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MINING AND THE ENVIRONMENT (VIDEO SCRIPT)

By Isabel Limón and Virginia García.

Hello. We are Isabel and Virginia and we are students at Victoria Kent Secondary

School.

We will show you in this video one example of landscape restoration in an abandoned

quarry nearby Navas del Rey, in the Province of Madrid.

Here, as it often happens in open-pit mines, the quarry reached the aquifer and the water

formed two lakes. When the quarry was abandoned it became a rubbish dump.

We will tell you, step by step, about the rehabilitation process of this landscape which

started in 1996.

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Mining is always aggressive to the environment. If there is no rehabilitation work

afterwards, the land ends up in a condition of serious degradation, without any real

possibility of recovery.

Repairing the area means either to restore the original environment or to create a new

one.
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A landscape restoration project must include the following tasks:

1. Redesigning and protecting the slopes.

2. Removing, piling up and maintaining the remains of fertile soil.

3. Making the soil compatible with vegetation.

4. Redesigning the landscape.

5. Choosing adequate plant species for reforestation.

6. Choosing the best method and season for planting and sowing.

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The quarry is located in Dehesa Real, a place close to Navas del Rey.

This quarry provided granite to make “zahorra”, a kind of gravel to be used in road

building.

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Restoration works were undertaken around one of the ponds. There were all sorts of

waste on the banks, which made the ground very unstable.

One of the first tasks was to draw a relief map of the site in order to design the best

possible terrain. Then, gradients of very steep slopes were reduced and big rocks and

waste that made the ground unfit for planting were removed.
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After that, good quality soil was added in order to make the area more suitable for

vegetation, particularly for shrubs and herbaceous species.

In the lower parts, large portions of land were moved with the help of an excavator to

enlarge the pond and create new places as, for instance, the island. For this purpose it

was also necessary to add large materials and some fertile soil to help grow certain

plants, like tamarisk.

In the background, we can see some environment restoration students. The place were

they are working was turned into a beach to give easy access to the pond.

On the opposite bank, three terraces were built. They make a three-level barrier of

plants which hides the dumping ground.

The highest slope, formed by loose rubble, was protected from rain erosion by a

coconut fabric mesh.

On this other slope, pulses, grasses and aster plants were sown. They require neither

much water nor many nutrients.

The indigenous shrubs are protected by blue screens. Rockrose, thyme, retama,

rosemary, blackberry and many other shrubs were planted on the terraces and the upper

parts of the slope, making up a transition zone between the restored area and the

environment around.
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You have been able to see, therefore, that extraction of minerals from the earth leaves

marks on the landscape. That is why it is very important that any mining project should

include an assessment of environmental degradation as well as a restoration scheme. In

that way, an ugly old mine can be turned into a beautiful site which will shelter different

new species and will help increase the biodiversity in the surrounding natural

environment.