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SAEON and Mintek join forces to find sustainable solutions for ecological problems
On 1 September 2006, mining researcher Mintek committed itself to strengthening environmental and socio-economic research in minerals processing and metallurgy by signing an accession agreement with SAEON.
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Mintek specialises in mineral and metallurgic research and development, technology transfer and beneficiation. As an active participant in SAEON, Mintek will exchange information relating to the environmental and socio-economic aspects of its project work – other than that which is commercially sensitive or otherwise confidential in nature – with SAEON. Through SAEON, the information will be made available to all SAEON's participants and to the public for purposes of research, management advice, policy-making and science education, SAEON Head Johan Pauw said.
Speaking at the signing ceremony at Mintek's head office, in Johannesburg, Mintek's CEO, Dr Paul Jourdan, said that while mining can never be a sustainable venture, Mintek was fully behind SAEON in assessing the impacts of mining on the environment. Mintek constantly develops and promotes innovative approaches for mitigating the impact of the minerals industry on the environment, and a current case in point is the Phalaborwa mine situated within the domain of the SAEON Ndlovu Node.
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is one of the core themes in Mintek's integrated research and development strategy, which was adopted in 2005. The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) makes a significant contribution in this regard to the South African mining industry, and contributes to the Department of Minerals and Energy's Sustainable Development through Mining initiative.
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"Participation in SAEON will complement our own research in this area, and strengthen our collaboration with government and industry," said Petrus Fusi, Mintek's General Manager for Mineral Economics and Sustainable Development. "The major benefits for Mintek include access to long-term environmental observation data, and closer collaboration with other researchers, as well as stimulating observation science and monitoring activities within Mintek itself."
Mintek's Gavin Fleming, who facilitated the agreement with SAEON, said that the partnership would complement Mintek's own research in the area of sustainable development and strengthen its alliance with government and industry.
"Achieving sustainable development and knowing our progress towards achieving it will depend on adequate long-term monitoring and observation of environmental, social and economic indicators," he said. "SAEON is an environmental monitoring network, where environment most certainly encompasses the social and economic dimensions. Therefore SAEON should be an integral component of any sustainable development initiative."
Mining industry
According to Gavin, the mining industry conducted numerous environmental and socio-economic observations, for various reasons, but a coordinated management approach to the storage and reuse of the data was still lacking.
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"SAEON brings such an approach together with the infrastructure to facilitate it," he said. As part of its mandate, SAEON is required to put mechanisms in place to ensure that environmental observation data is archived and accessible as a national asset for future generations.
Describing the agreement as "extremely significant", SAEON's Johan Pauw said that both Mintek and SAEON were in the "science business", with data as their currency. "We need to ensure that we get real, reliable data to make objective assessments and provide information to policy-makers," he said.
"Mintek will help us to assess the impact of the mining industry over time," he added. "The data will inform our actions and policies on a scientifically sound basis, and that is precisely what we're looking for."
Says Gavin: "We believe that our association with SAEON will assist us to facilitate better monitoring in the mining industry as well as provide us with many important resources for our own research."
By signing the agreement, Mintek has joined an array of SAEON partners such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Chamber of Mines, universities, government departments and conservation agencies.
SAEON also has strong links with similar international initiatives, such as the Environmental Long-Term Observatories of Southern Africa (ELTOSA), the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network (ILTER) and the Group on Earth Observation (GEO).
