Showing how mine project ends could make people accept industry, says expert

BAGUIO CITY—Reading the last chapter of a thriller spoils the fun, but not when the tale explains the life of a mining operation.

Making public a mine closure program, before a mining firm starts digging through the ground, could be the key to making critics less hostile to the mining industry, according to researchers and scientists who gathered here last week for a three-day “After Mining” workshop.

Dr. Minerva Chaloping-March, an applied anthropologist from Mt. Province who is now based in Australia, said there is “a need to contemplate … the end before the beginning.”

Mining operations have been around since 1905 in the Cordillera, but government requirements for mine closure programs had been laid down only in the 1990s when the Philippine Mining Act was enacted, she said.

Aspiration

March said every mining company aspires for community goodwill so it could move on to other projects in the country.

She said this was why a mine is mindful that its venture “has to deal with social, cultural and political requisites,” as well as increasing state regulation, because these investments “have finite lives.”

For mining operations to work smoothly, mining firms have used technology to demonstrate it could restore to some degree mined-out lands, March said.

But they should also allow stakeholders to take part in the planning of mine closure programs before operations start, so the community and the mine’s employees could plan ahead of the operations’ inevitable closure, she said.

Leo Jasareno, national director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, said mine closure plans are a prerequisite for mine licensing processes under Republic Act No. 7942 (Philippine Mining Act of 1995). Mining firms are also required to post a P5-million rehabilitation trust fund and a P50,000 monitoring fund that must be replenished.

The workshop here was sponsored by the Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines-Australia Studies Center and the University of the Philippines Baguio’s Cordillera Studies Center.

It explored working models for restoring mined-out areas that are available in the country. The Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corp. (RTNMC) in Palawan, for example, restored the top soil of mined-out areas, cultivated local microorganisms and planted indigenous trees. The firm had to solve the problem left by a nickel mine: soil could be adverse to plant growth because it has “very low to zero nitrogen and phosphorus contents, [is] prone to erosion, [and has a] tendency toward acidity.” As of March 2011, RTNMC had planted up to 500,000 trees in over 238 hectares of mined-out land, Jasareno said.

Feedback

The Philex Mining Corp. started decommissioning its Padcal block-caving operations in Benguet (began in 1958) that generated 356 million tons of ore (covering 53 years) as of December 2011. The firm, one of the pioneer mines in the country, gathered feedback from the host community which enabled it to start projects addressing health, education, infrastructure and livelihood concerns. Philex reforested the mountains surrounding its mine areas and started a relocation process for its employees. Those who chose to stay were provided entrepreneurial training. However, the closure period had been adjusted to 2017 because high world metals prices have allowed the firm to process gold and copper from its ore stock.

March said what mining companies have failed to sufficiently address is the need to restore the political, cultural and economic connection that people used to have with the land before it was leased out by the government.

“Strategies to address potential pollution problems are well-thought out … but the remedial actions are meaningless and ineffective if water, land, air and the broader environment are considered separate from [the] people,” she said.