Why Do We Need Community-Driven Metrics for Legacy Mine Rehabilitation?

Dennis Alonzo and Marlon Suelto

Introduction

Rehabilitating legacy mines is an increasingly urgent environmental, social and governance challenge. Across many regions, mining has left behind abandoned pits, waste-rock dumps, tailings storage facilities, contaminated waterways, unstable landforms and degraded ecosystems. These sites may continue to generate acid and metalliferous drainage (Jarvis et al., 2026), release dust (Kotov et al., 2026), contaminate soil and water (Wang et al., 2026; Nieva et al., 2019), threaten public safety (Sibiya et al., 2026) and constrain future land use long after mining companies have ceased operations (Rehman eta l., 2026; Alonzo et al., 2024 ). In some cases, responsibility for rehabilitation is unclear because the original operator no longer exists, legal obligations were weak, or the site predates contemporary environmental regulation.

Legacy mines are therefore not simply closed industrial sites. They are continuing sources of environmental risk and social disruption. They can affect health, livelihoods, cultural practices (Annandale et al., 2021; Alonzo et al., 2023), food security (Yuan et al., 2026; Han et al., 2025; Arman et al., 2025), land access, local identity, and intergenerational relationships with place (Svobodova et al., 2019; Hendrychová et al., 2020). Rehabilitation is consequently more than the technical stabilisation of land or the revegetation of disturbed areas. It is a process of repairing relationships between communities, environments, institutions, and former mining landscapes.

The scale and complexity of the problem are substantial. Mine closure and rehabilitation are now recognised as long-term processes requiring planning across environmental, economic and social dimensions (International Council on Mining and Metals [ICMM], 2019). However, legacy mines present additional challenges because decisions are often made after environmental damage has accumulated, historical records are incomplete, responsible actors are difficult to identify and affected communities may have had little influence over the original mining project or its closure. In these circumstances, conventional rehabilitation metrics are insufficient.

In this paper, we argue for the development and use of community-driven metrics for legacy mine rehabilitation. Such metrics would place community-defined outcomes alongside technical, ecological and regulatory measures. We posit that successful rehabilitation must be safe and environmentally functional, but also legitimate, culturally appropriate, socially useful and responsive to the people who live with the consequences of mining. Community-driven metrics should be developed collaboratively by communities, technical experts, researchers, governments and other relevant stakeholders. They should support decision-making rather than merely provide evidence of compliance.

The dominance of technical and environmental approaches

Current mine rehabilitation practice is commonly organised around technical and environmental objectives. These objectives may include stabilising waste structures, reducing erosion, controlling contaminated drainage, restoring vegetation cover, reducing pollutant concentrations, improving water quality and achieving agreed post-mining landforms. These outcomes are important. A physically unstable tailings dam, contaminated river or exposed waste dump cannot be regarded as successfully rehabilitated simply because community consultation has occurred.

Environmental and technical metrics provide valuable evidence of risk reduction and ecosystem recovery. For example, rehabilitation plans may measure vegetation establishment, soil stability, species diversity, water chemistry, erosion rates, landform performance and the presence of invasive species. Such measures can be tested, monitored and compared against regulatory thresholds or closure criteria. They are also essential for determining whether a rehabilitated site is safe and capable of sustaining ecological functions.

Nevertheless, rehabilitation systems remain heavily shaped by expert knowledge and administrative requirements. Engineers, ecologists, hydrogeologists, consultants and regulators commonly define the problem, select the indicators, determine acceptable thresholds and evaluate whether the site has met its closure obligations. Communities may be consulted, but consultation does not necessarily mean shared authority. In many cases, community participation occurs after the most important technical decisions have already been made.

This expert-centred model reflects a narrow understanding of rehabilitation success. It assumes that the principal task is to return a disturbed site to a technically acceptable environmental condition. However, as Bainton and Holcombe (2018) argue, mine closure has significant social dimensions that cannot be reduced to economic compensation or stakeholder engagement. Closure affects employment, local services, demographic stability, cultural identity and community expectations about the future.

The problem is not that technical expertise is irrelevant. Rather, technical knowledge is often treated as more legitimate than local, experiential and cultural knowledge. This hierarchy can produce several weaknesses. First, technical metrics may measure what is easy to quantify rather than what matters most to affected communities. A site may meet vegetation-cover targets while remaining inaccessible to local people, unsuitable for customary activities or unsafe because of community perceptions and unresolved contamination concerns. Similarly, water may meet selected chemical thresholds while residents continue to avoid it because they distrust the monitoring process or remember previous pollution events.

