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Horizontally, the land administration units and the environmental protection agencies as well as the industrial administrative units at the same level are all obliged to carry out national reclamation policy. Fig.1 shows that the ERPC, SEPA and MLR, together with their lower-level branches, are all involved in the regulation of environmental protection. The major function of the ERPC and its branches is to review environmental protection policy and legislation, oversee the implementation of relevant policies and regulations, discuss about pending environmental issues, and make proposals on the basis of monitoring. However, both SEPA and MLR set environmental standards for land contamination and carry out inspections, although the former generally focuses more on water, air and other ecological pollutions, whereas the latter is mainly responsible for planning, administration, protection and rational use of land, mineral and marine resources. Local level Bureaus of Land and Resources, Environmental Protection Bureaus and Environmental Protection Offices deal directly with the enforcement of environmental regulations and the implementation of relative policies designed by the SEPA and MLR, as well as with the assistance in drafting local regulations to supplement the central ones.
Such a regulatory matrix is typical for China, in which the entire structure of government is permeated with interlocking and overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of authority with mixed purposes and tasks (Andrews-Speed et al., 2003). This easily results in “either duplication of efforts or shifting of responsibility” (Berlin Report, 1999). Where interests conflict, a general tendency is that units concerned neither cooperate with each other, nor share information, but, very often sabotage or undermine the work of rival units (ADB, 2000). All of this would obviously add to difficulty in the enforcement of environmental regulations.
Traditionally strong institutions of mediation and coordination have not been developed in China due to the very nature of its administrative structure, nor have routine procedures established for assigning accountability to leaders of administrative units (ADB, 2000). Mine land reclamation programs are more likely to involve large numbers of units, not only mining companies, local communities and local governments where the mining activities take place, but also sectors as agriculture, forestry, water, environment protection, finance, taxation and technology research. There is a pressing need to set up a competent and authoritative institution free of vested interests in the activity to balance the interests of all parties and to develop effective cooperation.
China has made admirable efforts to reform its institutional structures. However, the fragmentation of authority has not been fully eliminated (Jahiel, 1998). Since institutional restructuring is still proceeding across the country, the effectiveness of simplified administrations remains to be seen. A continuing worry is that the old ways of administration will continue within the reformed and streamlined institutions.[15]
5. Options for success
5.1. Improvement of policy and regulations
To successfully conduct mine land reclamation in developing countries requires a high degree of coherence and consistence in policy formulation. The greatest challenge now is to reconcile short-term economic benefits with long-term mining sustainability. Environmental damage caused by mining activities harms human health, spoils amenities and reduces economic productivity in the long run. It may seem unfair to ask developing countries including China not to follow the same pollution-first path that the industrial world pursued. But given China’s increasing population, scant farming land, countless closed pits and deeply scarred landscapes, it is self-evident that China cannot afford to wait to be rich enough to pay for a better environment. In fact, protecting the environment is a vital part of improving economic productivity as well as improving the well-being of people today and tomorrow. The evidence shows that the gains from protecting the environment outweigh the costs in the long run (World Bank, 2000). Managers from Homestake Mining Company’s McLaughlin Gold Mine in California argue that substantial extra costs have not been incurred because innovative technologies and ‘best practices’ have helped improve the efficiency of the mine, which in turn has had a positive impact on the economics of overall operation (Warhurst, 1994).
Such policy needs a strong support from legislation. At the heart of the improvement of existing reclamation legislation is the promulgation of a comprehensive land reclamation law supported with detailed and operable regulations on implementation provisions for both administrative procedures and industry-specific technical standards. The law, inter alia, should:
l identify a competent agency to be in charge of overall reclamation activity;
l integrate reclamation plans or comprehensive environmental management plans including reclamation into licensing with bonding schemes;
l specify clearly the obligations and liabilities of authorities at different levels and of the enterprises concerned;
l define explicitly the financial sources for reclamation, and the management and use of relevant fees;
l oblige private mines to reclaim and rehabilitate mine land;
l conduct regular inspection of reclamation performance;
l encourage community involvement;
l introduce market mechanisms such as bidding or auction to attract private capital;
l stipulate unequivocally the right of using the reclaimed land with provisions that the right can be inherited, rented, transferred or mortgaged.
The more flexibly the right of using the reclaimed land is designed, the more actively people will participate in reclamation performance, and the more funds for reclamation will be guaranteed.
For abandoned derelict land, in China’s case, instead of the traditional requisition practice, it may be workable to allow the mining enterprises to invest in the reclamation of damaged land first without paying land occupying fees, and then trade the reclaimed land for the desired land (Zhu, 1996; Li, 1999). Alternatively, enterprises pay compensation fees in lieu of requisition fees to local communities for damages caused by mining to finance the communities’ own reclamation programs (Hu and Chen, 1994). These practices may dramatically reduce the financial difficulties of the enterprises occurring from payments for requisition, avoiding long-term land occupation and non-cultivation, and at the same time, providing incentives to reclaim damaged land. Further financial channels can be explored through public bidding for reclamation projects as in Germany (Bismarck, 1999), or earmarking part of the royalty to be paid to environmental remediation of mining areas as the case of Poland (Berlin Report, 1999).[16] But what counts here is that the right of use of the reclaimed land thereafter must be clearly defined.
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