Guizhou issues guidelines on management of mining ecological restoration funds

Guizhou's departments of finance, natural resources and planning, and ecology and environment recently released the Management Measures for Mining Ecological Restoration Funds.

The guidelines aim to strengthen the regulation of these funds and ensure that mining enterprises fulfill their ecological restoration responsibilities.

According to the measures, the funds will adhere to "enterprise ownership, government supervision, ensuring needs, and dedicated use." Mining enterprises must establish a separate, fixed fund account with a financial institution to manage fund allocations and expenditures.

Enterprises must report the establishment of fund accounts to county-level financial, natural resources, and ecological environment departments within one week.

These departments, in turn, will facilitate agreements between the enterprises and the account-holding banks while ensuring proper oversight. Municipal authorities will also receive records for further supervision.

The measures emphasize a concurrent approach, urging enterprises to conduct restoration alongside resource extraction while appropriately allocating and utilizing funds.

The funds may address collapses, landslides, mudslides, and ground subsidence caused or exacerbated by mining activities, resettling affected residents, and restoring aquifers, vegetation, soil, and geological formations damaged by mining operations.

The funds can also be used to rehabilitate land resources destroyed by mining, conduct surveys, design and complete inspections of ecological restoration projects, monitor and maintain ecological restoration efforts, and pay other approved expenses related to ecological restoration.