The importance of community engagement and strong working partnerships during operations and inevitable mine closure cannot be overstated. 

In many jurisdictions around the world, mining and extractive industries are closely associated with environmental degradation, injustice, and colonial dispossession.

Less frequently considered in the scholarship on mining and injustice are the impacts of mine closure and mining's long-term social and environmental legacies.

Mine closure and remediation is often the longest and most complex phase of the mining cycle, yet it receives the least attention during project assessment and approval. The long-term, even perpetual, nature of post-mining impacts is a major socio-ecological challenge and contributes to cumulative impacts in extractive regions, particularly for local and Indigenous communities whose lands host large-scale mining, but who are often excluded or marginalized in discussions of mine closure and remediation. 

This Special Section brings together a series of Indigenous-authored and collaborative articles offering a deeper exploration of community perspectives, engagements and governance practices at extractive sites in Australia and Canada. 

Written from diverse ecological, social and political contexts, taken together the articles elevate Indigenous voices and experiences in mine closure governance.

This addresses the significant gap in the literature on the social aspects of mine closure, which is particularly glaring in relation to Indigenous peoples' rights and interests.

Authors: Holcombe, S. E., Hall, R. J. & Keeling, A., (2025) “Self-Determination in mine site transitions and mine closure governance across Indigenous nations”, Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 8604. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.8604

Read the paper

Thanks for use of the cover photo by Yong Chuan Tan on Unsplash

Community benefit agreements (CBAs) negotiated in Canada are legally binding through contract law and set out obligations for project developers and local communities.

Also referred to as impact and benefit agreements, CBAs are common resource governance tools that are negotiated across the globe between private project developers and local, often Indigenous, communities whose land must be accessed or disturbed for major extractive resource projects.

According to the literature, CBAs have the potential to help facilitate economic and social development of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities by providing revenue benefits, employment and training opportunities, contracting opportunities for local businesses, new community infrastructure, and impact mitigation measures.

Although CBAs are only legally required in certain regions in northern Canada in accordance with lands claim agreements, CBAs are negotiated for virtually every major extractive resource project developed in Canada and are becoming increasingly common all around the world.

Some attribute the prevalence of CBAs to private developers recognizing the right of communities to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) as affirmed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) while others attribute the prevalence of CBAs to project developers managing social risk and attempting to satisfy consultation and accommodation requirements to obtain approval.

While this paper's case focus is on the Canadian North, the authors hope that the theoretically-informed study finds resonance with other jurisdictions host to CBAs.

Authors: Cameron Gunton, Eric Werker, Mark A. Moore and Sean Markey, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Read the paper

Thanks for use of the photo by Jonny Rothwell 

Western Australia has very strong solar resources and nationally competitive wind resources that are largely untapped. There is clearly much potential for the development of clean energy projects on land where First Nations communities hold an interest.

Australia's Critical Minerals Strategy promises to accrue benefits locally by building partnerships with host communities and First Nations peoples.

This research highlights that some of Australia's most disadvantaged areas host the highest number of critical minerals mines and mineral deposits. 

These areas also have a higher proportion of First Nations people.

At the same time, First Nations people have procedural rights available for up to almost 80% of these critical minerals projects.

Without major reforms in policy and practice, the inequitable distribution of mining's impacts and benefits will persist.

This paper was authored in January 2024 by John Burton, Deanna Kemp, Rodger Barnes and Joni Parmenter from the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland.

Read the paper here

Leslie Schultz, a Ngadju elder from Western Australia's Goldfields and a First Nations Clean Energy Network Steering Group member, has just returned from New York. 

Free prior informed consent (FPIC) is frequently cited as a legal standard for the development of extractives projects which impact Indigenous groups. The basic concept is that mining impacts should not occur without the group’s FPIC, but that simplicity hides domestic complexity.

This paper outlines the current state of FPIC at the international level, examines some common difficulties, and then describes Australian domestic law regarding these issues.

Author: John Southalan, “The FPIC Fixation: Indigenous - Mining Law, Internationally and Australia”, International Mining and Oil & Gas Law, Development, and Investment 22A-1 (Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, 2019)

Read the report

The front page image used in the report is from here.

In the coming decades Australia is set to see a dramatic expansion in renewable energy projects. It is likely that many of these will occur on land subject to Indigenous rights and interests.

The paper concludes that while the guiding principles and the content of access and benefit sharing agreements may be quite similar between the extractive and renewable industries, there are a number of critical differences between these industries that may impact agreement content.

These are that renewable energy developments use a completely renewable resource; are usually not limited to specific geographic areas (although certain areas are more conducive to both wind and solar projects); generally require a much greater land area; have physical impacts that are almost completely reversible; affect visual amenity over greater distances (in the case of wind); are potentially in place for more than one generation; and may allow Traditional Owners continued land access.

Additionally, the use of native title land for renewable energy projects will raise different issues for native title holders and companies than the renewable energy industry’s experience to date with neighbouring communities in high population areas.

Renewable energy companies would be well advised to heed the changing attitudes and experience of the extractive industry over the past two decades in relation to best practice.

Authors: L O’Neill, K Thorburn and J Hunt

Read the paper here

O’Neill, L., Thorburn, K. and Hunt, J. (2019), Ensuring Indigenous benefit from large-scale renewable energy projects: Drawing on experience from extractive industry agreement making, Working Paper No. 127, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

Thanks for use of the photo Anthony Ketland.