Leadership for a Land-Positive Future: High-level Forum of Mining Industry Leaders - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Good afternoon, everyone, Distinguished ministers, industry leaders, indigenous representatives, expert partners and colleagues.
Welcome to Leadership for a and positive future, the high level Forum of mining industry Leaders.
We gather at the UNCCD Cop 17 in Lambatar at a critical moment, the mining sector supplies minerals and metals that are absolutely essential for infrastructure development and the clean energy transition.
Yet mining activities can also contribute to land degradation, biodiversity loss, water pressures, and of course, many social impacts.
Today's discussion is about how the sector globally, can work with governments, communities, and international partners to support land restoration, responsible mine closer, circular economy approaches, and of course, resilient post mining landscapes.
So to open the forum, I am so honored and it's my pleasure to invite his Excellency, Damian, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources of Mongolia.
Minister, the floor is yours.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, everybody.
It's a great honor to me deliver some speech here and it's good to see that the entire world is coming to my home and discussing against the certification and how we can conduct and how we can move forward allo.
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Thanks so much.
Minister Dam m, coming from Chile, your words resonate very much to me and I hope that Mongolia definitely reaches all the elements of competitiveness in the mining sector through your agenda.
Now I want to invite misses Andrea Mesa, Deputy Executary Secretary of UN CCD, to deliver her opening remarks.
Miss Andrea, please, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Gonzalo.
Excellency and excellence and distinguished representatives of the private sector, of civil society, of different entities, all protocol observed.
And I really want to thank the Business Council of Mongolia, the different mining companies that are here.
To really open what I will call a very unique momentum within our process, within the UN CCD process.
It's the first time ever that we're holding a mining forum inside one of the cops.
And really, we thank the leadership of the government of Mongolia because they were really keen in opening this constructive conversation.
We are facing different transitions, an energy transition that required a lot of minerals.
We're facing a digitalization process as well, demanding a lot of minerals.
And we are facing as well, an ecological transition.
All of these, we need to integrate it to guarantee that we can achieve new development models.
I think that this is where Mongolia is really trying to bring this innovation and these conversations, these needed conversations because at the end, all of these processes, all these transitions could generate welfare, new jobs, economic growth, but we need to do this within the planetary boundaries.
It is possible.
We have that knowledge, we have the technology to do so.
But we need the right policy frameworks, we need the right incentives, and we need to find ways to engage because all these transitions can only be done if we implement what I call the four seas approach, meaning that we need to engage citizens, cities, of course, the countries, but also the companies.
And this is the only way in which we can scale up the solutions, the innovations, all these good practices that we are seeing.
And some months ago, we were in the Gobi Desert, and I had the opportunity to visit a mining and it was the operation of OT there.
And I was very much impressed, I must say.
For me, it was the first time ever visiting one of these minings And of course, we know that there is a lot of challenges, and this is why as well, we need those good standards to be implemented by everyone because we need to level the field.
It's about that.
And I'm very excited that today as well we will be hearing from different countries that have those assets, those minerals, but they want them to be exploded in a way that will generate economic benefit and impact to their communities and to their countries, to the public finance as well.
I think that this is a unique opportunity to have a frank conversation, a friend dialogue on how we can generate these new models.
How can we address illegal mining? It's a big problem, and I think that this is part of the things that some of the ministers from different countries will bring.
And how do we really make these different high impact sectors part of the conversation? We don't see them as enemies.
We see them as part of the solution.
And this is why we're very excited that we're having this event, the first time ever.
Probably you will start a new thing in our process, and we welcome new partnerships, initiatives that can really demonstrate that this is possible.
So Thank you, Minister.
Thank you to the Mongolian Business Council and to the different entities to really believe that we can have open a new partnerships, new platforms to generate and bring solutions underground.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Andrea.
It's brilliant the opportunity that you are referring to the mining sector to have the capacity of contributing to the goals of the land degradation and land neutrality of this convention.
Now I'd like to invite Mr.
Ambaan, the Vice Chair of the Business Council of Mongolia, for his opening remarks.
My friend Bamba, you have the floor.
Thank you, Gonzala.
Minister Dam Nam, and Excellencies, I'm very happy to welcome you all here again.
And, Andrea, thank you for the kind words.
I think speaking after Damke said and Andrea is not easy, but I'll try to keep it short because Gonzalo has time constraints.
So, As mentioned, we gathered in A Gobi Desert thanks to Sean Katie couple of months ago, a month and a half ago.
We discussed a lot of things that are related to dry land mining.
I'll give you one statistic.
I'm very not fond of statistics, but one is we learned during that time that Mongolian Gobi desert and which minister just said, 77% of our land is degraded and 2.2 degrees.
And that's almost twice as higher than the global average.
And that's where these companies are operating.
The companies like OT and others who are present here operating in that environment.
And I think we need to bring this to a new level as we discussed before.
And this morning, I'm very honored to be also a Business for land business champion, and we have our fellow champions here in the room.
