How do green mines take the next step?

But some problems have also been exposed: some places only want quantity without regard for quality, resulting in some green mines not worthy of the name;some enterprises have the idea of once and for all, and the green results are difficult to maintain;the lack of strong constraints and incentive policies, the creation effect is not as good as expected. Whether it is to ensure the safety of national mineral resources, or to promote the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, green mine construction is an important fulcrum.To steadily move forward in the next stage of green mine construction, many difficulties must be solved.

 The new green picture of mines is slowly unfolding

 The concept of green mines was born at the beginning of this century, and it was only an initiative at the beginning.Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, with the concept of ecological civilization gradually deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the natural resources department has planned and promoted the green mine construction with a higher vision and a more scientific perspective, and a series of systems such as top-level design, policies and measures, standards and specifications, and evaluation system have been gradually established, and in practice, encourage and guide mining enterprises to embark on the road of green development. In 2017, the former Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Finance, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the CBRC and the CSRC jointly issued the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Green Mines (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), and then the former Ministry of Land and Resources issued the green mine construction specifications for nine industries such as nonferrous metals, metallurgy and chemical industry. The introduction of these basic institutional documents has provided a strong thrust for the construction of green mines, boosted the confidence of local and industry, and accelerated the pace of green mines.Subsequently, various regions have set up rules and regulations, laid the foundation, and integrated the concept of green development into the whole process of mineral resources planning, exploration, development and protection, and explored new mechanisms and methods suitable for the local area. It is understood that, in accordance with the "six" indicators of scientific mining methods, efficient resource utilization, standardized enterprise management, environmentally friendly production process, ecological mining environment, and harmonious enterprise community, up to now, more than 1100 national green mines have been built nationwide.Rub away the dust and turn around gorgeous. 

These responsible and productive mining enterprises rely on green kinetic energy to achieve high-quality development of enterprises. Adhering to the concept of green development, Shandong Gold has awarded more than 1100 national green mines, and achieved good results in green exploration practice.Anhui Conch Cement Limestone Mine pays attention to scientific and technological innovation, and has formed a series of green innovation achievements in comprehensive resource utilization and ecological restoration.Gansu Jinhui Mining has built green mines with high standards, and has been awarded the national industrial tourism demonstration base. Zhejiang Xinkaiyuan Mining's intelligent, garden-style, harmonious and shared green mine construction mode has attracted a number of study and observation groups from all over the country.Zijin Mining has promoted China's green mine concept to "go global", and the green mine invested and built in Serbia has been highly praised by the local government and people.With scientific and technological innovation as the breakthrough point, mining enterprises have made achievements in resource conservation and intensive use, energy saving and emission reduction, cost reduction and efficiency increase, which can be described as a series of achievements.Jianping Shengde Rixin Mining Co., Ltd. in Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, invested 158 million yuan in the comprehensive development technology of dry iron tailings for integrated research. It not only digests the waste tailings in the production process of iron concentrate, realizes the production capacity of 4000 tons of dry tailings per day, but also saves a lot of water resources, and the water consumption decreases from 7,500 cubic meters to 1,500 cubic meters per day.This series of "combinations" has increased the annual efficiency of the enterprise by 42.535 million yuan and created social benefits of 250 million yuan.According to the report of the Institute of Mining Green Development of China Natural Resources Economics Research Institute, during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China's average selection rate of raw coal is 71.2%, which is 11.6 percentage points higher than the 12th Five-Year Plan period.The average recovery rate of underground iron ore is 86.4%, which is 4 percentage points higher than the 12th Five-Year Plan period. The recovery rate of open-pit mining of copper, lead, zinc, tungsten and other major non-ferrous metal ores and gold ore exceeds 90%, and the recovery rate of mineral processing exceeds 85%.The "three rates" of green mining enterprises are 10% to 30% higher than the industry average, which plays an important role in leading and driving.

 There is less dust, more green, less pollution, and higher resource utilization rate.Behind these visible changes is the awakening of the concept of ecological civilization in the mining industry, and the new green picture of mines is slowly unfolding.

