue,
developing and using in-house resources can assist with deeper own-
ership of the mine closure plan and improve the likelihood that the plan
will be executed as intended. Convening multidisciplinary teams to
manage across a diverse range of internal and external relationships is
critical for developing more integrated processes, provides the basis for
stronger synergies between the social, physical, biophysical and fi-
nancial aspects of closure planning, and helps to increase the possibility
that a broader range of sustainability issues are more adequately ad-
dressed (Kunanayagam, 2006).
5.1.2. Stakeholder engagement
The importance of community engagement and strong working
partnerships during operations and inevitable mine closure cannot be
overstated (Laurence, 2002), and this point is continually reinforced
across the literature on the social aspects of mine closure (e.g.
Zvarivadza, 2018), which may reflect how often this lesson is over-
looked in practice. Case material and guidance literature consistently
emphasise the need to commence stakeholder engagement, consulta-
tion and empowerment in the earliest stages of the mine closure plan-
ning process, if not the earliest project planning phases (Dowd and
Slight, 2006). As Stacey et al. (2010) argue, social goals should be set in
full consultation with those affected by the operation and aimed at
preventing ills rather than mitigating impacts after the fact. But as
Lamb and Coakes (2012) observe, planning for closure from a social
perspective ‘appears to be one of the last considerations in the project
cycle: with many companies afraid that engagement with stakeholders
in relation to closure planning will raise stakeholder expectations about
final land use options that may not be feasible’ (see also Kamuzora,
2010).
It has been frequently noted that a failure to engage stakeholders in
a clear and stable process constitutes a primary failure of mine closure
processes (McCullough, 2016). Case study materials consistently re-
inforce the need for effective communication throughout this process
(Godlewski and Brown, 2010). To counter these shortcomings Lord
et al. (2015) highlight the need for transparent discussions with in-
dustry regulators and the commitment of resources for closure projects
to build trust and confidence with stakeholders. Other commentators
suggest that this can be achieved through the involvement of reputable
NGOs who specialise in creating spaces of dialogue and consensus
building between companies and their various project stakeholders
(Costa, 2015; see also Finucane, 2008).
It is well acknowledged that local communities are a major stake-
holder in the mine closure process (Godlewski and Brown, 2010).
However, as McAllister et al. (2014) argue, too often major decisions
5
Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
are made on their behalf, or with insufficient local input. Various au-
thors highlight the need for closure processes to adopt the subsidiarity
principle, whereby authority, responsibility and/or decision making is
handed down to the smallest unit of government that can deal with the
task most effectively. Likewise, case study material and practical gui-
dance emphasise the importance of partnerships with a diverse range of
stakeholders, with each party contributing to ensure more equitable
outcomes (Godlewski and Brown, 2010). Accordingly, sharing inter-
generational perspectives on the past and the future is vital because of
the multi-generational impacts of large-scale mines. This includes
sharing research findings for projects that will support post-mining
sustainability (Shandro, 2010).
5.1.3. Baselines, risks and impact assessments
Risk assessments and risk management are central to operational
planning and management paradigms. As such, a good deal of the mine
closure literature stresses the need to address social risks in the risk
assessment process for mine closure planning (Hattingh and Bothma,
2013). However, this literature tends to focus on a narrow company-
centric approach to social risks – that is, the identification and miti-
gation of social issues and impacts that may pose a risk to successful
closure of the mine and relinquishment of leases. Less attention is
provided on the sorts of risks that closure may present for local com-
munities, or how these might in turn impact upon operations or closure
– i.e. the relationship between these risks (see Kemp et al., 2016). While
baseline studies and social impact assessments should help to address
these gaps and inform risk assessment and risk management activities,
too often these activities and data sets are not utilised in this way (if at
all).
