The End of Mining? Or the Beginning of Legacy?

Across the world, thousands of mining operations will enter closure and transition in the next two decades. The question of what happens to mining developments once extraction stops – how closure is planned, financed, governed, and who should take responsibility – are defining issues for an industry facing fresh scrutiny amidst debates around critical minerals and a just energy transition.  

In this episode, we discuss legacies as encompassing environmental, social, cultural, economic and governance dimensions that can extend well beyond the mine footprint and persist across generations. 

Speakers include:

• Soledad Mills I Senior Vice President at TDi Sustainability
•  Dr. Guy Boggs | CEO at CRC TiME
• Dr. Rob Stevens | Senior Associate at IGF

Guy has extensive experience providing leadership in innovation and actively working at the interface of industry and research. He has led the delivery of large Australian Government funded programs driving knowledge development and industry practice change. 

At IGF, Rob’s work focuses on supporting member countries with advancing their technical capacity and legal and policy frameworks on mine closure and the post-mining transition.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Soledad Mills
Hello and welcome to Suits and Boots, the TDi podcast series. I’m Soledad Mills, Senior Vice President at TDi Sustainability, and in this episode we’ll be discussing mine legacy.
 
Across the world, thousands of mining operations will enter closure and transition in the next two decades. The question of what happens to mining developments once extraction stops, how closure is planned and financed, how it is governed, and who should take responsibility are defining issues for an industry facing fresh scrutiny amid debates around critical minerals in a just energy transition.
 
I’m joined for today’s discussion by Rob Stevens, Senior Associate at the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development, or the IGF, a forum that seeks to advance good mining governance for the betterment of communities, economies and the environment.
 
We’re also joined by Guy Boggs, CEO of CRC TiME, an Australian-based research centre focusing on transformations in mining economies, which brings together diverse partners to help solve the challenge of mine closure and post-mine transitions economically, socially, culturally and environmentally.
 
Last year, TDi worked with the Global Investor Commission for Mining 2030 to redefine how investors think about and influence mine closure planning to promote positive legacies. Our paper suggested that mine legacy should be understood not just as an end-of-life remediation challenge, but as a dynamic, forward-looking condition shaped by decisions made across the entire mine lifecycle.
 
Legacies encompass environmental, social, cultural, economic and governance dimensions that can extend well beyond the mine footprint and persist across generations. Positive legacy requires proactive closure planning, adequate and transparent financial provisioning, meaningful community and Indigenous peoples’ engagement, including free, prior and informed consent, and strong governance, all co-defined with affected rights holders.

[00:02:00] Soledad Mills
The paper diagnosed persistent failures in current practice, such as chronic underestimation of closure costs, often by a factor of four to ten, premature closures, the offloading of liabilities to under-resourced junior companies, and weak regulatory frameworks. We called on investors, in particular, to play an enabling role by demanding credible closure plans, independent audits and disclosure of liabilities as conditions of financing.
 
So, getting into our discussion, starting with you, Guy: from your perspective, when we talk about mine legacy, are we talking about environmental liabilities, or the broader impacts of legacy? And how should we be defining legacy in 2026?

[00:02:30] Guy Boggs
Thanks. I absolutely love this question.
 
I’m going to start by answering it, hopefully not too opaquely, but the key point is that every mine and every region is different, and so what defines positive legacy must be appropriately designed for that mine and that region.
 
Now, that might sound like a really simple concept, but often we’ve seen in this space some hard-line expectations of what success looks like. For example, returning things to the previous state was once an industry norm, or at least a societal expectation.
 
What we’re now seeing, in terms of positive legacy, is that the stakeholders who are critical to that region and that site are coming together to decide what an appropriate model for transition and closure looks like.
 
This brings up a third concept, which is about acceptability and value-based approaches to closure. If we think about legacy, this moves beyond regulatory compliance to understanding what would be a valuable outcome, who the stakeholders are, who the rights holders are, and who the participants are that are critically involved in that transition.
 
For me, a positive legacy is that acceptance, that agreement between those stakeholder groups on what a valid transition looks like. The mining industry plays a critical role in that, but one of the things we’re learning is that it has a seat at the table, without necessarily being expected to lead everything in that conversation.

[00:04:00] Soledad Mills
Fascinating. Yes, I like that concept of value-based approaches.
 
And over to Rob: from a policy and governance standpoint, where do you see governments most underprepared for the scale of mine transitions coming in the next 10 to 20 years?

