Understanding Mining Cultural Landscapes

UNESCO defines cultural landscapes as ‘cultural properties that represent the combined work of nature and of man.’

Mining cultural landscapes refer to areas where the historical and cultural aspects of mining activities have left a lasting imprint on the environment and the resident communities. These landscapes often showcase the interaction between humans and their natural surroundings in the context of resource extraction. Mining cultural landscapes can include a variety of elements (refer below) that attest to the impact of mining on both the physical environment and its cultural heritage (e.g., Ravenswood Qld, pictured).

Abandoned Mines: The built infrastructure of mines, such as shafts, tunnels, and equipment, can become integral parts of a mining cultural landscape. These structures often reflect the technology and methods used during different periods of mining history. 

Mining Towns: Settlements that emerged to support mining operations, complete with housing, schools, and other infrastructure. These towns can illustrate the social and economic dynamics associated with mining communities. 

Industrial Infrastructure: Beyond the mines themselves, mining landscapes may include processing plants, smelters, and other industrial facilities that played a role in extracting and refining minerals. 

Transportation Networks: Railways and roads developed to facilitate the movement of mined materials to markets. These elements contribute to the overall character of mining cultural landscapes. 

Cultural Practices: Mining often shapes and impacts on the culture and traditions and practices of communities, including the First Peoples and their custodianship of Country. 

Environmental Impact: The ecological changes resulting from mining activities, such as altered landscapes, waste disposal sites, and environmental degradation, all of which can be addressed through sophisticated rehabilitation practices, and with ‘new value’ land use created through creative transformation processes https://bit.ly/3QhnjWM and https://bit.ly/41GDwsj 

Heritage Sites: Some mining cultural landscapes include specific sites or structures that are recognised for their historical or cultural significance and may be preserved as heritage sites.

Conserving mining cultural landscapes is crucial for understanding the historical development of regions shaped by mining activities. Recognition and protection of these landscapes can occur through various means, including heritage designations (e.g., the proposed World Heritage listings of the Victorian Goldfields and the South Australia’s Burra/Moonta Cornish mining areas), mining-centric UNESCO Global Geoparks, mining parks (some 70 in China), as well as interpretation centres and geotrails.

Developing geotourism in regional mining communities with potential geoheritage and cultural heritage sites is one of the key goals of the National Geotourism Strategy https://bit.ly/3yyJpdy