There are a range of social impact assessment (SIA) tools and fra-
meworks that can assist with social planning for mine closure, for ex-
ample, community sensitivity analysis, town resource cluster analysis,
participatory multi-criteria analysis, and key stakeholder mapping
(Evans, 2011). Characterising local forms of social capital that exist
around a mining project, and the use of community-indicators to
forecast specific social and economic outcomes for new mining projects
may also provide productive ways of thinking about post-closure sce-
narios before operations commence (e.g. Nelsen et al., 2010). The
knowledge produced through these different kinds of assessment ac-
tivities is critical for setting objectives and completion criteria for
successful closure and post-closure outcomes and should inform on-
going monitoring programs (Coppin, 2013; see also Shandro, 2010).
5.1.4. Governance processes and the state
It has been claimed that some leading large-scale mining corpora-
tions have higher closure standards than many governments require,
especially in developing country jurisdictions (Finucane, 2008; Mauric
et al., 2012). Some companies develop these standards to meet broader
international industry norms and expectations, and partly to manage
corporate risks (McGuire, 2003). However, as we have indicated, it
appears that these corporate closure standards are rarely tested, as
major operators often divest their interests in complex projects prior to
closure. Conversely, even where robust mine closure legislation exists,
the value of this legislation is dependent upon government capability or
political willingness to implement in full. The recent mine closure
guidance published by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
Mining Task Force proceeds from the basis that there is no single jur-
isdiction in the world that provides an ideal model for mine closure
policy (APEC, 2018). In the South African context, Stacey et al. (2010)
found that one of the major shortcomings of mine closure legislation is
that closure requirements are seldom specified in detail. While the
elements of mine closure plans are itemised, including social aspects,
there is little or no information on how these requirements are to be
met, or why particular approaches should be favoured over others.
Marais reports that even in an improved legislative environment that
requires ‘social and labour plans’ that are intended to address the effects
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
of mine down-scaling, the outcomes in respect to integrated planning
remain disappointing, highlighting more fundamental issues con-
cerning a lack of trust and government incapacity to enact the new
legislation (Marais, 2013b). These shortcomings might very well appear
in other jurisdictions. There is a need for global examination of the
states and jurisdictions that have the most effective legislative and
policy levers for embedding social considerations into the closure pro-
cess and curbing divestment strategies to avoid closure costs. A first
step would entail a detailed comparative legislative review to fully
understand the existing policy and regulatory landscape, where the
most significant gaps exist, where innovative developments are occur-
ring and lessons that can be borrowed or adapted across different jur-
isdictional contexts.
Good practice guidelines highlight the importance of involving all
spheres of government in the closure process (Marias et al., 2005; see
also Kabir et al., 2015; O'Faircheallaigh, 1992; Talman and
Tykkylainan, 1992). In an earlier 1995 comparative review of com-
munity responses to closure, Lansbury and Breakspear (1995) found
that engagement with available regional planning frameworks as part
of the closure planning process assisted regions to achieve greater post-
closure economic diversification. However, in many operational con-
texts government disengagement is a more common occurrence
(Robertson and Blackwell, 2015). This can be especially apparent as
mining projects approach closure and contribute less revenue to the
government. The flip side of disengagement is direct government cor-
ruption, which can equally impact the potential for positive post-clo-
sure legacies. As case material from countries such as Zimbabwe de-
monstrate, where state practices are structured around corruption and
patronage complications and compromises develop so that effective
mine closure planning is not possible, leaving little or no lasting ben-
efits at the local level (Zvarivadza, 2015; see also Mugonda, 2006).
5.1.5. Local level agreements with communities and affected land-holders
Agreement making is a signature recognition by industry that es-
tablishing relationships with local communities and stakeholders is of
mutual benefit. These agreements shift the paradigm of industry-com-
munity relationships to engage with future-looking legacies that are
intrinsically social. Yet, our initial investigations suggest that very few
agreements specifically address the closure process, or post-closure
considerations. Mine closure objectives and requirements, especially
details concerning the social aspects of mine closure, are rarely outlined
within negotiated local level agreements. The reason for this is twofold.
First, negotiations for new projects frequently occur in pressurised en-
vironments as a result of commercial deadlines and other social, poli-
tical and economic expectations. This often leaves little room for sus-
tained attention on mine closure, and for host communities this can
shift the front-end focus to the immediate threats related to the con-
struction and operation of the project and the capture of benefits to
partially offset these impacts. Second, detailed mine closure plans are
often developed during operations when the mine closure horizon is
more clearly in sight, which is typically after these agreements have
been signed.
