What Does Mine Closure Mean? Some Insights from West Africa (Authors: Diana Ayeh and Tongnoma Zongo)

Tailings Storage Facility in Burkina Faso (CC-BY-4.0 Zongo)
Owing to its mineral abundance, West Africa’s subsoil has increasingly attracted both large-scale investors and small-scale miners in recent decades. This situation has not only led to the mushrooming of new mining projects but also to the emergence of an ever-increasing number of (future) abandoned mine sites. There is a need for a more profound understanding of whether and how the rise and decline of various versions of resource frontiers (Luning 2018) eventually expands or intensifies “new geographies of injustice” (Bainton et al. 2021) around the world. This involves practices of future-making in the field of mine planning, operation and closure, because human-environment relations will likely be most affected by the long-term consequences of extractive activities.
This blog post is informed by explorative field research conducted on national mine closure policies in Burkina Faso and Guinea in March 2022 and previous work on local post-mining transitions by the authors (Ayeh, 2021; Zongo, 2019; Zongo & Ouédraogo, 2020). It is intended to open up some important thematic areas for future research on mine closure in West Africa (and beyond). This evolving and hitherto understudied research topic needs to be analyzed in the context of the numerous uncertainties actors face in the transition to post-mining. Community members in mining municipalities, policymakers, commercial actors and civil society leaders may have different perceptions and understandings of what mine closure implies, and consequently resort to various future-making strategies. In the following reflection we first trace how ‘mining temporalities’ can serve as a heuristic framework to better understand the various entangled dimensions of mine closure. We then address the frequently cited tension between existing regulatory frameworks and the widespread limits in implementing them. Finally, we take a broader and more critical look at future research agendas on the means and meanings of mine closure.
Mining as a Temporal Activity and the Temporality of Mine Closure
Following the ‘spatial turn’ in the social sciences, an emerging body of literature has more recently started to focus on different temporal dynamics in and of mineral extraction. What is described as the “time–resource extraction nexus” explores (the production of) various mining temporalities, including divergent and often conflicting perceptions, representations, discourses and politics (D’Angelo & Pijpers 2018). This relates, for instance, to the temporality of mining landscapes, the seasonality of extraction, as well as the rhythms and cycles and entanglements of past, present, and future in the extractive industries. By referring to Ashley Fent and Erik Kojola’s (2020) framework for an empirically based and analytically grounded study of resource temporalities, we consider two ways of approaching mine closure as particularly valuable: first, the time and temporality of resources themselves, including the processes of resource-(un)making and (post)extraction; and second, the temporal strategies of differently situated actors (‘the politics of time’), which point to relevant topics and power relations involved in mine closure politics and decision-making processes. For example, who is able to define, manage or resist the currently dominant temporal regimes of mine opening and closure? (D’Angelo & Pijpers 2018).
Mining is in itself a temporal activity, dependent on a range of temporal regimes (e.g., of labor and the seasons). Mine closure can be defined as a specific phase or the latest stage of the mining cycle (after the exploration, development and extraction phases). Yet, it is itself subject to temporality and specific politics of time. While minerals and metals are finite and, as such, limited in time and space, the inherent boom and bust phases of mineral extraction also depend on a range of global, national and local factors. These include the shifting demand for minerals and metals on the world market, geopolitical tensions, the attractiveness of a country’s mining legislation for (foreign) investors, the revision of corporate business strategies, and the sociocultural acceptance of (or opposition to) local resource extraction (see Ayeh 2021). As a result, miners may opt to abandon sites and transfer the responsibility for their maintenance and rehabilitation to national or local authorities. Such mine closure may be described as sudden when compared to the timeframes discussed during the permitting process, or those indicated in a pre-established closure and rehabilitation plan. In contrast, other companies may opt to suspend operations but maintain the site in order to resume operations once political, economic, technological or social conditions have improved. Such a situation can be described as a temporary closure.

