Government of Western Australia: Environment Division, Department of Mines and Petroleum, 2012. — 69 p.
Exploration and prospecting operations are vital to maintain the prosperity and ongoing viability of our State’s valuable mining industry. It is therefore essential that these activities continue to be undertaken in a way that that meets government and community expectations. With large parts of the State open to exploration and prospecting activities it is important to minimise environmental impacts, and to ensure that proactive environmental management remains a high priority for explorers and prospectors. These guidelines have been developed by the Department of Mines and Petroleum (DMP) to support industry in this by outlining the State Government’s expected requirements when exploring or prospecting. This document provides guidance for environmental management and rehabilitation practices and will assist the industry to maintain a low impact status for exploration and prospecting activities. As prospecting and exploration are generally short term, transient land uses and strongly dependent upon favourable commodity prices and funding, obtaining approval in a timely manner is important for the industry. Therefore the application of these guidelines by explorers and prospectors will also reduce approval timeframes by assisting industry to produce applications which meet DMP’s standards and expectations including improving the quality of Programme of Work (PoW) applications received.