And we are here to promote the business for land platform, as well, right? And the platform comprises of three pillars.
One is business transformation.
The other one is attracting finance, and the third one is advocacy, right? So we've been focusing on advocacy quite a bit, and that's where the Business Council of Mongolia comes in.
The BCM has been working tirelessly for almost two years with UN CCD and bringing the mining into the before L platform.
And I think this is going to be transformational.
And again, thank you, everyone who has worked very hard on this.
We have, I think, Joanne here as solved and the global a Global and Initiative G 20, right? So, Andrea, thank you for taking the initiative forward.
And I think a couple of days from now we'll be able to answer to minister's challenge, right, where we will be making certain commitments and starting new initiatives that are related to a improving business and improving business not only in the as usual, but business unusual ways and making it smarter.
So this is, again, my message to you all, and thank you very much for gathering here for our first mining forum and one of many to come in the future.
Gonzalo.
Yes.
Thank you so much and thanks to the three of you, Minister Danyam, miss Mesa, Mr.
Bmbsjan for your opening remarks.
Now it's time for us to talk about our ambition.
Our ambition is to mobilize leadership and leadership with commitments to accelerate partnership, to highlight government best practices, to promote restoration finance, to talk about those hard and difficult topics for mining and to address them in the way that the UN CCD expects us to do.
Therefore, we'll move now to our high level commitments and action segment, and therefore, it's my pleasure to invite His Excellency, Abbamba, Minister of Environment and ecological Transition of the Republic of Côte D'ivoire to share the main challenges and opportunities about mining in Cor devoir.
Minister, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Good afternoon once again, Excellencies, Decange leaders of the mining industry, representatives of international organization.
Ladies and gentlemen, all protocol observed.
They say that I'm the Minister for Environment and Cultural Transition of Cortivoire, so you should be expecting me to speak in French, but I will be speaking in English.
I am honored to join you this high level forum of UNCCD Cp 17 and I commend the UNCCD Secretariat and this business for end platform, the G 20 Global Lend Initiative, and all the partners for convening this essential dialogue, not only for developing countries, but also for developed countries.
My name is indispenable to modern economies and global energy transition.
Yet legitimacy will increasingly depend on simple test.
Does mineral development leave actually land, water, biodiversity, and communities stronger or more vulnerable? There is a question mark.
Our responsibility is therefore to move they from extraction the lawn to regeneration, from isolating the project to landscape scale restoration, and form declarations of intent to measurable results.
For cultivoir, the issue is urgent.
National baseline data indicate that approximately 3.5 billion acres, nearly 11% of our territory was affected by land degradation 2000-2010.
Illegal gold mining.
Remember that illegal gold mining because you will hear about it more has compounded this pressure, national mapping exercise conducted in 2022 identified 241 illegal mining sites involving 23,000 people.
Nowadays, we're talking about 8,000 illegal sites involving 5,000 half 1 million people is becoming an emerging issue.
Behind these figures are damaged source, polluted waterways, loss of biodiversity, declining agricultural productivity, and it safe, abandoned site and community whose livelihoods are at risk.
This is not just an environmental concern.
It's also a development, public health, food security, and governance challenge.
Our position is clear.
We must firmly combat illegal and destructive mining while supporting the progressive formalization of artisanal and small scale mining.
We must strengthen environmental oversight, promote less polluting technologies, restore degraded sites, and create viable economic opportunities for affected communities.
Protecting land should not be an obstacle to development.
It's a condition for development that lasts.
This is why Coltiv intend to use Cp 17 to build solidarity and collective momentum around the issue of illegal mining in our countries.
But governments alone cannot deliver this transformation.
The mining industry must be a central partner.
Today, I invite mining leaders to act in four focus areas.
First, adopt based time bound land restoration targets covering active, close and legacy sites aligned with national land degradation neutrality targets.
Second, integrate responsible mining closure and post mining land use from early stage of project design with adequate financial guarantees, the post closure successful fronts.
Third, share technology, data and proven practices, including remote seizing, pollution control, soil rehabilitation, revisitation, and circular approaches.
Finally, fourth, help build credible restoration finance by combining corporate investment, public resources, development finance and innovative instruments capable of opening at large scale landscape.
The global compilation of mining industry best practices in land restoration being launched at this forum can become an important reference.
It's true value, however, will be measured by what follows commitments implemented, actors restored, watershed protected, communities including and progress transparently reported.
Cortivoir stands ready to work with responsible mining companies, financial institutions, the UNCCD and African partners to identify pilot rehabilitation sites, prepare bankable programs, and establish share monitoring mechanisms.
Communities, especially women and young people, must participate fully in the design of those solutions and share fairly in the benefits.
Distinguished, ladies and gentlemen, be patient.
It's almost the end of my long presentation.
The choice before us is not between mining development and environmental protection.
The real choice is between mining that transfers hidden cost to future generations and mining that actually creates lasting value for people and nature.