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) activities in Poura (CC-BY-4.0: Zongo 2020)
The afterlife of extraction represents a particular moment, condition or place, where the social, economic and environmental impacts of mining are usually most visible and tangible. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why in West Africa (and elsewhere), mine closure governance tends to gather public interest only in the course of specific events or circumstances. This is particularly the case when projects are already abandoned and/or pose an immediate threat to the environment or human well-being. In Burkina Faso, a country that has experienced an increase in artisanal gold mining activities since the 1980s and an industrial ‘mining boom’ since the 2000s, mine closure has only recently evolved as a topic of public debate. The most prominent example of public and private abdication of responsibility regarding the numerous social, economic and environmental consequences of sudden mine closure is the case of the Kalsaka gold mine, which has been closed since 2013. Issues such as the loss of jobs for local communities and environmental stress resulting from groundwater contamination reached a national and global public in 2019, when Michel K. Zongo released the film No Gold for Kalsaka. The fact that industrial operators are abandoning local sites does not, however, imply that gold extraction as a livelihood strategy is vanishing altogether. Like Kalsaka, the closure of the first industrial gold mine in Poura in 1999 was followed by an increase in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) activities in the region (Zongo & Ouédraogo 2020, see figure 1). Mine closure in Guinea (Conakry) became a political issue primarily because of the temporal shutdown of an aluminum factory in Fria, which opened in 1960 and closed between 2012 and 2018. In Guinea, which has the world’s largest reserves of bauxite, this has resulted in both the dismissal of thousands of workers, and the establishment of a number of government and NGO interventions to create and invest in livelihood options for local populations beyond the mining industry (Knierzinger & Sopelle 2019).
An Existing Regulatory Framework – Not Fully Applied?
In recent years, mine closure and the post-mining transition have increasingly become globally relevant topics for private and state regulation. In response to the 2019 Brumadinho dam disaster in Brazil, where 270 people died as a result of a tailings dam collapse, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) introduced a Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management in 2020. Other, usually more far-reaching, reactions to Brumadinho include commitments by international NGOs and advocacy networks, such as Earthwork’s Safety First Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management. Having identified the post-mining transition “as an area of weakness in mining governance” the Intergovernmental Forum on mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) – a voluntary initiative to which governments all around the world (can) adhere – has recently published a number of Mine Closure Guidance Documents to Support Governments and Industry for the industrial sector. These are mainly focused on the capacity of governments to develop and implement important mine closure mechanisms, including closure plans, financial assurances, social closure mechanisms, and records of closed or abandoned mines. In the ASM sector, a multiplicity of donor initiatives now supports the elimination of mercury use and the promotion of responsible mining practices, although none of them specifically targets questions relating to mine closure.

Non-rehabilitated Kalsaka mine site (CC-BY-4.0: Zongo 2017)
Initial findings from our research in Burkina Faso and Guinea in March 2022 suggest that governments indeed seem to be “not yet ready” to implement all necessary provisions, as stated in the IGF document, as more mines close. While the policy instruments on social closure (e.g., through community involvement in developing and implementing mine closure plans) and records of closed/abandoned mines have yet to be developed, others are legally binding and, as such, an obligation that governments and corporations have to fulfil. Many industry, state and civil society representatives criticize the not yet effective enforcement of mine closure plans and financial assurances, as well as the dominant practice of abdicating responsibility for mine closure. For example, it is often unclear which ministry (i.e., Ministry of Mining vs. Ministry of the Environment) is responsible for implementing remediation measures. In the case of Burkina Faso’s Kalsaka mine, the ambiguities regarding competencies, competition between decision-makers and related power relationships are said to have resulted in a complete failure to implement rehabilitation measures, leading to an abandoned tailings dam and groundwater contamination (see figure 2). Article 141 of Burkina Faso’s reformed mining legislation (law N° 36-2015/CNT) stipulates that all those maintaining an industrial or semi-mechanized mining title are required to contribute to a rehabilitation fund (fonds de rehabilitation et de fermeture des mines, according to decree N°2017-0068). In this regard, the mining company Kalsaka Mining insists that it has fulfilled its obligations, having made a payment of almost 2.7 million US dollars (1.679.000.000 FCFA) to the fund (Zongo 2019).