 There are still problems to be solved in the policy mechanism

 When the whole society realizes that green and sustainable development is an inevitable trend and gives a thumbs-up to green mines, the reality is that the number of green mines is less than 10% of the total number of mines in China. This makes people think: why is the construction of green mines still slow? For a long time, there are problems of insufficient positive incentives and weak reverse constraints in the construction of green mines in many places.In order to improve the enthusiasm of enterprises, the Opinions put forward an incentive policy system to increase support for green mines from land use, mineral use, fiscal and taxation, financial credit and other aspects.But due to the lack of relevant supporting documents, it is difficult for local authorities to implement in actual operation, resulting in low enthusiasm of some mining enterprises, especially small and medium-sized mining enterprises. For example, in terms of land use, the construction land needed in the construction of green mines is not guaranteed in priority, and there is a lack of corresponding operation measures for how to better use the land after reclamation and revitalization.In addition, the mining right is tilted towards green mines, which violates the policy requirements of open competition for the transfer of mining right.In terms of restraint mechanism, some provinces have issued relevant policies.For example, Guangdong, Hunan and other places require mines that cannot meet the standards of green mines to rectify within a certain period, and the penalties include temporary suspension of registration, suspension of production rectification and policy closure.But at present, the revision of the Mineral Resources Law has not been completed, and local competent authorities have concerns: without the support of the higher law, relevant policies are easy to trigger administrative litigation.

 Different provinces have different mineral resources endowments and different levels of economic and social development, which also causes uneven construction proportion and level of mines in different regions, different minerals and different scales. Some local competent authorities believe that the current evaluation standard system of green mines should be further improved for these considerations.

 The low degree of inter-departmental coordination, low efficiency and unequal power and responsibility are also an important factor restricting the acceleration of green mines. Some grassroots cadres of the natural resources department reflect that as a multi-department collaborative work, in the process of green mine construction, some departments only participate in meetings and issue documents, but do not make actual contributions.In some places, the problems related to production safety and environmental protection, such as overload, sewage discharge, dust and noise, are under the control of the natural resources department, resulting in passive work and great pressure.In addition, the shortage of funds is also a major problem for many enterprises in the process of green mine construction.Some mining enterprises said that environmental governance, intelligent mine construction and other fields need a large amount of capital investment, and it is difficult to see returns in the short term, making enterprises hard to afford.In addition to objective factors, there are also some small and medium-sized mining enterprises that do not have a deep understanding of the connotation of green mine.Some believe that green mine is simply "greening", do the surface work on the line, the lack of a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the concept of green development, and the implementation of the concept is not thorough.At the same time, the lack of subjective initiative is also one of the reasons for the slow construction of green mine.For example, some mining enterprises do not have a deep understanding of the urgency of green mine construction, do not pay enough attention, and lack the enthusiasm of active construction. There are also some enterprises with inert thinking, once awarded the title of green mine "lying flat", green achievements are difficult to maintain, and even gradually "return to ash".

 Multiple measures to "break the situation" difficulties

 In terms of strengthening the overall leadership, Liaoning set up a special class for promoting the "Green Liaoning" project with the vice governor as the leader, promoting green mines as one of the high-level projects, and including the completion of green mine construction tasks into the annual performance assessment of the municipal governments.

 Kuancheng Manchu Autonomous County, Chengde City, Hebei Province is rich in gold and iron resources, and is a typical mining county.The county set up a leading group for green mine construction with the county party secretary as the leader, set up a green mine construction office, with special personnel, special classes and special responsibilities.In addition, the county has also established a green mine expert resource database, absorbing experts to form a think tank to provide guidance for green mines.At present, more than 80% of the large and medium-sized mines in the county have been built into green mines.