[00:04:20] Rob Stevens
Great. Thanks for the question.
 
I’d start by saying that, in my experience - and the IGF has around 86 government members, so we get exposure to where governments are at from many different parts of the world - governments are very interested in advancing their closure practices and seeing improvements from what has happened in the past.
 
What I do see, though, is that often there is a lack of capacity and experience. Governments may simply not have enough people to manage this properly, and there may not have been any closures, or good examples of closures, within their jurisdiction that they can look to and build on in the future.
 
The other thing I see is the need to modernise policies and regulations. Pretty much all jurisdictions have something within their policies and regulations, but, for example, to Guy’s point, what we’re looking at in terms of how land could be used after mining, or how communities and stakeholders are involved in those decisions, really needs to be modernised.
 
Another area I see is around guidance and the level of detail that’s necessary for closure. Almost all mining acts or similar frameworks say something like, “a mine closure plan is required”, but often don’t go beyond that. So what is really needed in that mine closure plan? What is the content of that plan? How often should those plans be updated?
 
By providing strong guidance around that, you can help both the mine operator, in terms of what it should be putting in its plan, and the regulators, because they then know what they’re receiving and have a framework under which to review and approve mine closure plans.
 
And the last thing I’d say is, as you mentioned in your introduction, issues with financial assurance. There is often a lack of financial assurance in many jurisdictions, or far too little. We don’t have good cost estimates, or there are financial assurance mechanisms that aren’t directly connected with the cost estimate. Instead, there are formulas that are independent of the real cost of closing that mine.
 
So yes, there are a number of areas there that really need improvement. Although, again, I do see governments very keen to make those improvements, and everybody is generally moving in the right direction.

[00:07:00] Soledad Mills
That’s great to hear - that so many governments are interested in improving closure planning and that IGF can help by sharing examples of good practice.
 
I’d love to come back in more depth a little later on to financial assurance mechanisms. But before we get there, Guy, from a landscape perspective, what do you see as the most common technical mistakes made decades before closure that shape legacy outcomes?

[00:07:30] Guy Boggs
Thanks. There’s a lot in this question - both the landscape elements and that concept of time when we think about decades before closure.
 
I’m going to pick up on what I was raising before. One of the most significant issues I see is that closure is dealt with operationally as an end-of-life element. Now, leading up to that point, significant investments are made by companies and others to move us towards a particular outcome. This relies on engineering designs, and it significantly affects how we move and manage waste material across a site.
 
If you do that with a particular objective in mind - and it turns out to be the wrong objective - it can create significant costs, both for the business and for the broader community.
 
So the first thing I see all the time is that we are designing for an objective that hasn’t actually been agreed in a way that will lead to relinquishment and transition of that asset. Before we commence significant earthworks, or even start thinking about them, have we done the work to really understand what a desirable landscape looks like at end of life, and what an acceptable landscape is?
 
The next piece is spatial scale. A mine doesn’t sit in isolation. It sits within a region. When we think about closure transition, and from a research point of view it’s probably one of the most exciting spaces for innovation, we’re taking a modified landscape and using all of our disciplinary knowledge to create and build a new fit-for-purpose landscape.
 
That might be an economically productive landscape - for example, turning pits into pumped hydro projects - or it might be a nature-based outcome, where we create highly valued ecosystems in post-mining landscapes.
 
In all of those cases, these landscapes fit within a region. So we need to understand cumulative effects. We need to think about what else is going on around the mine, and when we think about water, that is critical. We need to understand the regional water dynamics. That means we have to work with other companies or stakeholders to share data and to inform the analytics, modelling and design work by taking cumulative effects into account.
 
The other aspect here is that we often stay in our own domains. One person is focused on landform design and managing engineering risk or failures. Another is focused on ecological restoration and the return of plants and animals. Those different design standards can conflict if you don’t get those people in the room together.
 
We’re trying to build an integrated landscape design. Therefore, the soils, landform work and ecology all need to work together. Those subject matter experts need to be on the same page and understand the consequences of decisions made in one area for others.
 
The third piece is the temporal element that you mentioned. Decisions made early on commit you to a particular path. So understanding the long-term residual risk associated with those early decisions is really important.
 
Are we factoring into early-stage decision-making the implications of pit design, or the placement of waste rock dumps and other infrastructure, for long-term positive or risk-based outcomes? Forecasting residual risk is really important here to ensure we are building resilience into our post-mining landscapes beyond end of life - and that starts quite early. It should be a central part of both operational mine planning and design, and closure execution as well.