In Australia, questions remain as to whether these agreements have
assisted in shifting the high levels of structural disadvantage and ma-
terial poverty found among many Indigenous populations who live in
remote areas and in the vicinity of large-scale mines (Altman and
Martin, 2009; Holcombe, 2010; Scambary, 2013). Equally important,
are implementation plans, resourcing and governance arrangements for
the actual commitments in these agreements, and likewise agreement
monitoring and review processes (see especially O’Faircheallaigh, 2002,
2016; Langton and Longbottom, 2012; Langton et al., 2006; Rio Tinto,
2016). Typically, within Australian mining Indigenous Land Use
Agreements (ILUAs) there are targets and aspirations set around busi-
ness development, employment and training and development possi-
bilities. This is especially the case in remote regions with little access to
mainstream markets and capital. From this perspective, there is huge
6
Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
scope for local level agreements to address local aspirations beyond
mine life. Negotiated agreements provide an opportunity for companies
to revisit and re-adjust their relationship with local Indigenous com-
munities and actively alter their legacy (Crook et al., 2006). There is
evidence that agreements in Canada include some post-closure socio-
economic provisions, such as post-closure wellness strategies (Ross and
Bond, 2008). However, as few agreements are in the public domain, this
is essentially an invisible area that needs more attention. Future re-
search might also consider what types of benefit sharing strategies es-
tablished during the project life-cycle can best assist in easing the socio-
economic impacts of mine closure, how negotiation processes in-
corporate closure considerations, and the sorts of agreement govern-
ance arrangements that can support collaborative mine closure plan-
ning processes.
5.2. Risk dimensions
5.2.1. Housing and town normalisation
Where mining companies have established town sites and re-
sidential accommodation for their employees, the issue of housing and
town ‘normalisation’ is a pressing material consideration for the mine
closure planning process. The issues surrounding this theme are well
documented across many of the case studies in the Coping with Closure
edited volume (Neil et al., 1992). Globally, there are numerous ex-
amples of so-called ‘ghost towns’ where the closure of the mine has led
to the closure of the town, especially if it was built to house mine-
workers as a single purpose town (Archer and Bradbury, 1992). In
Australia, for example, there are only a small number of residential
mining communities still operating, most of which have existed since
the 1960s (Browne et al., 2011). Those that do exist in Australia (in-
cluding in the Pilbara) are slowly becoming ‘normalised’, or opened to
other residents, prior to mine closure with the government gradually
assuming responsibility for critical services (Moller and Flugge, 2006;
see also Petkova et al., 2009).11
In South Africa, recent research has questioned the suitability of
earlier modernist town planning paradigms that presupposed perma-
nent settlement and high levels of infrastructure (Marais and Nel,
2016). In the context of industrial decline, these mining towns are no
longer viable. On the other hand, notwithstanding valid criticisms
surrounding the historically inhumane living conditions for migrant
labourers, where the workforce is largely comprised of migrant labour,
this has been shown to reduce the burden to manage the extensive
settlement of mine workers when projects close or the industry declines
(Marais and Cloete, 2013). In some locations, ‘normalisation’ has re-
sulted in housing-market decline, where house prices have tumbled
after mining companies placed their large housing stock on the local
market.12 These town site transitions have created further pressures for
local municipalities as they struggle to maintain urban infrastructure.
Other case study materials consider whether or not the provision of
housing can lead to positive development outcomes (Mamonto and
Sompie, 2012); the importance of formalising relationships to ensure
mutually shared expectations about ownership and/or rental of housing
for ex-mine-workers (Molefe et al., 2006); and analysis of the possible
range of innovative housing management options. The process of town
normalisation may also give rise to new social phenomena, such as the
influx of opportunistic migrants13 and related social tensions that
11
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is more research and literature on ‘housing
market dynamics’ in mining towns, rather than the social impact of closure on
housing (Haslam and Rowley, 2013).
