Mine ecological protection and mine ecological restoration

In the development of mineral resources in China, the problem of mine ecological environment is more prominent because of the historical debt for many years. The severe mine environmental situation forces the mining enterprises to improve their thinking and understanding in environmental protection work, change their ideas, and strengthen governance. Ideas guide action, and what ideas there are, there will be what actions.

One or two different concepts

All kinds of social production and life activities that people engage in often have different degrees of disturbance or influence on the natural ecological environment. Especially some development activities, such as water resources development, mineral resources development, tourism resources development, road traffic construction, urban construction, all kinds of infrastructure construction, etc., may have a serious impact on the ecological environment and even damage.

1. Ecological protection

Ecological protection refers to various prevention and control measures taken by people in various production and life activities, from thought to practice, in order to avoid or reduce the negative impact on the ecological environment as far as possible. For example, since the reform and opening up, the Party Central Committee and The State Council have attached great importance to the protection and construction of the ecological environment, adopted a series of strategic measures to increase the protection and construction of the ecological environment, and the ecological environment in some key areas has been effectively protected and improved. However, due to the relative shortage of per capita resources in China, the large regional differences, and the fragile ecological environment, the trend of ecological environment deterioration has not been effectively contained.

Mine ecological protection refers to the whole process of mineral resources development and production, through scientific means and various effective measures, such as green mining and green processing, comprehensive recycling and utilization of resources, energy conservation and emission reduction, treatment and utilization of three wastes, geological disaster monitoring and prevention, while fully exploiting and conserving resources, minimize the impact and damage to the ecological environment.

2. Ecological restoration

Ecological restoration refers to the evolution of the ecosystem in an orderly direction by relying on the self-regulation and self-organization ability of the ecosystem after the stop of human interference, or the use of the self-recovery ability of the ecosystem, supplemented by artificial measures, to gradually restore the damaged ecosystem or make the ecosystem develop in the direction of a virtuous cycle.

Ecological correction mainly refers to the restoration and reconstruction of natural ecosystems that have been destroyed under the influence of natural mutations and human activities, so as to restore the original appearance of the ecosystem, such as planting the felled forests and returning farmland to forests to allow animals to return to their original living environment. In this way, the ecosystem is better restored, which is called "ecological restoration".

The ecological restoration of mine mainly refers to the ecological restoration and comprehensive treatment of the closed mine after the stoppage of production. This kind of restoration is often supplemented by artificial measures to speed up the ecological restoration process or rebuild the new ecological environment while the ecosystem recovers itself.

Two, two different purposes

The problem of mine ecological environment varies from place to place and is more complicated. The purpose and method of treating and solving ecological and environmental problems are also different for mines in production and mine closures.

(1) The ecological environment of production mines shall be mainly protected

The mine in production is in a dynamic process, and with the progress of production activities, the ecological environment also changes differently. Some of this change is manageable, some inevitable. Therefore, in the whole process of production, how to solve the relationship between mineral resources development and ecological environmental protection is the main contradiction that needs to be properly solved in the construction of green mines. To this end, we must adhere to the policy of giving priority to conservation and protection. In other words, the development of mineral resources must ensure safety and environmental protection under the premise of reasonable mining, scientific mining, efficient mining, to achieve the coordination and unity of resource benefits, economic benefits, environmental benefits and social benefits.

1. The ecological environment of production mines should be mainly protected. Its main task is through technological innovation, the use of new technologies, new processes and new equipment, constantly improve production methods, improve production efficiency, so that all aspects of production as far as possible to avoid and reduce environmental pollution and ecological vegetation damage. Its purpose is to create a green, safe, comfortable, and accomplished production and living environment; The second is to ensure that the land, air and water around the mining area do not cause environmental pollution and harm to protect the safety of the people.

2. Production mines also have local ecological restoration projects, such as closed tailings ponds, land reclamation and ecological restoration and management projects of decommissioned stone discharge yards; Treatment of slope stability in open pit; Control of subsidence, landslide and other geological disasters.

(2) The ecological environment of the closed mine shall be mainly repaired

The closed pit mine is an abandoned mine with all production activities stopped, and its ecological restoration is a comprehensive and systematic treatment project. This kind of restoration and management needs a complete design scheme, construction blueprint, engineering arrangement, as well as technical and economic security. Its main task is to repair and control according to local conditions and the principle of one mine and one policy. Its purpose is to treat all kinds of unsafe hidden dangers, such as steep slopes, falling rocks, dangerous rocks, landslides, ground cracks, etc., in advance, and then carry out vegetation and ecological restoration on this basis, so that it is coordinated with the surrounding ecological environment. The second is to rebuild the ecological environment as far as possible, develop and build a new environment, and form new industries when conditions, demand and feasibility exist. Such as mine park, ecological park, health center, deep pit hotel and so on.

Three, two different strategies

The two kinds of mining entities have different nature, whether the implementation of ecological protection or ecological restoration, are an important part of China's ecological civilization construction, is an important task of green mine construction.

However, due to the different objectives and tasks of the two environmental protection work, the strategies and measures adopted in the implementation process are also different.

(1) Ecological protection strategies for production mines

Production mines based on ecological protection adhere to the principle of "prevention first, prevention combined", "development in protection, protection in development", "who destroys, who governs", "production, governance, restoration", and strictly implement the "three simultaneous" system. By carrying out mine environmental protection and management, comprehensive utilization of resources and pollution prevention, land reclamation and geological disaster prevention, treatment and recycling of three wastes, implementing clean production, energy saving and emission reduction, developing circular economy, under the premise of ensuring safety and environmental protection, fully and reasonably develop and scientific and efficient use of resources, realizing civilization and harmony between enterprises and the construction of green mines.

(2) Strategies for implementing ecological restoration in closed mines

In closed mines with ecological restoration as the main focus, in accordance with the principle of "who governs, who benefits", the guiding role of financial funds is given full play, social funds are encouraged to participate, and a new model of mine geological environment restoration and comprehensive management of "government-led, policy support, social participation, development-oriented governance, and market-oriented operation" is vigorously explored.

Adhere to the concept of innovative development, break the investment, policy, scientific research and other institutional obstacles in the restoration and comprehensive management of mining geological environment; To carry out innovative tailings residual mine redevelopment, comprehensive utilization of resources, reclamation and utilization of abandoned mining land, collective land transfer and utilization, etc., guide the investment of social funds, resources and asset elements, and actively explore the use of PPP model, third-party governance, government-enterprise cooperation and enterprise-enterprise cooperation and other market operation modes to carry out ecological restoration and comprehensive management.

"Development management" mainly involves three aspects of safety, ecology and resource utilization standard requirements, ecological restoration and environmental comprehensive management should not only meet the safety standards and ecological standards, but also take into account the reuse of resources. After treatment and reuse is the best goal of its pursuit, that is, to use it to develop into leisure parks, orchards, woodland or construction land, etc., to form an emerging industry, with investment and return, in order to give full play to its resource and environmental efficiency.

Fourth, there is a long way to go

According to the survey statistics, by the end of 2017, the land area occupied by the development of mineral resources in the country was about 3.62 million hectares, of which the abandoned mines left over from history and lost by the responsible persons occupied 2.3 million hectares, and the development of mines under construction/production occupied 1.32 million hectares. Data show that the national funds for mining geological environment control exceeded 100 billion yuan, of which the central government arranged funds of more than 30 billion yuan, local governments and enterprises raised nearly 70 billion yuan; A total of 920,000 hectares of land have been restored, with a control rate of 28.75 percent.

The above data show that the task of ecological restoration and comprehensive management of mines in China is still very arduous, and there is still a long way to go.