[00:12:00] Soledad Mills
Thank you. That’s really interesting.
 
So, to summarise, the common mistakes are: lack of alignment with stakeholders and rights holders on what the desirable landscape and post-mining land use should be; lack of understanding of cumulative effects in transition and post-mine land use; and then the temporal piece - having a better understanding of long-term implications.
 
Building on that, we often hear the phrase “plan for closure from day one”. Have you actually seen anyone do this in practice? And what does that look like?

[00:12:45] Guy Boggs
It’s such a great question.
 
Absolutely - I think that message is being heard much more clearly now, that planning for closure starts at the beginning.
 
One interesting development here in Western Australia has been policy reforms put in place over the last couple of years where mine approval processes and closure planning processes have been fully integrated into one system. So, as you go through your approvals mechanisms, there is a requirement to address elements of closure planning right up front.
 
You’re also starting to see optimisation models - mine planning frameworks that traditionally haven’t built in closure risk and opportunity - beginning to change.
 
What we see now are early-stage conversations with stakeholders on likely post-mining land uses, how those genuinely fit within regional economies and landscapes, and then that starts to flow into mine planning optimisation models. That means we are getting access to resources in a timely fashion, which is important, but we are also constantly looking at mine design in the context of a post-mining outcome and the legacy conversation we’re talking about today.
 
The other piece is greater demand for evidence that particular closure outcomes can be achieved. That takes time. Building the knowledge base and the trial work required to build confidence with regulators, third-party businesses and government takes early investment.
 
We’re seeing some companies make that early investment in trial work, and that becomes really important because, as you approach closure, you have the evidence base to show that particular outcomes can be achieved through particular actions, because you’ve built that evidence over the last 10 or 20 years.

[00:15:00] Soledad Mills
That’s reassuring to hear - that new mines are starting to take the time to understand regional realities and have early-stage conversations with stakeholders and rights holders on post-mining land use.
 
Over to you, Rob. What do you think is the main barrier within companies and governments? Is it mostly technical, financial, cultural, or something else?

[00:15:20] Rob Stevens
It’s a little bit of all of those.
 
When we look at companies, closure is managed differently depending on the size, capacity and experience within those companies. Where I see some of the biggest challenges are small- to mid-sized domestic or national companies - those with only single assets or a single mine, for example. Those are often the ones that lack technical experience and have more limited financial resources.
 
By contrast, the large multinational companies are generally better prepared. They may well have a closure team that works across operations, and they bring that real capacity with them. They also tend to have developed more of a culture of closure. There are definitely companies doing a really good job where closure is not just embedded in a closure team, but spread across the organisation and individual operations.
 
Money is always an issue, particularly with small companies. I think with older mines, too, a major challenge is that companies often wait too long to set aside the financial resources necessary to implement closure. At the start of a mine’s life, when closure is 15 or 20 years away, it’s easy to think: “we can worry about that later”.
 
But as time goes on, those resources need to be there, and regulations often don’t require or assess whether sufficient funds have actually been set aside. So when you get there, the company may not have enough money, and that can lead to abandonment. That brings us back to financial assurance.
 
On the cultural side, I often find that closure and environmental management sit within a department that is focused on health, safety and environment. Depending on the company or operation, the strongest expertise may be on the health and safety side, and not necessarily on the environmental side.
 
I really think there should be a separate environment - or even closure - department or team, often combined with social or community development, rather than packaging it in with health and safety. That gives more direct focus to closure and environmental responsibilities.
 
Within government, culture is a big part of it too. We increasingly see countries that treat closure as a top priority and are concerned about it, but that isn’t always pervasive. Sometimes economic development, jobs, tax revenue and other factors carry more weight in decision-making than closure and environmental management.
 
There is still work to be done there, but I do see improvements happening bit by bit.

[00:19:00] Soledad Mills
Great. Thank you.
 
Rob, closure and rehabilitation costs are frequently underestimated, as we know. Why does this continue to happen?

[00:19:15] Rob Stevens
That’s a very good question, because you’re right.
 
A couple of years ago I was watching a webinar with some of the top closure practitioners in the world, and every one of them said: yes, cost estimates are almost always an underestimate.
 
When I raise that with governments, one of the things I say is that when they are setting financial assurance, they need to include a pretty good contingency, recognising that the estimate is probably an underestimate. That contingency is important if they want sufficient funds to be available.
 