12
Although see O’Hara et al. (2010) for an example in Canada where
planned remediation has helped to increase local community and economic
vibrancy, including private house ownership.
13
For a discussion on the social phenomenon of mine-induced in-migration,
see Bainton and Banks (2018).
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
emerge within these communities, including competing ethnicity and
identity issues that may be heightened at mine closure as resources
come under pressure (or new economic opportunities arise).
5.2.2. Service and infrastructure provision
There is little research on whether the establishment of infra-
structure and service provision during mining operations can lead to
post-mining sustainable economic development, although notable ex-
ceptions include O’Faircheallaigh’s (1986) monograph Mine Infra-
structure and Economic Development in North Australia (see also Koch and
Gartrell, 1992; Marais and Nel, 2016). Case study material tends to
focus on the challenges surrounding the continued provision and
maintenance of these services and infrastructure. Recent research at the
Century Mine in Queensland Australia has documented the range of
local concerns around future post-mining service and infrastructure
provision and governance in this remote region (Everingham and
Keenan, 2017). These aspects of mine closure are closely tied to issues
around land use planning, local level agreements, and ‘economic tran-
sition’.
Case material on the repurposing of mining infrastructure and land
includes examples where mine camp buildings have been dismantled
and donated to the local government for use by the community for
educational and cultural purposes (McGuire, 2003), the development of
a tourism village with conference facilities, or re-purposing company
lease land areas as real-estate (Chaloping-March, 2008). At the Home-
stake mine in South Dakota, mine shafts and pit infrastructure were re-
purposed for a deep underground national science lab, and the ‘slime
plant’ was remodelled as a casino-resort (Duex, 2010). This literature
suggests that if a ‘mining for closure’ lens is applied (Peck et al., 2005),
then decision making around infrastructure establishment during the
project design phase should also consider the existing context and the
range of possibilities of post-mining uptake and upkeep of the new
service provision. The literature on mining economies also suggests that
the legacy of the company may be remembered as much by the creative
or functional re-purposing of the infrastructure and the changed land-
scape, as by their remediation and rehabilitation efforts. While such
planning should occur at the design stage, this rarely occurs in practice
as the pressure to ensure that projects proceed ‘on time and on budget’
combined with limited information on the real mining horizon often
short-changes the planning process, so that engagement and negotia-
tion on complicated end of life-cycle issues, such as post-mining in-
frastructure and land use, are deferred, delayed or avoided altogether.
5.2.3. Economic linkages and transitions
There is a broad range of case studies and examples of ‘economic
transition’, or post-mine economic development, that include the re-
purposing of mining infrastructure and landscapes, and efforts to (re)
develop livelihoods to strengthen food security, and economic diversi-
fication. The most notable publication is by the Post Mining Alliance,
101 Things To Do With a Hole in the Ground (Pearman, 2009).14 The
growing body of case study material on economic transition illustrates
the diverse possibilities of post-mining economies which in-turn un-
derwrite economic ‘rehabilitation’ (Chaloping-March, 2017). As Harvey
argues, ‘companies, communities and regulators faced with mine clo-
sure scenarios should explicitly place future economic occupation of
mine sites at the forefront of mine closure visioning and leave open
future options for creative human enterprise’ (2016: 17).
Opportunities for economic diversification are often constrained by
the geography of the area and the options for re-purposing of mining
infrastructure and landscapes. As Jackson astutely observes, large-scale
mining rarely changes the geography of the mine-impacted areas in
ways that make these places more attractive to alternative forms of
14
Nevertheless, this text is a photo essay, with minimal case study details of
the range of post-mining innovations.
7
Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
economic development in the future (Jackson, 2018). In remote areas
where there are no other comparable forms of large-scale development
and the region has been ‘opened-up’ by the industry, eco-tourism is
sometimes promoted as one of the few long-term options for engage-
ment with the market economy, which in turn may encourage compa-
nies to maintain areas of intact ecosystems (Molefe et al., 2006). In
some cases, disused mine sites are better converted into agricultural
sites, rather than restored to their original condition. As food security in
many regions becomes an increasingly critical challenge (which is
sometimes exacerbated by the economic impacts of mine closure), there
is a greater need for such innovative strategies (Howieson et al., 2017).