Let us therefore make COP 17 a turning point.
Let us build a mining sector that resource what it disturbs, finances what it promises, and hence trust through transparent results.
Let us ensure that Africa harnesses its mineral wealth without sacrificing the land on which its people depends.
For God and my country, I thank you.
Thank you so much, miss.
That was amazing.
Thank you.
I see.
You can see here.
Yes.
Thank you, Minister Bamba.
That was not a long speech.
That was a masterclass in terms of the complexities and the challenges that the mining sector is confronting all around the world.
I thank you again, coming from a mining country, you nailed it.
Now, I would like to welcome misses Kati Jackson, Chief Executive Cooper at Rio Tinto to share an industry leadership perspective on how major mining companies can translate commitments into measurable land restoration and stewardship action.
Miss Jackson, you have the floor.
It's a hard act to follow and I'm understanding that brevity is the key here.
We'll see.
But good afternoon.
Thank you very much to the minister to the government of Mongolia and UN CCD for bringing us together here in Una Qatar and also for allowing us to talk from the RIO perspective about how we're rising to some of these challenges.
I'm fortunate to know Mongolia well through our partnership here in Mongolia with the government on Oya Tolgoi.
It is a particularly fitting place to have this conversation.
The country's landscape, as I'm sure you've seen, is extraordinary, but so too are the pressures on its land and water.
As many have said, the world needs more critical materials.
Copper, which is my day to day focus, is a crucial material for electrification, infrastructure, and economic development.
But how we manage the land those materials come from is a defining question for our industry.
It's why the purpose of my company, Rio Tinto, is finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs.
While we may operate a mine for decades, the land has a life far beyond that operation.
We must consider the long term impacts on the land and water we use and the ecosystems and communities that depend on them.
Here in Mongolia, that responsibility is very clear.
O Tolgoi is one of the largest known copper and gold deposits in the world and one of the safest and most sustainable operations.
It's jointly owned by the government and Rio Tinto, and it brings enormous opportunity, but also important duties, particularly in a place like the Gobi Desert.
Water is scarce, groundwater, pasture, wildlife, and local livelihoods are closely connected, and our first responsibility is to minimize the pressure that our operations create.
If I take water, for example, OT sources is operational water from deep saline aquifers, which are separate from the drinkable water sources used by herders and livestock and were subject to strict withdrawal limits.
It's also one of the most water efficient operations in the world.
In the first quarter of this year, we used an average of 0.45 meters cubed of water for every ton of ore we process, and that compares to a global average of about 1.2, so almost three times more.
We operate zero wastewater discharge, and more than 86% of our water is recycled.
But our stewardship doesn't stop at the mine boundary.
We've worked with herders, with local government, with civil society to upgrade more than 200 traditional wells, improving water storage, flood protection, and access.
We've worked with Kering, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Stanford University on the South Gobi Cashmere Project, helping herders produce higher value cashmere from smaller, healthier herds and reducing pressure on the fragile grasslands.
And we're supporting Uesco and local communities in the development of the Hanbod Shard Sav geo Park, somewhere I'm hoping to visit later on this week, which would be Mongolia's first national geo Park and is working to become a UNESCO global geo Park.
The approach to stewardship extends to restoration.
In 2021, OT committed to plant up to 100 million trees in support of Mongolia's Billion tree initiative that the minister mentioned.
By the end of 2026, we will have delivered 49 million tree equivalents towards that commitment, and that includes 11 million trees established through direct planting.
We've also rehabilitated more than 1,600 hectares of degraded land, abandoned by previous artisanal mining activity that a number of speakers referenced.
And we've invested in forestry capabilities to make this a long term program.
Six tree nurseries, a seed gene bank, and also capability building.
That experience has helped shape the commitments that we are making today.
As part of Mongolia's S action agenda, together with Ernest O Tolgoy, we are committing to a coordinated action across landscape restoration, water security, and renewable energy.
On land, we will continue to deliver 100 million trees commitment, whilst broadening our focus from just planting trees to also restoring landscapes, enhancing biodiversity, and strengthening ecosystem resilience.
This includes up to 5,000 hectars of saxal reforestation in the Gobi, as well as larger reforestation projects elsewhere in Mongolia in north and central Mongolia.
On water, we're going to support science, innovation and practical trials to strengthen Mongolia's long term water resilience.
This will be advanced through research on water security in the Gobi, a managed aquifer recharge trial and work on surface water harvesting and restoration.
On energy, we will support Mongolia's energy transition through a commitment to source a substantial share of Oil Tolgo's annual electricity demand from renewable sources.
This commitment will help catalyze one of Mongolia's largest renewable energy developments.
Each of these commitments addresses a practical barrier.
For land, we need the capability to restore landscapes at scale.
For water, we need the evidence to make informed long term decisions about how water is managed.
Renewable energy, demand that will give developers greater confidence to invest in new generation.
The challenge from here is to demonstrate that these approaches work at scale and that they continue beyond a single program.