But why does this happen?
 
Closure can be quite challenging, particularly in the early stages of a mining operation when you don’t yet have all the mining landforms that will ultimately need to be closed. You are estimating costs for features that do not yet exist.
 
For example, if you’re going to rehabilitate a rock pile and it needs recontouring, capping and revegetation, the dimensions of that feature are going to be very important to the estimate - but you don’t yet have the exact dimensions. Even if you are recontouring, you need to know the slope angles, the efficiency of equipment, and many other variables. There are so many factors that go into a cost estimate.
 
Often those estimates are rolled up into more generalised assumptions without digging into the finer details that really drive cost.
 
And it’s not just closure. You can look at feasibility studies for mine development and compare them with the actual cost of building a mine - very often it costs more than was originally estimated. That’s not only true in mining; it happens elsewhere too.
 
Another issue is that closure estimates are often done by mining engineers who have a broad base of skills, but whose core strength may be mine design rather than cost estimating. If you think of a company bidding to build a bridge, they would use professional cost engineers whose job is to estimate costs in great detail. I don’t think that happens as often in closure as it could, particularly in smaller companies.
 
There’s also probably a degree of human nature in it. People are optimistic. They think, “we can do this for that amount”, but reality often turns out to involve more than expected.

[00:23:00] Soledad Mills
Absolutely. I’ve also seen examples where companies haven’t even started estimating closure costs until very late in the mine life cycle, when ideally they would have been budgeting for those costs from day one.
 
Guy, what about you? Do you have a view on why these costs are so frequently underestimated?

[00:23:20] Guy Boggs
I think this is such a fundamental point in the conversation about achieving positive legacies.
 
Building on Rob’s points, if we think about the standard studies framework used in industry - whether for a new mine build or closure - estimation is fairly well accepted and addresses an industry standard. What we haven’t seen is industry looking closely at whether those studies models are actually fit for purpose for closure-related studies, given all the reasons Rob has outlined.
 
Closure has a multi-decade time horizon and different areas of uncertainty. So there are questions around whether the standard financial and planning models are really appropriate.
 
There are also some real business decisions embedded in this. Let’s be clear: the models are set up to optimise value to the business, even while planning for a positive legacy. That raises questions around things like the application of NPV models, discount rates, and how they are applied to different types of closure activities or outcomes.
 
We are working at the moment on optimisation frameworks for the way NPV is applied to long-term benefits or risks emerging from different closure pathways, and on building that into core financial models.
 
There is also very little guidance out there on standardising the way we think about closure-related studies and the costing that goes with them. If we want that to flow into provisioning and be reflected consistently across companies, there is still a lot of inconsistency. So I think there is real space for guidance and for industry to work together.
 
The other point I wanted to raise is the old “unknown unknowns”. Closure involves a whole suite of tangible and intangible values, and that creates uncertainty. We’re getting better at accounting for things like social capital and natural capital. Emerging nature-related finance standards are helping us better integrate some of those intangible values into decision-making.
 
But there will still be uncertainties that only present well into the future.
 
So, in addition to trying to make sure we’re truly costing the known costs of closure, we also have to recognise that some uncertainty will always remain at transition. That raises questions about how financial risk is shared between governments, communities and companies, and what that means for financial assurance schemes around the world.

[00:27:00] Soledad Mills
Yes, and I think that’s why investors have such an important role to play in standardising or improving the way companies estimate these costs.
 
Back to you, Rob: from your work advising governments, how should financial assurance systems evolve to prevent future orphaned or abandoned mines?

[00:27:30] Rob Stevens
To start with, the fundamental point is that we need clear regulations on financial assurance that require comprehensive cost estimates, and where the amount of financial assurance is directly related to that cost estimate.
 
I see quite a few jurisdictions that have developed formulas for determining the amount of financial assurance, but they aren’t necessarily based on the actual cost of closure, nor are they directly related to the cost of closing any individual mine. They’re generalised numbers that apply across the board, whether you’re dealing with a small non-metallic quarry or a large metal mine with much more complex closure requirements.
 
So financial assurance really should be based on mine-specific cost estimates.
 
A second challenge is the actual financial assurance tools being used - letters of credit, insurance, bonds and so on. In a number of countries, those can be difficult to obtain, particularly through national institutions. Some domestic institutions may not be sufficiently capitalised to provide them.
 