In assessing the viability of agriculture as a post-mining land use and
economic activity, site specific issues to consider include the footprint
of the mine, the level of remediation needed to ensure non-con-
tamination, the forms of pre-existing livelihoods and the extent of food
security needs.
There is also a growing interest around the re-purposing of mining
pit lakes, which include pit-lake re-purposing to promote leisure
tourism in post-mining communities, which some argue, if properly
remediated, could minimise risks to health and habitat (McCullough
and Lund, 2006). Elsewhere mine pit lakes have also been repurposed
as large-scale water reservoirs (Chaloping-March, 2008), as hydro-
electric dams, or used for urban waste management purposes, such as
the former Woodlawn poly-metallic mine in south of Sydney in Aus-
tralia that was re-purposed as a bio-reactor. More often, they are left
disused and unmonitored. But as the example of the closed Misima
mine in Papua New Guinea demonstrates, although the mining com-
pany repurposed the pit to generate hydro-electricity for local villages,
the pit is now a highly acidic lake, and the electricity supply is un-
sustainable without fuel and maintenance, neither of which is available
in the post-mining era. This demonstrates how such well-intentioned
ideas can founder in the absence of accessible markets (Macintyre,
2018).
Reclamation and re-purposing can also occur on a regional scale,
creating other alternative economic opportunities. The Appalachian
coal country in the United States suffered economic and environmental
abandonment due to severe acid mine drainage (AMD) issues (Comp,
2013). Community groups developed the ‘AMD&ART’ program as a
purposeful effort to link AMD remediation with the arts, which included
the development of the ‘Ghost Town Rail Trail’ (see also Jones and
MacLean, 2013). There is great potential for economic linkages and
dependencies to create positive or negative effects locally in the tran-
sition to closure and during the post-closure period. Current good
practice encourages mining companies to source services locally to
generate local economic inputs. However, as mines move towards the
end of the project life-cycle this is typically accompanied by a decrease
in local economic opportunities and revenue flows (Miradauro et al.,
2008). Economic dependency often extends to local municipalities, and
analysis on this issue, in a range of global contexts, indicates that mine
closure typically impacts municipal and public finances as revenue
streams diminish or disappear, impacting the continued provision of
services and infrastructure maintenance (Marias et al., 2005;
O'Faircheallaigh, 1992). This might account for the government ab-
sence during mine closure planning, but as Robertson and Blackwell
(2015) argue, governments must be involved in the closure process in
order to address issues of dependency.
5.2.4. Indigenous engagement in post-mining land use
In most Indigenous contexts the social costs of mining are also
linked to cultural impacts. Large-scale mines alter cultural landscapes
in dramatic ways, which means that for many Indigenous communities,
post-mining land use and rehabilitation of mining areas assumes an
additional level of significance within the mine closure process (Cohen,
2017; Smith and Thompson, 2013). Given the importance of land for
local Indigenous communities, as the basis for identity and a sense of
place, post-mine land use planning and management processes must
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
engage with cultural criteria and understandings of landscape values.
Difficult issues arise in relation to how the cultural implications of these
landscape changes play out in relation to mine closure (e.g. Bainton
et al., 2012). Future research should consider how closed mines might
be reintegrated into cultural landscapes, and how the mine rehabilita-
tion process can account for impacts to places of cultural significance.
The integration of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into mine
site rehabilitation is an emerging practice in Australia (Cohen, 2017;
Smith, 2008), Canada (Breadmore and Lafferty, 2015; Garibaldi, 2009),
Papua New Guinea (Butler et al., 2012) and elsewhere. These practices
have the potential to contribute to the rehabilitation of cultural land-
scapes as Indigenous communities are actively engaged in the appli-
cation of their knowledge and experience of the environment. Post-
mine land remediation or rehabilitation activities can also provide a
source of future economic opportunity for local land-connected groups.
