Land management
Codelco considers territory as a strategic resource, and its sustainable use is necessary to the feasibility of our projects and operations. The 2010 Corporate Guideline on Territorial Management stipulates our commitment to incorporate this variable at the beginning of every project, ensuring an early and timely management. In our corporate planning framework, the territorial variable has been incorporated to future scenarios of our exploration plans. During 2011 we advanced in the development of a standard for territory, soil, and landscape, that shall be implemented as of 2012, and we also continued with the standardization of the Geographical Information System.
Mine closure operations
We seek to ensure that the Corporation’s planning and implementation of mine closures and possible relocations consider people’s health and safety, the environment, land and the community integrally, in order to avoiding to jeopardize the development of current and future generations.
(MM10) Number and percentage of operations with closure plans. We began our mine closure management in 2007, creating acorporate guideline to standardize the plan design criteriafor all the Corporation’s operations, which were, approved in 2009 by Sernageomin. During 2011 these plans were updated and closure plans for new structural projects were developed, incorporating Minera Gaby SpA. The Mine Closure Standard was also developed, which includes indicators that allow measuring management’s performance.
We are working, in parallel, to ensure the implementation of partial mine closures, which shall be carried out at the same time as operations to prevent and minimize environmental and social impacts in a timely manner. Our challenge for 2012 is to carry out a program for the implementation of the Mine Closure Standard across the entire Corporation, and a program to update all closure plans to ensure compliance with Mine Closure Regulation 20,551.
In November 2011 Law 20,551 on mine closure was enacted. This law will help the Corporation, and the entire mining industry, to enhance their mine closure management. As a result of our incorporation into the ICMM in 2011, we have assumed challenges beyond compliance with the law, committing to implementing sustainable practices in mine closure.
