The manner in which we manage land strongly influences our reputation with our local communities and other stakeholders. This has implications for future access to land and, therefore, our licence to operate. It is essential that we account for our total land use including, as a minimum, the reporting of our land disturbance and rehabilitation of land for future use by others.

At the end of 2008 OZ Minerals had a total land holding of 27,600 square kilometres (Figure 1). Ninety-six per cent of this area was land held under title for our exploration and project development activities. Eighty-nine square kilometres, or 0.3 per cent of the total land holding, represented our operational footprint where land was disturbed for exploration, project development, mining and ore processing purposes. Our footprint also includes all land that has been rehabilitated. At the end of 2008, approximately 533 hectares (15 per cent of disturbed land) had been rehabilitated.

Century and Prominent Hill are the largest contributors to the group’s footprint area, representing 30 per cent (26.9 square kilometres) and 21 per cent (19 square kilometres), respectively. Our results show that 197 hectares of land was rehabilitated in 2008, with a further 415 hectares under rehabilitation at the end of the period. The major contributor to rehabilitation in 2008 was Sepon, where the 173ha of land rehabilitated represented 88 per cent of the group total for the reporting period. Sepon adopts a progressive approach to rehabilitation and aims to commence within one year of the land becoming available, with focus on achieving stable landforms that can withstand short duration high intensity rainfall events, thereby controlling the runoff of sediment into the local river system.

The remaining footprint will be progressively rehabilitated as the land becomes available. At the end of 2008, 912 hectares of land was available for rehabilitation, with 666 hectares (73 per cent) of that land at the Century mine. Century has been involved in a number of rehabilitation studies, including extensive revegetation and cover system trials, to determine the most appropriate method for reducing the rehabilitation backlog on the south and north waste rock dumps. Rehabilitation specifications for the waste rock dumps are being developed through scientific input through the University of Queensland and in consultation with stakeholders.