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Topic Presenter: Renee Young (Program Director, WABSI)

Date: 17 April 2023

Time: 12:30 to 13:30 (Australian Western Standard Time)

Presentation Overview:  

Ecological Restoration will be a key component for mining companies to achieve no net loss and nature positive targets with strategies requiring companies to minimise the recovery gap and then restoring an area greater than was impacted, relying heavily on the Restoration Economy.

We define the Restoration Economy as: 

“The market of businesses, investors, consumers, and government initiatives engaging in or driving the economic activity related to ecological restoration”.

In this presentation we examine the Restoration Economy and its intersection with mining. As it stands, mining is one of the biggest contributors to the Restoration Economy, but with emerging demands to increase capacity, we need to understand the interconnected nature of the industry to support its growth. We look at the many components that make up the Restoration Economy and present a framework that can be used to build capacity as the mining sector transitions to more sustainable business models. Centralised around two key elements – ‘knowledge needs’ and ‘enabling environment’ - the framework consists of nine key areas to target to build a robust Restoration Economy for Australia and maximise benefits. A robust Restoration Economy means higher levels of ecological recovery, more reliable seed supply, scalable technologies and a skilled workforce to support on ground works. It provides opportunity to all of society, but particularly our regional and remote regional communities to create and diversity economic opportunities.

Presenter Profile

Dr Renee Young is the Program Director, Conservation and Restoration at the Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute. She is an experienced manager and environmental scientist specialising in ecological restoration, with recent projects showcased at The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26 & COP28) and UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15). Working with government, industry and research, Renee collaborates widely to ensure outputs are applied and readily implementable. 

Renee has published a number of key documents to support the mining sector including the International Principles and Standards for the Ecological Restoration and Recovery of Mine Sites, A framework for developing mine-site completion criteria in Western Australia and, Towards a framework for regional cumulative impact assessment. Renee is also working with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Society for Ecological Restoration on the development of additional training opportunities for the mining sector in restoration practices.