 In terms of strengthening the coordination of departments, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Natural Resources has jointly issued the "Green Mine Management Measures of Zhejiang Province" with the provincial economic and information, science and technology, finance, ecological environment, water conservancy, emergency and market regulatory departments. Eight departments each perform their responsibilities, and can "shake fingers into fists", which provides a solid guarantee for promoting the construction of green mines. In terms of improving the legal system, Ordos City of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Benxi City of Liaoning Province have issued green mine construction management regulations, promoting green mine construction by means of local people's congress legislation, providing a solid legal guarantee for the construction and management of green mines.In terms of incentive and incentive policies, the Three-year Action Plan for Green Mine Construction in Liaoning Province issued by the General Office of the Liaoning Provincial Government has introduced 11 support policies, including the urgent need for land for green mine construction of mining enterprises in the provincial green mine creation database to be incorporated into the national space planning to support, opening green passages for green mining enterprises to apply for land use and mining right examination and registration, and introducing a grading incentive system for completed national and provincial green mines.The Guangdong Provincial Department of Natural Resources and the Provincial Department of Finance have set up a special incentive fund for green mine construction in Guangdong Province of 30 million yuan annually and 120 million yuan in four years, which greatly improves the enthusiasm of mining enterprises.Kuancheng Manchu Autonomous County of Hebei Province gives a 10% incentive of the investment amount to new green mine projects or technical transformation projects with fixed assets investment of more than 50 million yuan and comprehensive environmental improvement projects of more than 10 million yuan. The reporter noted that some localities have taken green mines as the "bottom line" requirement of the mining industry, and explored and introduced some policies linked to the approval of mining rights.For example, Hebei Province stipulates that only national-level green mines can be deepened, and Hainan Province takes the completion of green mines as the prerequisite for the continuation of mining rights. "Taking the advantage of the province's digital reform, we have introduced the digital concept into the construction of green mines, and explored the promotion of high-quality development of the mining industry with digital empowerment."Yu Kangchun, deputy director of the Mine Protection Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Natural Resources, introduced.In 2020, Zhejiang took the lead in launching the pilot construction of intelligent green mines, and three mines have passed the acceptance.The essential safety level, resource utilization efficiency, production management efficiency, scientific decision-making ability, enterprise management level and enterprise economic efficiency have been significantly improved.For example, by building a waste heat power generation and energy storage system, Jiande Conch Cement Co., Ltd. saves 3,100 tons of standard coal annually and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 11,000 tons.

 Work together to take the next step

 Green mine construction has been promoted so far, and the next is a tough nut to crack.Under the new stage, new concept and new pattern, whether it is to ensure the safety of national mineral resources or to achieve harmony between man and nature, it needs all parties to work together and continuously promote the construction of green mines. "Green mine is a 'sword' to solve the contradiction between mining engineering activities and ecological and environmental protection.Green mine construction should be viewed from the perspective of the state, rather than from the perspective of a department or an industry." In this regard, Wu Qiang suggested that green mine construction should be integrated into the whole life cycle of the mine, and in accordance with the thinking of systematic engineering, adhere to the landscape forest, field, lake and grass is a life community, and bring a single mine into the large watershed and natural ecological system for unified consideration and unified management, and ultimately achieve the optimal comprehensive benefits of resources, environment, economy and society. In terms of improving the incentive and punitive measures, many experts in the industry suggested that the relevant departments of natural resources, ecological environment, finance and finance should focus on the problems and needs of mining, land use, tax and fee raised by enterprises in the process of green mine construction, conduct in-depth actual research and analysis, and jointly study solutions to lay a foundation for the formulation of more practical incentive and punitive measures.According to the relevant national ministries and commissions documents, various places should formulate and release the implementation of the opinions and implementation rules at the first time, implement the incentive and incentive policies, release the policy dividends to the maximum extent, implement the incentive measures, boost the confidence of enterprises, and reverse the situation that some small and medium-sized mining enterprises are willing to build green mines but lack the strength. 

With the continuous promotion of green mine construction, the focus will also be transferred to small and medium-sized mines, but small and medium-sized mines in management, resources, funds and other aspects compared with large mines there is an obvious gap.In this regard, experts suggest that local governments should be based on the actual situation of mining development, follow the laws of mining development, accurately grasp the requirements of green mine construction, seek truth from facts to formulate the goals of green mine construction, and gradually and solidly promote the green mine construction in accordance with the "one land, one policy" and "one mine, one case".At the same time, the enterprise itself should also actively seek resources, funds and technology through a variety of channels to ensure the smooth progress of green mine construction.In addition, Peng Qimin, president of the China Mining Association, suggested that the construction of green mine standard system should be further improved.He said: "At present, the mining industry should stand on a higher stage to more profoundly understand the meaning of 'ecology', highlighting the word 'ecology' in the standard system of green mines, especially on the basis of fully considering the climate, environment and ecology of different regions, adjust the standard requirements of different regions in accordance with local conditions, and do a good job in revision and improvement." Many interviewed experts pointed out that the efficient and comprehensive utilization of resources driven by scientific and technological progress is a crucial link in the construction of green mines. Efforts should be made to break through the key technologies that "choke the neck" in the mining and utilization of mineral resources, strengthen the cooperation between scientific research institutions, universities and enterprises, and constantly optimize the mining technology innovation system. Green mines are not and cannot be built in a day.It involves not only the scientific and technological progress of mineral resources mining and utilization, but also the "invisible hand" of the market economy, and more importantly, the natural laws of the landscape, forest, field, lake, grass and sand ecosystem.Only by jointly building and taking multiple measures by government departments, enterprises, industry associations and other parties can we keep the ecological red line and draw a good green mine.