That also means being open about what we're learning.
Together with the UN CCD and the Global Reporting Initiative, we've published a report on sustainability disclosure, water stewardship, and mine rehabilitation in arid environments, drawing on our experience at O Tolgoi.
Better disclosure and common approaches to measurement make it easier to compare results, learn from them, and invest in the most effective approaches.
Ultimately, the test of the commitments made here today will be the real world changes they deliver in years to come.
That is the standard we should hold ourselves to.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, misses Jackson, for that clear definition of the challenges and exposing very concretely the importance of scaling not only the land restoration, the water stewardship, and the renewable energy are three of the most important topics that every mining company is needing to address.
Regarding that, it's fantastic now to have one of those really properly explain by Mr.
Javier Santanil, Senior Executive Vice President of the mining business unit at Ono, to share an industry perspective on responsible mining operation and post mining landscape restoration.
Mr.
San Martin, the floor is yours.
Thank you.
You managed well my name, which is not easy.
Excellencies, the audience, it's really honor to be here to explain the project that Tranno has a privilege to develop in Mongolia.
At Tranno we are mining uranium and we are mining uranium in different geography.
But we are quite pleased to develop a project in Mongolia, and I had the pleasure to be in Dan Gob yesterday.
Developing a mining project means going through a cycle from exploration to project development to operation and to remediation.
And I, we look at the responsibility toward all this cycle and we like to make sure that our strategy cover the stakes around the environment and communities from the beginning up to the end of the project.
First, we apply the same environmental principle across all our while speaking while respecting the local requirements.
Our ambition is not only to comply to the requirements, but also to develop and to take voluntary commitments, to develop them based on scientific data and to make sure that we have a long term stewardship of natural resources.
We want to contribute actively to the industry dialogue, and we are part of ICMM and it's a very important commitment for us.
And we are also welcoming the industry consolidating mining standard initiatives where we believe we can establish a solution in line with the expectation set by Minister Bamba.
Standards are not alone because a mining project is a long term project, and to make sure that this project is well embedded with the expectation of the communities at different and we leave apart for them to define how the future will be set.
First, we integrate restoration in stakes from the very beginning of the project.
For instance, in Mongolia, we are starting up we will start construction in a few weeks, but we have already defined how we see the future and what we see will be remediation 30 years down the road.
Currently, we are quite proud to say that all our former sites are either remediate or under remediation program, and that's a strong commitment we can take.
I'm happy to take this commitment in front of His Excellency, the Minister of mine of Mongolia.
Second, we use science to guide our decisions.
We are funding a research program.
Some of them we started some in Mongolia.
We have some in University of France, and especially with the technique we develop in Mongolia, we want to see some interaction with clay and water and this can impact our remediation and improve it.
We believe that science can bring a good understanding of the quality of the solution and may help us to anticipate the impact and make sure that we provide a high standard remediation.
We use also new technology to manage our understanding and the follow up of the wildlife on our sites to make sure that we have a positive impact.
And when we leave the site, we leave it in better condition than when we have taken it.
And the last thing is after the remediation, at the end of the cycle after decades, we need to make sure in the way we develop our activity, we leave a positive footprint to the communities.
Positive footprint it can be regarding education.
It can be also on the way we leave the site and the way we live their activity.
We have done that in France, for instance, on all our sites, we have also developed solar farms, and we are quite proud of having returned to the community, the site in Canada in Cliff Lake and to make sure that today it's a place where people can hunt and fish and do it safely.
Obviously, it was a strong commitment because it took decade to follow up and to make sure we do it in safe conditions.
But now we are proud of that and this type of commitment we like to take with our future projects.
Today we are starting a project in Mongolia in chovo, so it's a very important project for us and we make sure we apply those principle to this project.
We are operating in Daigoi so we know water, like it was explained by in, water is a very important resource.
So we have launched initiative to well understand hydrological study and geological studies to make sure of what is the impact of our operation and also how we can impact positively.
We are also starting some project with local communities before starting, in fact, our mine event to make sure that how we can impact and how we can impact positively their economical activity or their condition.
This is also the technology we have selected for this mine is also in strong relationship with the condition of the site, and we have selected a technology which will have a little usage of water and little impact on the surface.
It's ISR technology, and we have a strong control on environmental impact.
Obviously, it has taken time to explain it to our stakeholders, but we are quite proud of this achievement and we are quite happy of what we can do.
So the future of mining, because we need to mine, and you said it and I fully concurred with that, is to do it responsibly, is to minimize our footprint and to become a positive force for the land restoration.
By combining science, innovation, shared standards, close cooperation with communities, we can ensure that mining landscapes continue to provide value for both people and nature long after the mining has been ended.
Thank you.
Javier.
It's definitely brilliant having heard not only at the political level, the importance that the mining sector represents, and now from two big players in the industry, how they're approaching these difficulties.
