Improving Stakeholder Engagement in Closure Planning through an Ecosystem Services Approach

摘要

A framework based on ecosystem services concept to facilitate stakeholder engagement, especially local communities for planning closure is introduced. Ecosystem services are benefits that the natural environment provides to maintain human well-being. In order to test the framework workshops were conducted with company staff of two bauxite mines operated by the same company, but situated in different contexts, the Brazilian Amazon and Southwestern Australia. When asked about the usefulness of the proposed framework, staff at the mines responded differently: while in the Australian mine, ecosystem services appear to be a new label to an established practice, in the Brazilian mine, the approach was welcomed as a tool that facilitates stakeholder engagement in defining post-closure planning objectives and targets. The research suggests that ecosystem services provide a useful way of conducting stakeholder engagement, because post-mining land uses (human uses of environment) are tangible whereas ecological restoration for the sake biodiversity is an abstract goal. In arriving at this conclusion, it is important to realise that we did not actually carry out a mine closure planning stakeholder engagement process.