Governments are also understandably concerned when financial assurance is held abroad, because it can be much harder and slower to call on that security. That is a real challenge.
 
One idea worth considering is whether development banks could play a role where countries do not have the financial institutions needed. Could more international institutions help provide that support for some nations?
 
I’d also come back to the challenge of companies actually setting aside the funds for closure while the mine is still operating. One idea emerging from some of the work I’m doing is for governments to require companies to set aside funds annually - particularly as the mine gets closer to closure - into a restricted or escrow account. Those funds could only be withdrawn with government permission and only for the purpose of closure.
 
That could sit alongside more conventional financial assurance tools such as letters of credit. It would help ensure that companies are fully meeting their responsibilities.
 
Another idea I like, which has been explored in Australia, is pooled funds. In that model, not every individual mine has to hold the full amount of financial assurance itself. Instead, there is a state- or national-level fund to which all mining companies contribute. That can help address unplanned closures.
 
Sometimes that pooled fund might sit on its own, or it might be combined with a reduced level of site-specific financial assurance. But I do think it is a useful model, especially because it can help respond to sudden closures - for example, if a technical failure causes a mine to shut down and the company goes bankrupt. Most financial assurance mechanisms are designed around planned closure, not sudden closure.
 
So yes, there is still a lot of work to do on financial assurance, but progress is being made.

[00:32:30] Soledad Mills
Thank you. I think that’s a really good idea - to explore the role of international development banks, which can engage both companies they invest in and governments, to help improve financial assurance mechanisms.
 
Back to Guy. Last question on the financials: are we investing enough in research and innovation to reduce uncertainty in closure cost estimates? And have you seen any breakthroughs that can materially shift financial risk?

[00:33:00] Guy Boggs
The short answer is no - we are not investing enough in innovation in the closure part of our businesses, in my opinion.
 
I don’t think we have fully recognised the material gains that can come from innovation in this space in the same way we recognise innovation in exploration, processing and operations.
 
What I love about the mining industry is that it does have a strong appreciation for research and innovation when it comes to critical challenges and moving the industry forward. But closure has often not been seen as a value-add area for the business, so the case for investing in innovation there hasn’t been as strong as it could be.
 
That said, I do think this is changing. CRC TiME itself is one of those signals. We’re supported by a large number of companies and the Commonwealth Government to truly invest in innovation in this space.
 
Through our research, and through the limited examples of good closure and transition that do exist, we’ve learned that these are always co-invested activities. Rather than seeing closure cost estimation as the sole responsibility of the company, we start to think of closure as a pre-competitive activity supporting future land use.
 
When you put yourself in the mindset of post-mining stakeholders - governments, First Nations groups, third-party businesses, whether renewable energy developers, tourism operators or others looking at the asset - you can start to reframe closure liabilities as investment in positive legacy.
 
That becomes a completely different framing of cost estimation.
 
If we can start to think in those terms, and use funding models that shift closure from being purely a liability conversation to one that drives investment in post-mining futures, with shared equity from governments, third parties and mining companies, then we may see a step change in the ability to relinquish and transition assets into positive futures.
 
Then we come back to uncertainty itself, which is critical in cost estimation.
 
This includes the social dimensions of closure and how they evolve over time. We are starting to get a better handle on the true cost of those aspects, but uncertainty remains, particularly if we do not fully understand tenure arrangements, who will be responsible for land into the future, whether tenure should change, or whether the relevant agreements are actually in place.
 
Governments are also looking at their own role. They know that towns, regions and communities have been built around mining, and as closure and transition occur, those responsibilities increasingly shift to government. Governments themselves are asking how they should position their investments to support future communities.
 
One of the areas of work we’re now starting is looking at the groups investing in the post-mining estate - whether private business or not-for-profit organisations, such as examples in the US that use waste to support restoration under not-for-profit models.
 
There is a whole range of opportunities in the post-mining estate and different ways to attract financing to achieve a positive legacy. Mining companies must absolutely cover the risks accrued through their operations, as Rob has said, but what we are increasingly seeing is that achieving positive legacy is actually a co-investment model.

[00:38:00] Soledad Mills
Thank you, Guy. That’s really interesting - especially the idea of co-investment and thinking of closure costs as pre-competitive activities that support future post-mining transitions.
 
CRC TiME talks about enabling new visions for mining economy transformations. Can you share some examples of innovative post-mining land uses that challenge the traditional “rehabilitate and walk away” model, and perhaps talk about some of the exciting work CRC TiME is doing, such as the Atlas of Post-Mining Futures?