But Minister Bamba also brought the importance of less known or less addressed stakeholders like artisanal mining, illegal mining, small, informal mining, that's part of the reality as it's part of the reality, the aspects of indigenous communities.
It's essential that this conversation includes the voices and experiences of indigenous peoples and local communities.
Therefore, I now invite Mr.
Fidele Bilisi Muti Maua of the National League of Indigenous Pygmy Association of the Congo.
Mr.
Milisi Mutiamwa, the floor is yours.
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Now, I would like to invite Maria Jesus Rodriguez Sancho, Director General for biodiversity Forest and desertification in Spain's ministry for the ecological transition and the demographic challenge to share the insights and lessons from Spain.
Maria Jesus, the floor is yours.
Thank you.
Well, good afternoon, Ellen, distinguished delegates, colleagues.
First of all, I would like to thank you CCD and Business for and platform, the G 20 Global and Initiative, and of course, the government of Mongolia for accompanying this important discussion.
It's a big opportunity for me to participate in this dialogue because Spain fully welcomes this initiative, because it reflects a fundamental idea.
The future of mining cannot be measured only by the minerals we extract, but by the landscape we restore the communities we strengthen and the opportunities we create during mining activities and after mining activities.
In other words, a land positive mining.
For many decades, mining has been an essential driver for economic development and now is essential for energy transition.
However, this transition only can be sustainable if is accompanying equally with an ambitious objectives to restore ecosystem, recover biodiversity, and improve peoples life.
I would like to share with you two, two Spanish initiatives that have been awarded by international organizations.
The first of them is in the framework of the just transition strategy in Spain with the European Recovery Funds.
Spain launched one of the Europe's largest public investment in ecological restoration of former coal mining areas.
More than 105 million 50 million, have been mobilized to restore the great landscape in Spain.
More than 2,200 ts of former mining land while creating hundreds of quality of quality jobs with priority given to former coal miners and workers in auxiliary companies.
But these projects are much more than restoring land.
They are restoring water systems, removing polluted sediments and protecting aquifers.
They are restoring ecosystems, planting more than 1 million native trees and shrubs.
For the recovery of grasslands, forests, and wildfire habitats, and they are improving also public safety, sealing abandoned mine and transit and removing hazardous wastes.
Very important.
They are restoring economic opportunities by supporting sustainable forestry, extensive livestock farming, rural tourism, and new local businesses.
In short, restoration, is becoming a new driver for territorial development.
This initiative has been recognized by the International Labor Organization as a good practice in delivering a just transition that protects both workers and community, recognizing that the most inspiring aspect of this experience is that the people who once extracted coal now are restoring nature.
This demonstrates that ecological restoration is not only an environmental policy, it's an investment in people, it creates skilled employment, it strengthen rural communities and reinforce social cohesion.
And the second initiative I wanted to share with you is an initiative in the framework of the largest European saltwater lagoon.
It's called Maro.
It's in the east of Spain, and it has long term and severe environmental degradation caused by heavy metals residues from abandoned mining activities in their basin.
The initiative is through an integrated restoration strategy combining tailing sealing, fetal remdation and biological restoration.
Spain is working to recover this unique ecosystem.
This effort has been recognized by the United Nations as one of the world restoration flagships, highlighting the ecological, social, and institutional value of this example for the international community.
The conclusion is that no single actor can achieve land eration neutrality.
Governments can create the right policy framework.
Industry, companies can bring innovation, technology and investment, and communities provide knowledge, stewardship, and long term commitment.
Together, we can transform former mining landscape into productive ecosystems that continue generating value long after the destruction has finished.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Which is.
While I believe they're going to remove the podium and instead of dancing or singing, I'm going to try to summarize what we just already heard.
We heard from governments the importance that mining sector is representing as a growth, of course, job initiative and sector, but at the same time, we all know that that cannot happen in any way.
It must happen, as Maria us just said, as a land positive mining.
That also brings opportunities for people, for jobs and taking Mr.
Nasili Minbwa words, how important it is to create opportunities for restoration, the land, reforestation, for reducing emissions, but also for regularize the land, as well as using their ancestral knowledge and to create opportunities for health using, of course, topics of water and food.
We heard from big companies about the importance of using this opportunity that decarboization globally represent for the mining sector.
We know that the world will require more minerals, but the world would require better minerals.
Those better minerals, as Katie mentioned, will come with the scale of land restoration, of water usage at the level that makes sense and renewable energy that can provide, of course, opportunities for not just the mining side, but much more than that.
I think that we have heard many voices so far in this first part of the conversation, we got some, of course, perspective from government, industry, and community.
We now turn to a discussion on innovation and partnership.
How standards, industry networks, technical expertise, restoration, science, and partnership can help transform mining landscapes at scale.
It is my pleasure to hand over to misses Danzile Mamba, the president elect of the Land Rehabilitation Society of South Africa, who will moderate the panel discussion.
Danzil, please join me and now you've got the power.
Oh, wow.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I am Tansile Marvin Bela from South Africa.