Second, environmental indicators may fail to capture the distribution of benefits and risks. Average improvements in water quality may conceal continuing impacts on particular households, Indigenous groups, women, farmers or downstream communities. A rehabilitation project may create a recreational area or conservation reserve while restricting access to land previously used for grazing, hunting, gathering or cultural practices.

Third, expert-defined metrics may impose external assumptions about what the land should become. The preferred end state may be a forest, wetland, agricultural landscape, conservation area or industrial redevelopment site. However, these outcomes may not reflect community priorities. A community may value access to native foods, cultural sites, grazing land, water security, employment, tourism or opportunities for young people. These values are not always captured by conventional ecological indicators.

Fourth, a technical approach can reproduce historical exclusion. Mining has often involved unequal distributions of decision-making power, with governments and companies determining land use while local communities bear environmental and social costs. If experts design rehabilitation exclusively, it may extend this pattern into the post-mining period. The site may be technically repaired without addressing the procedural injustice that shaped its original degradation.

Finally, technical closure criteria are often designed around relatively short reporting cycles, while the impacts of legacy mines may continue for decades. Rehabilitation success is sometimes judged when a project reaches a regulatory milestone, even though water contamination, livelihood disruption or community distrust persists. The result is a form of administrative closure rather than social and environmental recovery.

Why technical success is not sufficient

A central limitation of conventional rehabilitation is that it treats social outcomes as secondary or indirect (Carneiro et al., 2026; Luckeneder et al., 2025). Social impacts may appear in a separate social impact assessment, consultation report, or community-relations plan rather than being integrated into the definition of rehabilitation success. This separation is problematic because environmental restoration and social wellbeing are interdependent.

The condition of a river, for example, is not only a biophysical matter. It affects drinking water (Ullah et al., 2025; Bansah et al., 2024), farming (Donkor et al., 2024; Vasco et al., 2023), fishing, cultural practices, recreation, health and local confidence in institutions (Cheshire et al., 2014; Araujo-Flores et al., 2022; Wasso et al., 2025;  Fudge & Trawver, 2026; Hamman et al., 2026; ). Similarly, the stability of a waste dump matters not only because of geotechnical risk but because residents may live nearby, travel through the area or worry about the safety of children (Ehrlich et al., 2018; Habib et al., 2025). Landform design is connected to questions of access, identity, memory, and future livelihood.

Research on ecosystem services shows the value of linking ecological restoration to community-defined benefits. Rosa et al. (2020) argue that planning mine restoration through ecosystem services can improve community engagement and help identify social benefits. Their approach recognises that restored environments provide material, regulating, cultural and relational benefits. A community workshop associated with mine rehabilitation in the Philippines similarly found that local participants identified both negative impacts of mining and potential future uses of rehabilitated tailings, including agriculture and ecotourism (Pan et al., 2024). These findings illustrate that communities do not merely oppose rehabilitation decisions; they can contribute knowledge about desired futures and practical uses of restored landscapes.

A purely technical model also risks misunderstanding social acceptance. The absence of public protest does not necessarily indicate support. Communities may remain silent because they lack resources, feel excluded, fear retaliation or believe that decisions have already been made. Conversely, disagreement may not mean that rehabilitation is impossible. It may indicate unresolved questions about risk, responsibility, compensation, cultural recognition or future access.

Social outcomes therefore need to be assessed directly. They should not be inferred from technical performance or from the number of consultation meetings held. Counting meetings measures activity, not influence. Recording the number of complaints measures dissatisfaction, but not whether concerns were resolved. Reporting local employment may obscure whether jobs are secure, fairly distributed or connected to long-term community needs.

The case for community-driven metrics

Community-driven metrics are indicators designed to measure whether rehabilitation contributes to community wellbeing, justice, capability, trust and meaningful use of restored landscapes. They do not replace technical or ecological metrics. Instead, they broaden the definition of success and place social outcomes within the same decision-making framework.

