Environmental Concerns
The mining of beach sands and of fossilized beach placers is often controversial because the operation requires the strip mining of large areas. Often this land is in ecologically sensitive surroundings and contains fragile ecosystems built up on poor sandy soils.
The mining process is ideally modelled on the extraction operations underway in Australia, where the strip mining is followed by rehabilitation of the mined areas including intensive re-vegetation with ecologically similar species, re-contouring of the land to its original shape, including dunes, and management of groundwater resources. Modern mining practices tend to favor dry mining rather than dredging operations, due to the advent of electrostatic mineral separation processes.
In practice, not all mining of sub-Saharan African deposits is carried out in such an environmentally responsible manner, although some South African mines do practice dune rehabilitation . The mining of the coast of South America, in particular Chile and Ecuador, is carried out in an environmentally responsible manner.
Examples of environmentally sensitive and politically sensitive mineral sands mining operations which have gained public attention and galvanised environmental activism responses to mining proposals include the Tuart-Ludlow mineral sands mine, Western Australia, and the culmination of conservationist efforts to preserve Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia. These latter campaigns successfully lobbied government and saw Fraser Island and Rainbow Beach protected by the High Court of Australia, however the Tuart-Ludlow campaign failed to protect the Tuart forests in coastal Western Australia.
Similar mineral sand mining operations were carried out for 35 years in and adjacent to National Parks at Hawks Nest, New South Wales, and continue to be carried out on Stradbroke Island, Queensland.
Read more about this topic: Heavy Mineral Sands Ore Deposits
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