Future Research on Mine Closure: Addressing Various Uncertainties
The transition to post-mining has both environmental, social and economic consequences and is associated with multiple uncertainties regarding the entanglements of the past, the present and the future in mining regions. Yet the question of a post-mining transition is often presented as an (already or almost) resolved issue, which just has to be addressed by policy application and techno-scientific solutions. Our explorative research indicates a need for more interdisciplinary, empirically based and analytically grounded research on mine closure in West Africa. For us, a focus on governance implies the study of negotiations around mine closure viewed through the prism of both the formal and informal arrangements governing the public domain (Hyden et al. 2004). Research on negotiating mine closure should thus be able to explore in more detail the various and entangled arenas in which states and social/economic actors interact, ranging from official policy forums to the various day-to-day interactions in the concessions.
Our call for interdisciplinary approaches that go beyond a legal appraisal of mine closure policies and their (non-)application, opens up new thematic fields that address the various uncertainties and ambivalences that a transition to mine closure poses. This relates, for example, to the temporality of mine closure/rehabilitation itself, as well as to the multiple legacies of extraction. Uncertainty exists, for example, on if and when mine closure can ever be defined as a finished process or condition. This also leads to important questions relating to future and potential resource, land and infrastructure uses in the aftermath of extraction. Given that the right to land and resources in many West African contexts is subject to legal pluralism, it is questionable whether post-mining landscapes and conditions can be analyzed and governed solely by recourse to the politico-legal regimes of law (non)application. Rather, comprehensive and open-ended research on the various dynamics and consequences of mine closure is needed to address the complexity of the topic and its governance at different scales. This includes a range of themes, such as the study of short, medium and long-term future-making practices of populations before, during and after closure. It also englobes their resilience strategies regarding environmental, social and economic challenges, and how these relate to the implementation of new technologies and policies for mine closure by public and private actors. Lastly, questions concerning political, legal and moral responsibility for (mitigating) the various impacts of mining on people and the environment cannot be limited to the governance of upstream mineral production. Therefore, future research projects should also consider the various downstream processing and consumption processes along the mining value chain by, for example, addressing individual and institutional consumer responsibility for the ongoing costs and consequences of mining.
References:
Ayeh, D. (2021). Spaces of Responsibility: Negotiating Industrial Gold Mining in Burkina Faso. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg (Dialectics of the Global 10).
Bainton N., Kemp D., Lèbre E., Owen J. R. & Marston G. (2021). The Energy–Extractives Nexus and the Just Transition. Sustainable Development 29 (4), pp. 624–634. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2163
D’Angelo, L. & Pijpers, R. J. (2018). Mining Temporalities: An Overview. The Extractive Industries and Society 5 (2), pp. 215–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2018.02.005
Fent, A. & Kojola, E. (2020). Political Ecologies of Time and Temporality in Resource Extraction. Journal of Political Ecology 27 (1), pp. 819–829. https://doi.org/10.2458/v27i1.23252
Hyden, G., Court, J. & Mease, K. (2004). Making Sense of Governance: Empirical Evidence from 16 Developing Countries. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Knierzinger, J. & Sopelle, I. (2019). Mine Closure from Below: Transformative Movements in Two Shrinking West African Mining Towns. The Extractive Industries and Society 6 (1), pp. 145–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2018.08.010
Luning, S. (2018). Mining temporalities: Future perspectives. The Extractive Industries and Society, 5 (2), pp. 281–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2018.03.009
Zongo, T. (2019). Kalsaka mining, une société minière dans le Nord du Burkina Faso : des rêves brisés ? Revue des Sciences Sociales – PASRES, 7 (23), pp. 101–111.
Zongo, T. & Ouédraogo, A.N. (2020). L’impact socio-sanitaire et environnemental d’une mine en fin d’exploitation non réhabilitée : cas de la mine de Poura au Burkina Faso. Nazari 2 (11), pp. 29–38.
How to cite:
Diana Ayeh and Tongnoma Zongo (July 18, 2024). What Does Mine Closure Mean? Some Insights from West Africa. Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa – Blog. Retrieved August 13, 2024 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/2733
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Diana Ayeh (July 18, 2024). What Does Mine Closure Mean? Some Insights from West Africa (Authors: Diana Ayeh and Tongnoma Zongo). Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2025 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/2733