Elephants and ancients - A case study in sustainable closure planning at the Mupane gold mine, Botswana

Closure planning for Mupane gold mine commenced during the environmental impact assessment phase. The EIS outlined the closure objectives for the site and a preliminary closure design was included in the environmental management plan appended to the EIS. While these documents provide an outline of closure requirements for the site, MGM recognised the need to integrate closure planning into the mine life cycle, and initiated more detailed closure planning the same year that the project was opened. This work resulted in the development of a preliminary closure cost estimate based on a conceptual closure design. This design was based on a nominated post-operational land use of farmland for the grazing of domestic stock and wildlife (for game ranching).