[00:38:30] Guy Boggs
In the post-mining land use space, we are seeing some really exciting things.
 
We’re seeing underground dark matter physics laboratories in old mines in Victoria. We’re seeing renewable energy hubs built on old mines in Queensland. We’re seeing ski parks and tourism ventures being created in Western Australia.
 
All of those successful models - and there are still very few examples of full relinquishment - are tied to novel post-mining land use.
 
Now, we’ve talked about some of the financial and planning elements, but we also need robust new ways of thinking about the economics, the biophysical aspects of planning processes, and the social dimensions of engagement, participation and ownership.
 
One of the things we are finding - and I actually wrote about this on LinkedIn this week - is the importance of sharing stories.
 
When we started this work, there was already a next version of 102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground, which Peter Whitbread and the team discussed in the last TDi-hosted webinar. That was really important in sharing stories from around the world about what was working and why in different locations.
 
Those stories may not always go into the depth needed to build new frameworks and models, but they are still incredibly important. Every time we engage with new partners and stakeholders, we hear more of those stories. So we saw an opportunity to turn that into a living atlas.
 
We are creating a digital platform with Peter to grow from that fantastic book - to create a living resource that allows people to be inspired.
 
In our foundational study on post-mining land use, one of the emergent characteristics was that there was almost always a champion involved in enabling that post-mining use - someone who drove it and was passionately committed to it. Sometimes they worked for the mining company, sometimes they were a community member, sometimes they were from government. But there was always someone who could bring different stakeholders together around a future vision.
 
So we need to inspire people to think beyond closure.
 
I also want to give a shout-out to the ICMM multi-stakeholder transition guidance, which speaks to a range of governance models suited to different types of transitions. That is really important when we think about enabling positive mine transition. Whether the opportunity is strongly economic, or more about return to nature and long-term stewardship of Country, the governance models involved can be very different.
 
Our work is also looking at governance models and toolkits that support regional planning processes, so that we are thinking not only about the site itself, but about the region as a whole.

[00:42:00] Soledad Mills
That’s great to hear about the Atlas of Post-Mining Futures and the importance of sharing stories. It really helps people see what is possible and inspires them to consider different options for post-mining land use.
 
Rob, how early should communities be involved in post-mine land use decisions, and how do you avoid engagement becoming tokenistic?

[00:42:20] Rob Stevens
Communities should be involved right from the word go.
 
If closure planning is part of the social and environmental impact assessment, then land use and what closure will actually look like should be informed by communities and stakeholders in and around the mine site from the beginning.
 
That really should be part of the key planning that goes into developing the closure plan.
 
That said, your point is valid - engagement can become tokenistic, or people can become exhausted by repeated consultation. It is therefore very important that community interests are genuinely taken into account in decisions about future land use.
 
Of course, there are constraints. Post-mining land use needs to fit within broader land use plans in the area, and it needs to meet certain financial realities. Sometimes communities may want an outcome that simply is not financially viable for the mining company.
 
One idea I really like is closure committees. We see some governments introducing these, where the committee has broad representation from across stakeholders and meets regularly. It becomes a way to bring stakeholder interests to the company and government, while also allowing information to flow back the other way.
 
That’s not the only way communities should be involved, but I do think it can be an effective mechanism for maintaining meaningful engagement without exhausting people, and for ensuring that community voices are heard throughout the life of the mine.

[00:45:00] Soledad Mills
I fully agree that communities should be engaged on closure and post-mining land use from the beginning, although frankly I’ve rarely seen that in practice. But it is good to hear that governments are increasingly facilitating closure committees.
 
CRC TiME prioritises Indigenous partnerships and First Nations inclusion as essential to successful transitions. So Guy, what are some examples of how companies have partnered with Indigenous communities to support planning and decision-making for post-mine transitions, while also advancing communities’ own social, cultural, economic and environmental priorities?

[00:45:30] Guy Boggs
Such an important area.
 
We recognise that all mines in Australia are on the Indigenous estate and will often have some level of native title or related rights that apply to transition. So, both legally and ethically, First Nations people have responsibility and stewardship of Country - and they have had stewardship for tens of thousands of years.
 
Mining is a temporary use of that landscape. Aboriginal people will remain responsible for Country well beyond the life of mine. So it is critical in any closure transition that we understand what that means for the relevant community.
 