I am the president elect of the Land Rehabilitation Society of Southern Africa, known as Larsa.
It is a pleasure to be given this opportunity today to moderate this session.
I'm going to call upon my five panelists.
May I please have Mr.
Andrew Scott come through and may I also have miss Christie Disney Bruckner, May I have John Lindberg and Justin Peterson and Joseph Ksekca.
Thank you.
Welcome, everyone.
As mentioned, we are here to talk about transforming mining landscapes, talk about innovation and partnerships.
What we've been taught by reality is that innovation on its own is not enough.
We do need each other, we do need those partnerships to happen.
I'm going to start with you, Andrew.
Andrew is the CEO of the Global mining Guidelines Group.
So, Andrea, I'd like for you to share with us or with everyone here what are the most practical technical innovations or collaborative guidelines that can help companies to improve land restoration and also reduce the impact across the mining life cycle.
And thank you to the organizers of this fantastic conference.
It's really enlightening in some of the conversations and some of the conversations that are coming through, especially when we heard earlier just before in the previous session, to answer the question, collaboration is key to making this.
We can't do this on our own.
A single mining company cannot do this on their own, a single country cannot do it on their own.
I love the reference to the seas, the citizens, the companies, the countries and so forth.
The key, I think that we need to all be working together because we all play a role.
So from a global mining guidelines group, we are an associate into the ISO and I AAA organizations.
So the documents that come together and come from the committee, come from the community, come from all of the partnerships, actually see documents into the standards development.
So yes, there are standards that are required.
There are some that do exist, but there's a lot of gaps, especially when we're talking about the big problem that's emerging.
So there's a lot of gaps that we need to work together on to overcome these.
The other thing is another point that was brought earlier was the need for planning for post mid land use at the very beginning.
That's an important aspect that needs to be reinforced.
There is a guideline conversation that's happening right now called rethink mind design to try and encourage and to frame, how can we do that? Because the way in which we've designed mines really hasn't changed much in the last 60 years and we have to change the mindset on building in the post land use and the opportunities that have been talked about already into the design and the original applications for each mine at that stage.
Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew.
That means we still have a long way and we really need to think about those seas and the cause and so on.
I'm going to turn to you, Christie, the Thorn amongst the roses.
You are the Director for Law and Policy at the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance.
And what I want to hear from you or what I want to know based on the fact that we all know that strong laws and regulatory frameworks essential for responsible mining and successful mine closures, based on your work at the IRMA, what are key elements for an effective regulatory framework? Um, can you share with us? And then also mention some of the countries, if any, that provide particularly strong examples of governance, accountability, and post mining restoration.
Thank you.
I will begin by saying I haven't seen one country anywhere in the world who has gotten it all right yet, and even where we do see strong law on the books, implementation can be very challenging and is very challenging.
This is indicative of the complexity of the mining sector and the reality that it takes a framework of law and policy that is looking not only at the mining law, but a range of environmental laws and policies, looking across environmental and social impact assessments and management, the many layers to land use planning and layers of rights that include indigenous rights on indigenous lands and multiple types of rights that might have been granted by a government for timber, for example, mining.
This might also overlap protected areas to some extent.
So I agree with Andrew that it really takes a collaborative approach.
First is getting good law on the books and that takes listening to communities and indigenous rights holders, working with companies, understanding the what investors are looking for and responsible mining, really collaboration across a range of interests.
At Irma, the Initiative for responsible mining Assurance, we have brought together across jurisdictions and across all of the sectors that are concerned about mining, a conversation that now has spanned 20 years about what do we mean when we say responsible mining? What is the definition? Our answer to that is the Irma standard for responsible mining that looks at business integrity, environmental responsibility, social responsibility, planning for positive legacies.
As we just heard from Rio Tinto, and survives far beyond the life of a mine and we have to think about these issues not only from a lens of equity between current generations, but also equity between current and future generations.
Collaboration also means working across not only government ministries, but collaboration from national to sub national governance structures.
And we've seen a lot of collaboration emerging internationally as well.
This forum is one example of that.
Across the UN, the UN Secretary-General has an initiative on critical energy transition minerals that's looking at a range of topics and solutions, and this includes environmental concerns and land use rights, transparency, benefit sharing, addressing abandoned minds.
We heard some really great examples from Spain just now about how, orphaned and abandoned mines can be remediated.
These examples, we need to hear more of them in South Africa and across the globe.
Irma is, as a voluntary standard, one tool that can be used by governments, stakeholders and rights holders to improve rule of law around land rights and other topics and mine sites are the main actor implementing the Irma standard at the site level and we have now 138 mindsets that are implementing Irma and engaged across 39 countries.
I'll leave with a challenge and opportunity, which is that we don't yet have a mindset in Mongolia engaged in Irma.
The first of engaging is to conduct a self assessment in mind measure, which is our digital tool, and that is completely free of charge.
So we really hope to see a first Mongolian mindset step up to lead the charge in engaging in Irma.
