Five senior academics from one of Africa's leading mining universities toured New Acland Mine on Monday to view the award-winning progressive rehabilitation and learn about best practice sustainability in Australian mining.
Five senior academics from one of Africa's leading mining universities toured New Acland Mine on Monday to view the award-winning progressive rehabilitation and learn about best practice sustainability in Australian mining. The University of Zambia's academics included Dr Bunda Besa, Dean of the School of Mines and Dr Jewette Masinja, lead for the United Nations University African hub focussed on mining and sustainable development. The mix of mining engineering and mineral processing academics are on a week-long study tour with The University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI). The Sustainable Mining Workshop is exploring best practice sustainability in Australian mining including environmental and social sustainability practices. SMI Program Leader Robin Evans said the United Nations University had identified mineral resources as a key area for sustainable development in Africa. "The University of Zambia's School of Mines is delivering this new push into sustainable development in mining and mineral processing not only in Zambia, but across wider Africa," Robin said. "The study group was really interested in learning about the progressive nature of New Acland's Mine's rehabilitation which provided a good case study on the application of sustainable development principles in the mining context." The group saw firsthand how the land is mined, then rehabilitated and finally handed back to New Hope's cattle breeding operation run by the neighbouring Acland Pastoral Company. Zambia is best known for copper and cobalt mining, producing an estimated 850,000 million tonnes of copper each year. The study group will leave the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the weekend and fly on to the United Nations University, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
