Recently, the Lengshuijiang Antimony-Coal Mining Area Ecological Restoration Project in Loudi, Hunan Province, has been selected as one of the 20 outstanding global ecological restoration cases under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration which is jointly led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Hunan Province has taken the opportunity of project application for China's Shan-Shui Initiative to incorporate the ecological restoration of this mining area into a pilot program for ecological protection and restoration in the Xiangjiang River Basin and the Dongting Lake. To address the complex ecological issues in the mining area, an integrated solution was implemented for the protection and restoration of its mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and deserts. Through engineering measures including mine remediation, polluted water bodies treatment, bare mountain rehabilitation, abandoned land reclamation, and geological hazard control, the project achieved coordinated governance objectives.

The solution implementation has resulted in:
- Safe landfill disposal of 52 million tonnes of mining waste;
- Harmless treatment of 22 million tonnes of arsenic-alkali residue;
- Dredging of 4.5 kilometers of silt-clogged rivers;
- Restoration of 2,000 mu (133 hectares) of farmland and 2,710 mu (181 hectares) of forest land;
- Afforestation covering over 20,000 mu (1,333 hectares);
- Improvement of 2,500 mu (167 hectares) of farmland; and,
- Ecological treatment of five geological hazard sites.

Furthermore, the project has capitalized on local geological relics, industrial mining heritage, and red culture resources to achieve integrated development of ecological restoration with industrial transformation, livelihood improvement, and rural revitalization.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn