Sep 16 2009
Alcoa’s (NYSE:AA) Australia Operations have been recognized by national and international organizations as a world leader in mine site rehabilitation for its long term management of the ecosystem. Once again, Alcoa has demonstrated its leadership after growing its one millionth plant at its state-of-the-art laboratory near Perth, Australia.
Mine site rehabilitation is a complex and scientific process and some plant species, which need to be returned to the land during rehabilitation, needed a helping hand, according to Manager of Mines Bill Knight.
“There are several ways plants can be returned to rehabilitation, but some plant species do not produce viable seed, or if they do it is difficult to collect, and some don’t readily germinate - these are what we call ‘recalcitrant’ species and they need to be grown in a nursery in a process called ‘tissue culture,” Knight said
Alcoa’s Marrinup Nursery, south of Perth, includes a tissue culture laboratory which has been successfully restoring a high diversity of plant species for mine site rehabilitation - no other mining company in the world has comparable facilities.
“Tissue culture is essentially growing plant shoots in a sterile, controlled, environment usually in sealed jars. The plant shoots are grown on media which contains nutrients for plant growth; minerals, amino acids, vitamins, hormones, sugar and water – all set in a jelly called agar,” Knight said.
“Every four weeks the plant material is divided and placed into fresh agar and within a few months thousands of plants can be produced.”
Alcoa was the first mining company in the world to achieve 100 percent plant species richness in our rehabilitated mine site areas in Western Australia. The company’s rehabilitation objective is to re-establish a functional ecosystem that will fulfill the pre-mining forest land uses including conservation, timber production, water catchment and recreation.
Since 1994, the one million tissue cultured plants have gone into over 6,537 hectares of mine rehabilitation at Alcoa’s Huntly Mine near Dwellingup and its Willowdale Mine. Alcoa’s Marrinup has been operating since 1980. For more about bauxite mining rehabilitation visit: www.alcoa.com.au/land