A community-driven approach begins with a different question. Rather than asking only, “Has the site been stabilised and revegetated?”, it also asks:

• Is the rehabilitation outcome safe and useful for affected communities?
• Have communities influenced the decisions that affect them?
• Are cultural values and local knowledge recognised?
• Have risks and benefits been distributed fairly?
• Has trust in responsible institutions improved?
• Can local people access and use the rehabilitated area?
• Are communities better positioned to manage future risks?
• Does rehabilitation support a viable and locally valued post-mining future?

These questions shift rehabilitation from a project-completion model towards a social-ecological process. They also support a more democratic understanding of expertise. Scientists and engineers contribute knowledge about contamination, stability and ecological processes. Communities contribute knowledge of place, historical change, local use, hazards and cultural meaning. Researchers can help design robust methods and interpret evidence. Governments provide legal authority, public accountability and long-term oversight. None of these forms of knowledge is sufficient on its own.

This collaborative approach is consistent with principles in contemporary mine-closure guidance. The ICMM (2019) emphasises integrated closure planning, stakeholder engagement, risk management and the need to consider social and economic transitions. The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (Global Tailings Review, 2020) also highlights affected-community engagement, transparency, independent oversight and the protection of people and the environment. These frameworks provide an important foundation, but community-driven metrics require more than general commitments. They require specific indicators, agreed methods, clear responsibilities and continuing public reporting.

Dimensions of community-driven metrics 

Socially driven metrics can be organised across several dimensions.

Participation and influence

Metrics should assess whether affected communities have meaningful opportunities to shape rehabilitation decisions. Indicators might include the diversity of participants, the timing of engagement, the accessibility of information, the proportion of community recommendations considered and the extent to which decisions were modified in response to community input.

The key issue is influence, not attendance. A community may participate in multiple meetings without having any authority over the final outcome. A stronger measure would document which community proposals were accepted, rejected or modified, and provide reasons for those decisions.

Procedural justice and inclusion

Rehabilitation processes should be fair and inclusive. Metrics should examine whether marginalised groups, Indigenous peoples, women, young people, downstream residents and people with disabilities are able to participate. They should also assess whether information is available in appropriate languages and formats, whether meetings are held at accessible times and whether participation costs are covered.

Inclusion should not be treated as demographic representation alone. It requires attention to power. Some community members may be technically present but unable to speak freely or influence decisions. Independent facilitation, community representatives and culturally appropriate engagement may be necessary.

Cultural recognition and place-based values

Legacy mines often affect places with cultural, spiritual and historical significance. Metrics should assess whether cultural sites, stories, customary practices and local histories have been identified and protected. They should also consider whether rehabilitation restores or restricts access to culturally significant areas.

Cultural outcomes may be qualitative, but this does not make them less important or impossible to assess. Community-defined narratives, participatory mapping, cultural heritage registers and interviews can provide structured evidence. The objective is not to convert every cultural value into a numerical score, but to ensure that such values are visible in decision-making.

Livelihoods and future use

Rehabilitation should support realistic and locally valued post-mining futures. Metrics may include access to land and water, local employment, training, enterprise development, agricultural productivity, tourism opportunities and the durability of post-rehabilitation benefits. However, economic indicators must be interpreted carefully. Short-term employment during earthworks may not represent long-term livelihood recovery. Metrics should distinguish between temporary project employment and sustainable opportunities that remain after rehabilitation funding ends.

Trust, transparency and accountability

Legacy mine rehabilitation often occurs in contexts of institutional distrust. Communities may question whether companies, governments or consultants are accurately reporting risks. Community-driven metrics should therefore assess the transparency of monitoring data, the timeliness of communication, the accessibility of technical information and the effectiveness of grievance mechanisms.

Trust should not be treated as a public-relations outcome. It should be connected to observable institutional behaviour: admitting uncertainty, disclosing failures, responding to complaints, explaining technical decisions and maintaining monitoring over time.

Community wellbeing and perceived safety

A rehabilitated site must be experienced as safe, not merely classified as safe by experts. Metrics can assess perceived health risk, physical safety, psychological wellbeing, confidence in water quality and community perceptions of environmental recovery. These indicators should complement, not replace, scientific measurements.

Perceived risk is not simply a communication problem. It may reflect lived experience, previous institutional failures or continuing uncertainty. Listening to community concerns can reveal risks that technical assessments have missed or help identify why scientifically sound interventions have not been accepted.

Long-term stewardship and adaptive capacity

Legacy mine sites require ongoing monitoring and sometimes perpetual management. Community-driven metrics should assess whether communities have the knowledge, resources and institutional relationships needed to participate in long-term stewardship. Relevant indicators include local monitoring capacity, access to data, emergency preparedness, community representation in governance and the availability of long-term funding.