There is also an important recognition here of diversity. Terms like Indigenous or Aboriginal can obscure the fact that there are many different First Nations groups across Australia, with different languages and different priorities for their regions.
 
When we’ve worked with First Nations people across the country, we’ve seen two key elements. The first is participation in land use and closure planning processes.
 
A great example is in Victoria, where Traditional Owner groups have developed models for post-mining land use options that are fit for their own purposes. In the Latrobe Valley, a region with a long history of coal mining, we are seeing leadership from these groups in defining a range of post-mining land uses.
 
Participation is also important in the development of completion criteria. Increasingly, rather than industry alone defining what closure success looks like, many Prescribed Body Corporates are appointing mine closure specialists themselves and working with Traditional Owners to identify what valuable completion criteria would look like, which they then bring into discussions with companies.
 
There are examples of this with the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation in the Northern Territory in the context of the Ranger mine closure transition.
 
We’re also working with PKKP in the Pilbara on Indigenous-led regional cumulative effects assessment. Again, that’s about Indigenous-led planning processes and about recognising spatial framing - moving away from the mining lens and instead asking what boundaries and regions of interest matter to post-mining stakeholders and First Nations groups.
 
The second pillar I want to emphasise is economic participation.
 
Economic participation by First Nations groups is growing. There are some wonderful partnerships and agreements that have strengthened the financial position of Indigenous groups, and we are starting to see those groups co-investing in their own futures alongside companies.
 
That matters when we talk about co-investment models. Indigenous businesses and organisations increasingly have capital they can deploy into strong economic development opportunities in post-mining futures.
 
We also need to think about participation in the supply chain. In Australia, we are working with the Aboriginal Enterprises in Mining, Exploration and Energy group to understand what roles Indigenous businesses are playing in the mine closure supply chain.
 
There are strong examples of Traditional Owner-led businesses doing earthmoving and other closure-related works on behalf of companies. There are also great examples in seed supply chains and rehabilitation.
 
A recent example in the Pilbara involved a Traditional Owner group working with BHP to activate seed supply chains and create seed production areas and seed farms to supply rehabilitation programmes.
 
So we are really unlocking economic participation in mine closure both through post-mining diversification opportunities and through involvement in the closure supply chain.
 
The third element, which cuts across both of these, is Indigenous leadership in mine closure planning. We are seeing exciting developments in training and capacity-building - whether through vocational pathways, higher education or professional development pathways - to empower strong First Nations leadership in shaping future outcomes.

[00:51:45] Soledad Mills
That’s really fascinating. Indigenous leadership in mine closure planning processes is clearly important not only for identifying economic opportunities, but also for considering cumulative impacts and the long-term temporal framing of those impacts.
 
Well, thank you both. This has been such a rich discussion, and I feel I could continue asking many more questions. But to wrap up, I’d like to close with one final question.
 
Looking ahead to the future, perhaps starting with you, Rob: when we look back in 20 years, what will define whether this generation handled mine legacy responsibly?

[00:52:15] Rob Stevens
I think all the things we’ve been talking about throughout this podcast will need to be fully implemented.
 
Closure needs to be a fully integrated part of a mining operation. We need to see an increasing number of really good examples of mine closures. Australia has quite a number already, and I’d like to see many more - examples that, after 20 years, are still performing more or less as intended.
 
We also need a strong culture right across government, companies, financiers and communities. If everyone recognises the importance of closure, and people can learn from one another, then those who are not doing it properly will increasingly become the outsiders.
 
I think that will be really important.

[00:53:10] Soledad Mills
Wonderful. I’m glad to hear you are relatively optimistic about the future, assuming we have stronger regulations in place.
 
And Guy, what about you? Do you think we’ll achieve positive mine legacies in the next generation?

[00:53:20] Guy Boggs
I’m incredibly optimistic as well.
 
I think conversations like the one recently led by yourselves through Mining 2030 are a great indicator of the shift toward ensuring that positive legacy is a critical part of our mining future.

[00:53:45] Soledad Mills
Well, thank you once again to our speakers, Guy Boggs and Rob Stevens, for joining us today.
 
To our listeners, if you haven’t already seen it, please download the Global Investor Commission for Mining 2030 Mine Legacy Paper - the link will be in the show notes.
 
Please also check out the other episodes in our Suits and Boots podcast series, as well as our webinar last year on mine legacy, co-hosted with Mining 2030.
 
I’m Soledad Mills, and thank you for listening.