Exploration of diversified financing channels for mine ecological restoration

Due to historical reasons, China's long-term extensive mineral resources development and utilization mode not only caused serious damage and waste of mineral resources, but also brought huge negative impact on the natural environment. Under the influence of the double carbon target and the "two mountains theory", China's energy structure and consumption ratio are constantly changing. As an important work of energy reform and adjustment, mine ecological restoration will also promote the continuous development of China's ecological civilization.

First, the status quo of mine ecological restoration

Mine ecological restoration is an important connotation of ecological environment management in China. China's mineral resources development activities have a long history, long-term high-intensity, large-scale mineral mining has led to the occupation or destruction of about 3.6 million hm2 of land due to mining. However, abandoned mines will cause many negative ecological and environmental impacts such as geological disasters, land resource damage, soil erosion, water pollution, soil heavy metal pollution and air pollution in mining areas. Ecological restoration of mines has gradually become the key link to protect ecological environment in China. To this end, China has issued a series of policies to effectively promote the restoration of mine ecological environment. In December 2019, China issued the Opinions of the Ministry of Natural Resources on Exploring the Use of Market-oriented Ways to Promote Ecological Restoration in Mines, which clearly defined the mode of market-oriented operation and scientific governance to accelerate the promotion of ecological restoration in mines; In June 2022, China issued the Opinions on Supporting designated Counties to achieve the Effective connection between consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation Achievements and Rural Revitalization in 2022, clearly pointing out that it is necessary to guide and support designated counties to carry out ecological protection and restoration, and promote the marketization of ecological restoration in mines from the perspective of rural revitalization. At the same time, the Case of Social Capital Participation in Territorial Spatial Ecological Restoration issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources introduced the market-oriented restoration cases of abandoned mines in Shandong, Anhui, Yunnan, Zhejiang, Henan and other places, and also showed the enthusiasm of social capital participation in mine restoration.

However, at present, the economic value of the restored mine is not high, and the economic benefits of the project are unstable, which limits the motivation of the relevant parties to promote ecological restoration, and the restoration work lags behind seriously. Specifically, the location of abandoned mines and the degree of exploitation and utilization vary from place to place, especially in areas with insufficient government financial funds and poor transportation location, mine restoration is mostly for public service to local residents, and the final results are mainly natural environment reserves, with low value of subsequent commercial development. Other repaired mines also have contradictions such as the inability to revitalize the existing construction land and the difficulty in obtaining new construction land, resulting in the low value of the repaired construction land. On this basis, the superimposed characteristics of large investment funds, long investment cycle, and unstable income from late development of mining ecological restoration projects have led to the lack of confidence of relevant enterprises and weak investment attraction. At the same time, immature business models also pose major obstacles to the participation of financial institutions and the use of green financial instruments.

Second, the path and characteristics of mine ecological restoration

In view of the characteristics of large initial investment and uncertain benefits in mine restoration, it is difficult to cover the follow-up maintenance costs only by relying on traditional public welfare projects such as the establishment of protected areas, and the demand for actively exploring market-oriented operation means is increasing. At present, the market-oriented ecological restoration path of mines is mainly based on land index development and "ecological +" projects.

(1) Path 1: land index transfer

The Opinions of the Ministry of Natural Resources on Exploring the use of market-oriented ways to Promote the ecological restoration of mines clearly stipulates that the abandoned construction land of historical mines is restored to cultivated land, and after passing the acceptance, the construction land index can be transferred and used within the province with reference to the policy of linking the increase and decrease of urban and rural construction land. Binchuan County of Yunnan Province actively uses the policy of linking land increase and decrease to carry out land index transfer, and the 220 mu paddy field sorted out in the low level of the mining area gets 50 million yuan income; The coal mining subsidence control project of Lujin Lake in Huaibei City, Anhui province, is expected to generate more than 30 billion yuan in direct income from the transferable construction land formed around the lake. Due to the immature transaction mechanism of construction land index, the problem of difficult transactions is prominent, the involvement of commercial banks is limited, and the early restoration funds are mainly funded by the government, which requires higher requirements on the local financial foundation.