But the very first requirement of the Irma standard is to implement the domestic legal framework and that and that includes protecting land and land uses, and really gives companies an opportunity to demonstrate best practice and be audited against the IrmaA standard and show governments can also share where they have Irma audits in their jurisdiction, that this is evidence of good practice and a place to be responsibly investing.
Thank you, Christie.
That challenge means something and I hope something will come out of that.
Having this platform for the first time for a mining forum, hopefully the next one, we will be sharing more about outcomes that will emerge from this conversation.
Welcome, John.
John Lnberg is the Policy and Government Affairs principal at the International Council on Mining and Metals.
Tell us how the ICMM is helping, strengthening the standards and guidance on responsible mining, mine closure, post mining landscapes, restoration, and where do you actually see the greatest opportunities for further progress in this work? Thank you very much.
As has been mentioned by all speakers before, I first and foremost, want to thank the UN CCD Secretariat for creating the space to talk about something that fundamentally impacts all of us.
Perhaps not in a way that we think about mining maybe us on the panel think about mining every day, but most people will not think about mining in their everyday lives, even if it does impact us daily.
And for those of you that might not be aware of ICMM, ICMM was set up 25 years ago as a response to the fact that society had lost faith and trust in the mining industry.
So we started off as five of the world's largest mining companies.
Today, we count 26 of the world's largest mining companies amongst our members, and together they make up for more than 35% of the global mining industry.
An ICMM has a very simple purpose.
It's not to lobby for the mining industry.
They do that very well themselves, but to raise the bar and to help define what responsibility actually looks like on the ground.
So ICMM up until the end of this year has been one of the largest standard setter for the mining industry.
Because to forget you're a member of ICMM, you have to implement our mining principles as a condition of membership.
More than 650 of the world's largest mines today implement the mining principles.
When they were first published, this was groundbreaking.
This really set the bar for what responsibility looked like.
But this standard hasn't been static because as our membership has grown, as our members have opened or operated new mines in new and challenging, All lots of challenging jurisdictions and a society's expectations on the industry has changed, so has the standard.
The reason I'm saying that up until the end of this year, ICM has been a standard setter is because one of the things that we have realized is that the industry itself shouldn't be marking its own homework.
We shouldn't be defining the standards that we then hold ourselves to.
Society has moved on from that and rightfully so.
So ICMM alongside with three of the other largest mining standards in the world.
So that's the Copper Mark, the Mining Association of Canada's toward Sustainable Mining, and the World Gold Council's responsible Gold mining Principles, have over the last 3.5 years been undergoing what is known as the Consolidated Mining Standards Initiative or CMSI.
Which we'll be launching early next year.
And this standard is the evolution, but also the revolution of what responsible mining looks like, and that includes issues that we've been discussing today around mine closure, post mining landscapes.
But it starts from where the mining sector starts and then goes through all the way until end of mine, and so on.
And I think you posed the question, where do we see the greatest opportunities for progress? Well, I think as depressing as perhaps it is, doing things responsibly is not the standard in the mining industry today.
It's a simple fact.
Most materials that are extracted today is not extracted responsibly.
So if we want to talk about a just transition, if we want to talk about a digital revolution that is also respecting the rights of stakeholders, right holders, the rights of mother nature, we need to start off by ensuring that responsible mining is the global norm.
And this is where standards such as CMSI, such as our colleagues at Irma comes into play.
Because it isn't a question of this standard is better than the other.
We need to start off by making sure that standards is the global minimum.
Then from there, we can talk about if you want to aim for really good, excellent, or best in class.
But good needs to be the minimum, and I think this is where the greatest opportunity, but also the challenge lies.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, John.
Justin and Joseph, we have practically 2 minutes to get through to your questions.
I'm going to start with you, Justin Petersen, who is the Regional Director of Australia Environment and Geosciences at Stanek.
Justice from the perspective of a practitioner, what makes post mining land restoration successful in practice and what mistakes should be avoided when planning for rehabilitation and closure.
Yeah, thank you and like all these topics, difficult to cover in 4 minutes.
But I'll say the room has just been buzzing today, which is really exciting for all of us, as you say, we live and breathe mining every day, but to see this amount of interest in it and the people listening is a really good thing.
It's also really good that I'm following John and ICMM because we actually are following a lot of their stuff with GISTM.
I want to reference some of those things because I have some of the similar themes that I think a really strong globally accepted framework is what we need.
And I come from the consulting side of the business, and we love frameworks because it gives us something to measure to, it gives us something to learn and sell our clients.
So using the tailing standard as a corollary, I think is a really good example.
There are ecological restoration frameworks out there, but can we get to the point where we have a GISR landscape restoration standard that's globally accepted? I think once we do and the science is behind it, you will see the big miners in particular jump on board.
They're going to say, we want to be gold level, we want to I forget the levels John used, but yeah, your various levels can be can be worked out then.
