Rehabilitation of mined-out areas
THE Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) has received a manual on best practices for rehabilitation of mined-out areas in local conditions, and will be using this to educate small and medium scale miners as part of its ongoing programme to promote environmentally friendly mining. President of the GGDMA, Patrick Harding, disclosing this yesterday, said that the manual entitled ”Mine Rehabilitation Manual”, had been produced by a  Canadian Executive Services Organization (CESO) Volunteer, William Pollock, with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and counterpart funding from the GGDMA.
The main concept of the document is that small and medium scale miners should plan how they will rehabilitate mined-out areas even before they start mining.
It also indicates some of the best practices, from a scientific point of view, on this aspect of the mining cycle.
The document was prepared by Pollock, a Canadian forester, following visits to several mining areas where rehabilitation of mined-out areas, some by means of re-vegetation, is in progress.
The work was done in the last quarter of last year, and the finished report was handed over to the President of the GGDMA last week.
Harding said that the GGDMA executive will be examining the document at its next meeting, and will then decide how it will be utilised.
“Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) or not, environmentally friendly mining is very important. We got into the arrangement with CESO and CIDA to further develop our ideas as to how best miners can meet this closing requirement in a very good and exemplary manner,” Harding said.
He said that large scale miners, unlike small and medium scale miners, have rehabilitation plans built into their contracts.
The small and medium scale miners will therefore be the main targets of education sessions, during which the advice contained in the document will be discussed and hopefully taken on board by all concerned.