Where properly resourced and supported, this can include, for example,
ongoing roles for Indigenous land managers and ranger groups to en-
sure that rehabilitation progresses as planned and meets locally re-
levant cultural criteria (see also Sandlos and Keeling, 2016), and can
also help to strengthen or ‘revitalise’ traditional practices. Conversely,
poor post-mining land use and access strategies can further detract from
community well-being (LeClerc and Keeling, 2015; Rixen and Blangy,
2016).
In many locations it must be acknowledged that it is simply not
possible to restore mining landscapes to their former state, nor is the
question of cultural restoration straight forward. For many Indigenous
groups, landscape restoration raises complex social, economic, political
and cultural considerations. As Cohen demonstrates in her recent case
study on rehabilitation at the Weipa mine in northern Australia, ‘re-
habilitation practices are not simply technical in nature, but also so-
cially and politically contingent’ (2017: 138). There is a need, therefore,
to pay attention to the lived experience and future aspirations of the
people who inherit these rehabilitated landscapes.
5.2.5. Cultural heritage management
Good practice guidelines require prospective projects to identify
local cultural heritage values and to develop programs to manage and
minimise heritage risks and impacts (e.g. IFC, 2012). These guidelines
are silent on the closure and post-closure phase. Important questions
arise in relation to the future ownership and management of sensitive
cultural heritage data sets collected during operations, and the ongoing
support for cultural heritage management programs in the post-closure
era. For example, in the Australian context, Indigenous ranger programs
funded by extractive companies have been successful in helping to get
Aboriginal people back on their ‘country’. When mining operations
ceases, so too does the funding and support for these programs, po-
tentially creating new issues for accessing previously remote areas and
cultural sites.
There is also a small, but growing body of literature on the ways in
which long life mines can develop cultural values, where sentimental
attachments form and historical values accrue to a site over several
generations. For instance, throughout many regions of Europe the his-
tory of the industrial revolution has left a very deep mining legacy. As a
result, some European states appear to be more advanced, than other
regions globally, with memorialising both ancient and modern mining
landscapes. In the UK, Rose and Morgan (2010) discuss the work of the
post-mining alliance and the Clayfutures Project to regenerate mining
land in the region of a depressed economy (see also Ali, 2018). In such
contexts, the social aspects of closure also encompasses industrial
heritage and the preservation of historical artefacts from the opera-
tional history of the project for both economic and research opportu-
nities. This also demonstrates how infrastructure may be repurposed or
integrated into local landscapes, or used to create new ‘cultural’ land-
scapes. For instance, at the 120-year Homestake lead mine in the USA, a
tourist economy has developed that includes interpretive pathways
historical mine tours (Duex, 2010; also see Comp, 2013; Rademeyer and
8
Resources Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Le Roux, 2008). Examples from Australia include the Mt Kembla mine
rehabilitation and memorial pathway and Broken Hill as an active
mining town and a heritage listed city renowned for its mining history
(Larance, 2012).
6. Discussion and concluding remarks
Our review of the procedural and risk dimensions of the social as-
pects of mine closure highlights several considerations in relation to the
publicly available knowledge base on this topic. First, the knowledge
base on the physical aspects of mine closure is significantly deeper and
more developed than the social aspects. Unlike environmental closure
processes, the standards, guidelines, knowledge and tools for managing
the social aspects of mine closure are at an early stage of development,
while implementation is inconsistent. Companies tend not to have
strong policy architecture (including standards or internal guidelines)
to support business units in addressing the social aspects of closure, and
few governments have policies or legislation that are strong enough to
address these gaps. These differences are reflected in the much larger
body of publicly available literature on managing the physical or en-
vironmental aspects of closure (which includes practical guidance,
planning tools, detailed case studies and longitudinal research and data
sets).
Second, there is limited technical literature on the social aspects of
mine closure, which suggests that there is limited expertise in this do-
main. There is a need to invest in research and monitoring work that
will provide the case studies and raw data that will help to answer some
of the following questions: What are the threshold issues for de-
termining particular and optimum post-closure economies? What are
the most appropriate development models and methods for particular
contexts? Are there transferable approaches for anticipating the impacts
of closure in specific closure contexts? How does mine closure affect
gender relations and gender roles? Without case study material and the
development of aggregate data sets, it will not be possible to con-
solidate learnings on sustainable or innovative practices, or develop
more detailed and realistic practical guidance for closure practitioners.
