The Financing of Mine Land Rehabilitation in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Mining operations in the Czech Lands have a very long history. The first mining legislation was adopted more than seven centuries ago; in the 19th century the topic of the rehabilitation of land was included. Since the 1990s the rehabilitation of land has been given special attention in the Mining Act of 1991 in an effort to deal with the environmental issues related to mining operations. The paper discusses the rehabilitation of land and reclamation of areas affected by underground and opencast coal mining, and by the extraction of ores and uranium currently in the Czech Republic. It describes the trend of the financing methods of the rehabilitation and reclamation in recent decades under the conditions of transfer of a central planning national economy to a market economy. The paper deals with the reserve funds devoted to removal of the damages caused by mining, the rehabilitation of land and reclamation of areas affected by mining which are accumulated in accordance with the current mining and economic legislation. It addresses the potential problems related to the recent requirement for building-up of reserve funds in financial form and depositing them in a special tied bank account. Problems of financial guarantees for the rehabilitation of land are also discussed. Emphasis is laid on the importance of progressive rehabilitation of land as a method of diminishing the blockage of funds set aside for rehabilitation purposes.