What to Do after Mine Closure? Pursuing Community Benefits in the Transition to Post-Mining
Mining represents a particularly intense way of human intervention in landscapes, with immense impacts on regional economy, culture and social life. Our new team member Kamila Svobodova provides insights into her social-ecological research on post-mining sites around the world.
Kamila has recently joined our research group of Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems to conduct her Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship funded by the European Commission. Originally from the small rural town Žatec in the Czech Republic, she is a Landscape Engineer and holds a PhD in Architecture and Urbanism. Her research focuses on social and cultural aspects of mining and mine closure.
In her CESMINE project, she will study the complexities of socio-economic rehabilitation after quarrying in three European countries — Germany, Denmark and Czech Republic.
Kamila, welcome to this blog! First of all, how did you get from landscape engineering to mining?
I was always interested in social and cultural interactions between people and landscapes. My hometown is not far from the largest brown coal mines in the Czech Republic. Many of my friends were from coal regions and I spent a lot of time there during my master studies, seeing how people living in close proximity to the pits have been wholly shaped by the legacies of mining.
Large-scale mining has been there for over half a century. During that time, around 100 villages were resettled as mining operation progressed and about 60,000 people had to leave their homes. When I talked to my friends and their relatives, they expressed that mining had always been part of their lives and identities. They were somehow proud of living in the mined areas. This fascinated me. I wanted to know more about what shapes the relationships with their surroundings.
After my master studies, I got an opportunity to conduct a PhD on landscape design of mine rehabilitation. This is when I started to look at the relationships between people and mining through the lens of research methods.
Tell us more about your doctoral research.
I studied my PhD at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague. In my PhD thesis, I was looking at the visual quality of mine rehabilitation sites after coal mining. Using a combination of interviews and questionnaires, I mapped community preferences for post-mining land use that has traditionally been used in mine rehabilitation in the Czech Republic. In my thesis, I developed a methodological approach to map and include residents’ preferences for post-mining land use in a standardized mine rehabilitation practice.
I know that you spent several years working in Australia. How did you get there?
During my first year as a Postdoc at the Czech University of Life Sciences, I received an Endeavour Research Fellowship funded by the Australian Government to support my research at Monash University. I became part of the Resources Engineering group supervised by Associate Professor Mohan Yellishetty, and spent one year exploring Australians’ attitudes to mining and mine rehabilitation and assessing public knowledge on the topic.
It was my first experience in a leading mining country, and I realized how important, diverse and powerful the mining industry is. I engaged with stakeholders from leading mining companies who operate across the world. My new insights in the diversity of commodities, mining methods and the differences in governance, environments and societies surrounding mining operations really shaped my views on the topic.
After my fellowship at Monash University, I continued my research at the Czech University of Life Sciences. I received a 3-year project funded by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic where my team and I explored the networks of actors shaping coal mining policy in three countries — Czech Republic, Poland and Australia.
This was when you returned to Australia?
Yes. Exactly. In the second year of the project, my colleague Petr Ocelík and I travelled to Australia to run interviews with stakeholders from Australian coal mining regions. This time, we collaborated with the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland (CSRM). Later on, I received an offer of a Research Fellow position at CSRM, which I accepted, and stayed there for another 2.5 years.
You have recently arrived back in Europe to run the project CESMINE. As you said, CESMINE is focused on quarrying. How does quarrying differ from mining?
Quarrying is a type of open-pit (surface) mining, producing industrial minerals or construction materials. For example, natural stone, sand, gravel, lime or salt. Quarries are usually smaller and often located in close proximity to urban areas.
How does CESMINE fit into the agenda of the Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems (SEIAS) group?
I think that the diversity of the work of topics in the SEIAS group is quite impressive. CESMINE is not about agricultural systems, however it studies social-ecological interactions between people and quarries. Since the Middle Ages, quarries have been a common part of European landscapes. They may overlap with sensitive ecosystems and places of high cultural value. On the other hand, after their closure and rehabilitation they may become recreational parks, cultural venues, natural areas or new agricultural systems important for local communities.
Why do you think your work is important for Sustainable Development?
The global population is growing and mineral consumption is increasing even faster than population. As a consequence, the supply for minerals follows the demand and we can see large investments in building new mines in rural areas. In these cases, community acceptance of mining, changes in land use and people’s willingness to live in mining and post-mining economies are largely untested but should be regarded as one of the defining factors in sustainable development.
My research helps us understand how connections between people and places are formed and transferred across the life of a mine and what people’s resilience to industrial or post-industrial change is. These insights into interactions between people and mines are of increasing value for SDGs given the likely ramifications of global minerals policy on local settings.
In a follow-up post, Kamila will report more on her ongoing research in the CESMINE project. To stay up to date regarding her research, follow her on Medium, Twitter or ResearchGate.