Likewise, there is a need for more comparative research that would
draw out the lessons from other industries, such as large-scale manu-
facturing. As Digby noted, ‘There is a huge wealth of knowledge about
communities transitioning from one economy to another in the
brownfield regeneration literature. It would be a rewarding piece of
research to assess how some of these case studies might be adapted to
mines facing closure’ (2012: 36).
The shortage of innovative case studies and policy guidelines also
indicate a dearth of expertise in this field. Mine closure experts typically
focus on issues such as mined land rehabilitation, mine water man-
agement, topsoil replacement, groundcover monitoring, vegetation
management, post-closure land use, and physical decommissioning.
These are all areas where the industry can draw upon its deep technical
expertise, as reflected in the literature base. Equivalent expertise is
needed for addressing the multiple social aspects of mine closure, such
as workforce planning, housing, town normalisation, post-mining
economies, issues associated with infrastructure and services for a re-
sident population, stakeholder engagement, heritage management, and
agreements with local and Indigenous communities. Across the industry
there has been a siloing of experiences and lessons learnt. As Owen and
Kemp (2018) argue, the industry has not developed the social perfor-
mance capabilities that are needed to support effective mine closure
processes. Rarely is there a coordinated vision amongst government
agencies, mine site operators, different disciplinary experts and other
key stakeholders on post-closure futures. Many stakeholders are also
concerned about the prospect of sites being handed back to the public
under these circumstances, and the legacies associated with abandoned
mines and those that close unexpectedly or prematurely. This is an issue
confronting companies of all sizes, and developed and developing
countries alike. The shortage of appropriate capabilities is made all the
N. Bainton, S. Holcombe
more apparent when major companies externalise the costs of closure,
or pass these liabilities on to junior operators (or governments) who
purchase assets with major social and environmental legacies. Indeed,
as it has recently been argued for the Australian context, there is an
urgent need for legislation to ‘end the offloading of large rehabilitation
liabilities to minnow companies’ (Marlow, 2016: 48).
Third, there has been a growing recognition by some major com-
panies, governments and notably by civil society, that business as usual
is not viable. The industry now subscribes to a vast array of interna-
tional standards and policy norms, which in turn demand greater ac-
countability. The negative impacts and legacies of mining are increas-
ingly under scrutiny by a growing civil society and an active local
citizenry. To return to the opening quote by Laurence, not all of the
local or regional citizenry are ‘excited’ when a mine opens, and there is
increasing contestation over whether mining is the most appropriate
form of land use. For land-connected peoples, including Indigenous
peoples, the social costs are often linked with environmental changes.
Existing industry regulations – which often focus on ‘pre-state’ re-
habilitation – rarely address the requirements for managing society-
environment relationships in the post-closure phase. Active industry,
government, and community engagement with the social aspects of
closure is necessary to help ensure that opportunities for asset re-
generation, re-purposing and transfer are not missed.
Fourth, compared with most developed contexts, mine closure is a
substantially different issue in the Global South, where the institutions
at the national, provincial and local level are often ill-equipped to
manage industrial transitions. The examples of ‘good practice’ and
‘successful’ mine closure activities that we have identified are pre-
dominantly located in developed nations, especially Canada. Although
there are some shared challenges across these different contexts, mine
closure must be recognised as a significant risk in the majority of lo-
cations where large-scale resource extraction occurs. Finally, at the
beginning of this paper we noted that the social aspects of large-scale
mining have been extensively researched and documented, and that
this expansive body of literature has primarily concentrated on the
socio-economic and political impacts that arise during mining opera-
tions. Almost all of the topical areas or issues that are addressed in this
much larger body of literature are directly relevant for understanding
the social aspects of mine closure. The socio-economic and political
impacts that arise during operations are nearly always present in a more
acute form towards the end of the project life-cycle. From this per-
spective, future research on the social aspects of mine closure will need
to consider an equally broad range of topics.
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