The Congress sessions were attended by more than three hundred participants – managers
from ministries and government agencies of Russia, members of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
scientists of a number of leading Academy and branch scientific research institutions and
specialists from production plants of Russia, Germany, Poland, France, Great Britain, China,
Romania, Slovenia, Estonia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kirghizia.
The Third Congress recognizes great importance for the humankind of the forthcoming stage of
its development, at which people will get knowledge and become the community of economically
and ecologically interacting members. Reasoning from the above one can state that the current
global ecological problem is the one for the entire civilized community.
Over recent years the problem of human habitat protection, i.e., the prevention of the
irreversible alteration of the composition and characteristics of all the components of the
biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, has acquired rather high social, economic
and engineering importance. Of particular importance is the problem of maintaining the
characteristics and composition of the atmosphere as the most sensitive life-support system on
the Earth.
A.-T. Pihlak (National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics,
Tallinn, Estonia), E. A. Yelchaninov
(State Mining University, Moscow, Russia), and
N. G. Matviyenko (Institute of Complex Development of Mineral Resources)
It is high time to assess the effect of the production activity of man on environment,
such as the alteration of characteristics and composition of the atmosphere resulting from
intensive emission of various gases, on the modification of the water balance and water
characteristics, as well as on the disturbance of the planet surface and soils, as well as
other harmful effects.
Large-scale ecological problems are rather typical of the mining industry. The share of
solid primary materials (coal, metal ores, non-metallic solid minerals, construction materials)
accounts for 80 % of the total mining output. Today, the annual output of primary materials
and mine stone excavated in the process of underground and surface mining exceeds 60 billion
metric tons.
Nearly all the countries possess mining operations, therefore ecological problems must
become a concern of the whole world. Only mutual efforts geared at the problem elimination will
bring success. Ecological relations affect both national and international interests. Regulation
of these relations must be aimed accordingly at the conservation of the economic importance of
mineral resources, as a significant life-support system, and their ecological function, with
due account for the fact that mineral resources present a part of the natural environment.
The Third World Mining Environment Congress emphasizes that top priority objectives in
the elimination of ecological problems are as follows: development of the up-to-date legal and
regulatory documents, reliable methods of forecast and ways for the prevention of harmful
effects of mineral mining and processing, as well as the establishment of industrial regional
ecological monitoring.
Low efficiency of analytical grounds and forecasts is determined by the lack of coordinated
research and sufficient data, as well as reasonable exchange of experience that contributes to
the spread of ecological hazards, particularly in contiguous regions.
Special attention must be attached to the application of forecast methods and preventive
measures of mineral resources conservation and banning of uncontrolled extraction of minerals,
rocks, gases, water and other components, since it could result in the disturbance of the state,
characteristics and structure of the bowels as a whole. Uncontrolled exploitation of mineral
resources may disturb the existing equilibrium in the Earth's crust, and it will negatively
affect the environment. Therefore, the transition of the natural arrangement of mineral resources
to a new, technogenic and ecologically acceptable arrangement at the stage of their development
must be considered an indispensable condition of ecological security provision.
The papers presented at the Congress show the results achieved and the ways to solve the
main ecological problems. In a number of papers dealing with the general ecological problems and
engineering methods and equipment for environment protection the analysis is given of the
qualitative and quantitative indicators of the negative environmental effect produced by mining
operations, and information is presented about local technological approaches, which improve
ecological indices.
The papers also describe methods of the health analysis of the population of mining areas
and safety and labour protection measures in surface and underground mineral mining, processing
and transportation, and waste utilization problems.
One should emphasize the extreme importance of the ecological aspect of mineral deposit
development in the Northern regions of different countries. The intensive broad-scale mineral
mining in the Northern regions must be oriented towards the formation of reasonable strategy of
the economy restructuring with the maximum possible conservation of the existing dynamic
equilibrium of particularly sensitive natural systems and ecological security of the population.
The participants of the Congress believe that the current attitude to mineral
resources development assumes the necessity for continuous efforts aimed at the conservation of
their utility through the controlled utilization of all the variety of georesources and
comprehensive development of mineral resources and establishing of multifunction mining
operations.
Recommendations of the Congress
- To recommend to the participating and other countries with the mining industry to concentrate their effort on the following scientific and practical problems:
- to establish a financial mechanism for attracting state and extra-budgetary funds to
support the ecology related investigations and nature conservation and nature restoration
measures;
- to continue mutual developments and coordination of norms, standards and design documents
that regulate the use of safe and ecologically clean technologies in mineral mining, processing
and conversion and admissible levels of gas and dust emission to the atmosphere, as well as the
methods and facilities for water purification;
- to continue development and application of automatic systems of ecological monitoring in
mining regions and adjacent areas;
- to work on the specific comprehensive engineering and technological problems of mining
operations;
- to make technological processes of mineral mining and processing ecologically clean to maximize the nature protection and resource-saving potential of mining and processing operations;
- to proceed with the development of waste utilization technologies with their commercial application.
- To set up a permanent Organizing Committee of the representatives of participating
countries and experts from other leading mining countries for coordination of work and exchange
of information on legal and regulatory issues of ecology, primarily, in mining regions. To
entrust the NMRC – Skochinskii Institute of Mining with carrying out the necessary consultations
with the participating countries and working out measures for this recommendation fulfillment.
It is advisable to register the permanent Organizing Committee with the UNO and to request the
UNO for financial support to joint projects.
- To order the Congress Organizing Committee to establish contacts with international
agencies and establishments including the Secretariat of the UN Frame Convention on Climate
Changes, with the government bodies, national ecological research centers and industrial
companies with the aim of coordination and realization of ecological projects.
- The III World Mining Environment Congress considers as necessary to recognize great
importance of the first Russian Concept of the state strategy of ecological security in
development of mineral resources. This Concept, as a document of Federal importance, represents
a comprehensive approach to the development of the national programme aimed at the elimination
of environmental problems in mining. To circulate the Draft Concept as an official Congress
document.
- To recommend to Mining Universities to establish training courses in ecology for mining
engineers, to exchange training programmes, professors, students and post-graduate students.
- To support the proposal of the Congress participant from Estonia on taking stock and
monitoring of the atmospheric oxygen consumption at mining operations.
- To confirm the necessity of organizing the World Mining Environment Congresses every two years and to propose to the Romanian delegation to study the opportunity of holding the next Congress in 2001 in Romania.