|
3.2. Institutional frameworks
Regulatory effectiveness over reclamation performance, to a large extent, is dependent on sound cooperation between authorities at all levels of government towards common reclamation objectives, and also by a clear definition of responsibilities. The early 1970s saw global efforts to control and mitigate environmental impacts through institutional reform, with a trend characterized by a shift from a dispersed obligation mechanisms towards the creation of separate environmental authorities with increasingly independent powers (Walde, 1993; Wagner, 1998). The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in 1970, empowered to promulgate regulations for the implementation of environmental laws covering water, solid waste, air and radiation, pesticides and toxic substances, to minimize conflicts and inconsistencies, to facilitate compliance and regulatory enforcement, and to conduct environmental research on problems and their mitigation methods. Since then it has become the only regulatory agency in the federal environmental bureaucracy that reports directly to the President.
Developing countries have also founded their state environmental agencies. Venezuela first set up its Ministry of the Environment in 1977. This was followed by the creation of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment in Bolivia, the Secretariat of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries in Mexico, the Secretariat of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development in Argentina and the Ministry of Environment in Colombia. Some Asian countries as China, Mongolia, Vietnam and Indonesia have also established their independent state environmental protection agencies. But unfortunately, these institutions are functioning poorly (Weber-Fahr et al., 2002) and it is rare for all environmental matters to be handled in these countries within the jurisdiction of a single agency as is the case of the US EPA. More often, multiple departments will be involved commonly with confused tasks. China’s State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) was promoted to a ministerial status in 1998, but so far it has not been empowered to have a final say on key projects, nor had direct responsibility for the implementation of environmental laws and regulations. Likewise, although tasked with overall monitoring and diagnosing environmental problems including mining issues, the capability of Zimbabwe’s Department of Natural Resources has been limited to date (Hollaway, 2000).
In this respect is the division of authority over environmental issues among a number of ministries: for example, water pollution falls to the ministry of water, reclamation to the ministry of land, and hazardous substances to the ministry of health. This results in either duplication and inefficiency or omission and non-implementation. Weber-Fahr et al. (2002) have given a forcible illustration with the example of Peru where, within the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), some groups are tasked with promoting the mining sector, while others have the authority to prevent environmental damage in the sector and to monitor performance. It is clear that competent and independent institutions with balanced interests are needed.
The process of institutional reform in many developing countries has been encouraging and impressive. But, at the same time, the complexity in jurisdiction and the regulatory frameworks has revealed more or less a contradictory ideology for objectives and benefits of various departments. As Otto et al. (1999) note, these frameworks generally seek to reconcile the benefits between mining and the costs to control or mitigate resultant negative environmental effects. In reality or in perception, different parties apply different measurements in calculating cost and benefit, therefore arriving at a different assessment of the balance (Andrews-Speed et al., 2002). The key to resolving the complexity lies in the assessment and the balance of the tradeoffs between environmental protection and the various invested interests. It may indeed be utterly groundless to deny a sectoral approach to environmental management where technical expertise is easily accessible and issues involved are better understood. However, an integral approach is usually preferable with an environmental governance institution established detached from any specific sector but forming part of the overall development planning scheme (Weber-Fahr et al., 2002).
4. Mine land reclamation in China
China provides a useful testing ground for any regulatory framework for mine land reclamation because of its sheer size and economic importance of the mining sector,[7] and because of the complexity of its institutional structure and regulation.
4.1. Legislation and evaluation
China’s mine land reclamation first started between the 1950s and the1960s with a sporadic, regional and voluntary nature (Zhu, 1996; Zhang and Peng, 1999). The early 1980s saw the rapid national economic growth under the open-door policy and the increasing demand for mineral resources. Township and village enterprises, especially small-scale coal mines (TVCMs) grew dramatically during this period. While supplying much-needed energy, these mines have suffered from numerous problems: unlicensed and irrational extractions, low recovery rates, poor safety records, and substantial environmental damage, among which “the environmental effects are likely to have the most widespread and long lasting repercussions” (Andrews-Speed et al., 2003), especially in terms of arable and grazing land.[8] [9] Mine land reclamation, as an essential instrument for land resources management, is receiving increasing attention nationwide. In particular, large-scale rigorous campaigns conducted in recent years throughout the country to close down illegal, irrational and highly polluting TVCMs in response to the oversupply of coal have significantly highlighted the urgent need for mine land reclamation in China.[10]
The promulgation of the Regulations on Land Reclamation (RLR) in 1988 marks the commencement of legalisation and standardisation of mine land reclamation programs in China. It is the first regulatory document specifically designed for the reclamation of damaged land including mined land. It defines land reclamation as “the activities in which the land destroyed by extraction, subsidence and re-occupation, etc. during the process of production and construction is to be restored to a reusable state through certain measures” (Art.2, RLR). The RLR also specifies the responsibilities and obligations of industrial authorities, mining companies and individuals to restore the disturbed land, and the funding sources concerned. Such general emphasis on the reclamation and restoration of mined land is also found in a number of laws and regulations such as the Land Administration Law (LAL), the Mineral Resources Law (MRL), the Environment Protection Law, the Coal Law, the Water Resources Law, the Soil Conservation Law, the Forestry Law and the Grassland Law. These laws, along with the Technical Criteria for Land Reclamation (for trial implementation, 1995) are expected to assist the RLR in regulating land reclamation activities.
|