But won't get into the tech and operational things here of how a great landscape restoration or mine closure project is delivered.
But what I will say is AI and remote sensing is making the monitoring of those programs a lot cheaper, which helps, right? So some of this stuff is becoming much more cost effective in almost real time because of the advances in technology.
So that's a really good thing.
But reiterating what a lot of the others have said, it all comes down to having a good plan that's measurable, that we can then implement and that we know what our targets are, right? Once we have those and once we have them in a schedule, industry is generally pretty good at meeting those commitments.
You know, and somebody mentioned the plan.
I think sorry, was it Andre or you at the beginning.
We've all been a part of a project where a waste rock pile has moved three times, right? So this happens, right? How can we avoid that? It's a huge waste of resources.
It's a huge waste of energy.
Can we get a longer term plan than just quarterly results meeting those, right? Um, so, yeah, I guess my takeaway is, you know, a good long term plan that's multi year or multi decade, a framework that is globally accepted that we can deliver to and deliver against and getting that sort of globally recognized standard is what I'm looking for.
Thank you, Justin, for sharing all the other minutes.
Finally, Joseph Kuyca, the lead scientist at the Nature Conservancy TNC.
I'm going to ask you a question based on your work to say, what does nature positive approach to mining looks like in practice and how can companies, government ensure that mining contributes to a broader landscape outcomes for biodiversity, ecosystem, resilience, and communities.
All in 2 minutes.
The seconds.
I guess I've worked in dozens of countries around the world on mining issues.
I'm going to focus my comments on Mongolia because I'm back working in Mongolia again.
First, I want to acknowledge that mining companies provide a massive economic advantage to Mongolia.
It's about a third of the GDP, the largest portion of export revenues, they create local infrastructure, create jobs.
They also contribute to offsetting their residual impacts and more recently, things commitments like nature positive.
They also really pushing our understanding of how to minimize and restore environmental impacts that apply not just to mining, but to other kinds of environmental impacts.
It's all super important.
But the way we currently implement mitigation, that's the mitigation hierarchy from avoid minimize, restore and offset is largely inadequate.
It doesn't deliver great outcomes for conservation, and largely because the investments that individual mining companies or mine sites contribute to don't contribute to a broader landscape level conservation vision.
Because we're focused on an individual mine or an individual development, we miss one, the broader regional and landscape scale cumulative impacts, but we also missed that vision for their contributions to contribute to the broader conservation goals.
What needs to change? We need to go big and we need to go early.
Going big, we need to develop landscape scale mitigation plans before mines are under operation, so we can understand what step of the mitigation hierarchy would be most appropriate from avoidance to minimization to compensation or offsets.
We need to go early.
We need to have those plans built, so again, they can inform the development of individual mindset.
We have opportunities to bring the well developed conservation planning tools to bear for mining development all the way through from formulation to closure, and we're not doing that for sure.
So a unique opportunity, I think, here in Mongolia with the recent project financing for permanence project, which has been talked about, I think, a little bit earlier in this session.
There are opportunities to harness the investments the mining industry are making through the stakeholder based conservation plan that M&LF will develop.
That will ensure that the investments they make deliver the biggest return on investment.
Example of that is that M&LF just signed an MOU with the Changskn Management Fund, to focus and think about how those offset funds are used.
M&LF is going to finance a update of a conservation plan, work that the Nature Conservancy did ten plus years ago when I used to come to Mongolia all the time.
That stakeholder based conservation plan will guide both M&LF's investments, but also can guide offsets and nature positive commitments.
It would be ideal if the mining industry were to join as part of that process to be a key stakeholder and then more importantly, commit to the completion and investment of that landscape level conservation goal.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's clap for them.
They did very well given the timing that we were given, and I would like to thank all of you and you for joining this session.
I would like to squeeze in a group picture.
I saw others doing that.
Come quickly I Thank you so much, everyone.
Thank you, Dance and thank you to all the speakers, panelists, and participants.
Today's discussion has highlighted a clear message.
Achieving global land restoration goals requires engagement with all sectors that affect land, including mining, while maintaining a firm focus on prevention, responsible land stewardship, restoration, accountability, and community well being.
The challenge, as we heard now is to turn dialogue into action with stronger partnership, credible commitments, investment in restoration and practical collaboration through platforms such as the G 20 Global Land Initiative and Business for land.
As Minister Bamba said, I think that we are clear that we need to build collaboration based on solidarity.
It's clear for all of us that there is a critical minerals opportunity.
It's clear also that the world needs 100% of the mining sector to operate under responsible mining standards.
The other thing that needs to be clear is this room because right after it is going to be a fashion show.
Unless you are a model that wants to walk in the catwalk, you got to put your feet out of the room right now.
Thank you for joining us at CP 17.
We look forward to continue collaboration for the positive future.
Bye.
Hello, hello.
I'm gently asking everyone to leave and make some space as we need to do some technical setup here for the next session.
Thanks very much for your understanding.
Hello.