Rehabilitation
approaches, methods and outcomes have changed markedly over the last 100 years,
and especially over the last 20 years. Alluvial gold dredges have moved from
creating a legacy of boulder fields and ponds to radiata pine plantations and
highly productive dairy pastures. The rehabilitated farmland has reduced flood
risk, improved drainage and efficient paddock design. The next challenge is to
include areas of environmental diversity in these projects, for example, shelter
belts, patches of native trees, and wetlands that were part of the original
landscape.

West
Coast coal mines have also come from a legacy of leaving it to nature to
rehabilitate damage by mining to establishing native ecosystems or plantation
forests. Developments in techniques at Stockton Mine are used to illustrate the
changes in approach to rehabilitation of native forest and tussock heathland
ecosystems. The proposed Cypress Mine will adopt a full range of avoidance,
remediation through rehabilitation, and off-site mitigation techniques in a
three-pronged' approach.

We
propose a coordinated extractive industry approach to mitigate for the impacts
of mining on native ecosystems and achieve nationally important conservation
benefits that individual projects cannot afford. This approach is particularly
beneficial in New Zealand, as
our native ecosystems must be actively managed to conserve native plants and
animals. Currently, some important species and ecosystems are not being actively
managed for conservation.