{"id":152155,"date":"2018-02-11T02:00:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-11T07:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=152155"},"modified":"2018-02-11T02:00:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T07:00:05","slug":"denr-raises-urgency-for-mine-rehabilitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/11\/denr-raises-urgency-for-mine-rehabilitation\/","title":{"rendered":"DENR raises urgency for mine rehabilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Some<\/a>
Some mining areas merely lay wasted, so Cimatu wants these rehabilitated, said Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Undersecretary Jonas Leones over the weekend. (Photo<\/a> by Matthias Guntrum\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA —\u00a0Environment chief Roy Cimatu wants unrehabilitated\u00a0mine areas spared from further environmental degradation.<\/p>\n

Some mining areas merely lay wasted, so Cimatu wants these\u00a0rehabilitated, said Department of Environment and Natural Resources\u00a0(DENR) Undersecretary Jonas Leones over the weekend.<\/p>\n

“He said such areas can’t be left in that condition,” Leones noted.<\/p>\n

Erosion, pollution, as well as habitat and biodiversity loss are among\u00a0mining’s environmental impacts that can persist long after the mines’ closure, warned experts.<\/p>\n

They said rehabilitating mine areas is a precaution against further\u00a0environmental degradation, a threat to people’s health and\u00a0productivity.<\/p>\n

Mine rehabilitation, they said, is the process of restoring a mining area to almost its pre-mining state, preparing this site for productive uses.<\/p>\n

“Contractors and permittees shall technically and biologically\u00a0rehabilitate the excavated, mined-out tailings covered, and disturbed\u00a0areas to the condition of environmental safety, as may be provided in the implementing rules and regulations of this Act,” reads Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.<\/p>\n

The Act requires rehabilitation of mining areas in the country.<\/p>\n

Leones reiterated mine rehabilitation is among the priorities of DENR under Cimatu.<\/p>\n

Earlier, DENR’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) said 31 mine sites in the country are either abandoned, inactive, or closed.<\/p>\n

Bagacay mine in Samar island is one of these, noted MGB.<\/p>\n

MGB has started rehabilitating Bagacay mine, which was abandoned in 1992.<\/p>\n

Last year, MGB’s Region 9 office cited the need to rehabilitate Zambales Base Metals’ abandoned mine in Zamboanga City.<\/p>\n

“Though the area covered by the company for its copper mine operation may appear to be quite smaller compared to other modern-day mine operations within Zamboanga region, the impact of abandoned mines can be profound and may last for many generations,” the bureau warned.<\/p>\n

Latest available MGB data show mining companies have committed, as of December 2016, almost PHP25 billion for environmental protection and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

The firms have also committed as of July 2017 around PHP14 billion for social development and management in their respective host communities and neighboring areas.<\/p>\n

RA 7942 also requires the creation of a mine rehabilitation fund, based on a\u00a0mining contractor’s approved work program.<\/p>\n

The fund “shall be deposited as a trust fund in a government\u00a0depository bank and used for physical and social rehabilitation of\u00a0areas and communities affected by mining activities and for research\u00a0on the social, technical and preventive aspects of rehabilitation,” RA 7942 states.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA —\u00a0Environment chief Roy Cimatu wants unrehabilitated\u00a0mine areas spared from further environmental degradation. Some mining areas merely lay wasted, so …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":152156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5927,16,95],"tags":[3598,46303],"class_list":["post-152155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment-nature","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-denr","tag-mine-rehabilitation","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}