Report: Closing Ranger, Protecting Kakadu

New report by REXSAC researcher Rebecca Lawrence at Sydney Environment Institute and Dave Sweeney at Australian Conservation Foundation highlights growing concerns over the potential failures of the rehabilitation plan for the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park, Australia.

Uranium mining in the Kakadu National Park is set to come to an end in January 2021 after nearly four decades since Ranger uranium mining operations began in the region. This moves the story from concerns over the impacts of mining to questions around the adequacy of rehabilitation. Given the history of highly problematic mine closure and rehabilitation in both the uranium and the wider mining sector in Australia, a better approach and outcome is needed at Ranger to meet the clear expectations of multiple stakeholders.

This review of the 2020 Ranger Mine Closure Plan (RMCP), which can be read in full here, identifies some key issues and barriers to achieving the environmental requirements and objectives at Ranger. In raising these issues it seeks to improve the prospects for achieving a rehabilitated Ranger site that can be incorporated into Kakadu National Park.

You can read more about the report in this comment piece by Lawrence and Sweeney “Ranger Danger: Rio Tinto Faces Its Nuclear Test in Kakadu Uranium Mine”.

The background research to this report was funded by FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development.

Photo: The Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia by Dominic O’Brien.