The Western Australian economy has been dominated by mining for much of its history, from the gold rushes to the present day China lead resources boom.
Once, it could be reasonably claimed mining (if you ignore exploration impacts) disturbs a relatively small proportion of the land. However the amount of area being disturbed by mining is now increasing exponentially driven by high commodity prices and new technologies that allow the exploitation of low grade ores that were previously uneconomic. The amount of land disturbed, energy and water used and waste (rock & tailings) generated is increasingly rapidly.
The demand for low grade resources is also driving the mining of critical biodiversity assets such as the Banded Iron formation ranges, these have been and should continue to be, critical evolutionary refugia during periods of climate change.
Historically, the Conservation Council WA) has concentrated on mining issues as they relate to iconic conservation assets such as our National Parks and Nature Reserves. In the modern economic and political environment that is no longer a tenable approach to defending the environment. The CCWA ‘mining legacy campaign’ now focuses more generally on the sustainability aspects of mining as an economic activity and on the accumulating legacy of ecological disturbance from mining, including the ever increasing area of abandoned, defaulted and inadequately ‘completed’ mining operations.