The concept of adaptive capacity is particularly important. Rehabilitation should strengthen the capacity of communities to respond to changing environmental conditions, extreme weather, new contamination pathways or unexpected land-use pressures. A community that is dependent on external experts for every future decision remains vulnerable, even if the initial rehabilitation is technically successful.

A collaborative model for developing metrics

Community-driven metrics should not be imposed by consultants or selected solely through expert workshops. They should be co-designed through an iterative process.

The first stage is to identify affected communities and rights holders, including people who live downstream, use the land seasonally or maintain cultural connections to the site. The second stage is to establish a shared account of historical impacts, current risks and desired futures. The third stage is to identify community priorities and translate them into measurable outcomes. The fourth stage is to agree on data-collection methods, responsibilities and reporting arrangements.

Indicators should be developed through a combination of community workshops, interviews, participatory mapping, surveys, focus groups, ecological monitoring and administrative data. Quantitative and qualitative evidence should be treated as complementary. A community’s statement that it no longer trusts the water supply is meaningful evidence, even though it cannot be expressed through a chemical concentration alone.

The process should also establish how to handle disagreements. Communities and experts may value different outcomes or interpret risks differently. Rather than eliminating disagreement, the metric framework should make it visible and provide a transparent basis for negotiation. Kenter et al. (2019) emphasise that social values are diverse and sometimes conflicting. This diversity should be recognised rather than reduced to a single measure of community acceptance.

Principles for community-driven metrics for legacy mine rehabilitation

The following principles can guide the development and application of community-driven metrics.

1. Community-defined relevance
   Metrics should measure outcomes that affected communities consider important, not only outcomes that are convenient for technical monitoring.
2. Integration with environmental and technical evidence
   Social indicators should complement measures of geotechnical stability, water quality, biodiversity and landform performance within one rehabilitation framework.
3. Meaningful influence
   Metrics should assess whether community participation changes decisions, rather than simply counting meetings or consultation activities.
4. Recognition of rights and cultural values
   Indigenous rights, cultural heritage, customary practices and place-based relationships should be protected and incorporated into rehabilitation objectives.
5. Equity and distributional fairness
   Metrics should identify who benefits, who bears risks and whether vulnerable groups experience different outcomes.
6. Transparency and accountability
   Data, assumptions, uncertainties, decisions and monitoring results should be publicly accessible and understandable.
7. Independence and credibility
   Where possible, monitoring and evaluation should involve independent researchers, community representatives and institutions trusted by affected populations.
8. Long-term orientation
   Metrics should assess outcomes over the full life of rehabilitation and post-closure management, not only at project completion.
9. Adaptive management
   Indicators should be reviewed and revised as new evidence, environmental conditions and community priorities emerge.
10. Respect for different forms of knowledge
    Scientific, technical, local, experiential and cultural knowledge should be considered legitimate and brought into dialogue.
11. Attention to lived experience
    Perceptions of safety, wellbeing, trust and land use should be assessed alongside objective environmental measurements.
12. Actionability
    Each metric should be connected to a responsible institution, a decision point and a clear response when performance is inadequate.

Conclusion

Legacy mine rehabilitation cannot be judged solely by whether a landscape has been reshaped, stabilised or revegetated. These outcomes are necessary, but they do not fully answer whether a damaged place has become safe, useful, trusted and socially sustainable. Technical and environmental expertise remains essential, but an expert-dominated model is insufficient because it may overlook community priorities, distribute benefits and risks unfairly, reproduce historical exclusion and define success too narrowly.

Community-driven metrics offer a way to broaden rehabilitation practice. They make community wellbeing, procedural justice, cultural recognition, livelihood recovery, trust, participation and long-term stewardship visible within rehabilitation decision-making. Their purpose is not to make technical standards less rigorous. It is to ensure that technical success contributes to meaningful social and ecological recovery.

For legacy mines, rehabilitation is ultimately a question of what kind of future should be created from a damaged past. That future cannot be determined by experts alone. It must be developed through collaboration among communities, rights holders, scientists, engineers, researchers, governments and responsible organisations. Community-driven metrics provide the practical means to evaluate whether that collaboration is producing outcomes that communities recognise as legitimate, fair and worthwhile.

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