Vogel was one of many industry leaders who gathered to discuss and determine solutions for one of the most controversial and expensive issues facing mining companies – site rehabilitation.

The industry’s bigwigs and sharpest minds met in Perth at the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies’ Mine Closure and Rehabilitation Conference.

Deemed a “timely” event by all three keynote speakers, the conference aimed to address criticism of the industry’s mine rehabilitation efforts and act as a forum for the generation of new solutions.

Vogel didn’t hesitate in sharing some of the industry’s past shortfalls in mine rehabilitation, particularly in the Pilbara, where “the EPA has not seen any evidence of success to date”

“The likelihood of restoring ecological function through rehabilitation is low for these types of impacts and points to the need for a new strategic approach to planning, investment and research on rehabilitation,” Vogel said.

“(In the Pilbara) we are now assessing and recommending approval of mines up to 10 times the size of those we previously considered large mines.

“We now have mines facing the end of their life and the difficult task of mine closure and rehabilitation.

“We know that limited success has occurred and we have current estimates of best practice rehabilitation achieving only 15% of pre-mined biodiversity value across the entire mining operation based on the best available information.”

Vogel said that the EPA and the DMP had conditions for rehabilitation, but had received feedback on the technical challenges and huge costs of meeting these.

“However, the EPA has been provided with very little evidence of any substantial action undertaken to meet these challenges,” he added.

Vogel, along with his fellow keynote speakers - Department of Mines and Petroleum director general Richard Sellers and NSW Mineral Resources director of environmental sustainability Stephen Barry - said that considerable collaboration across industry and government was needed to achieve better rehabilitation.

A recent example Vogel gave the conference room was a combined presentation he received a fortnight ago from BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

The companies took the unprecedented step of combining their data on rehabilitation to better inform the EPA and the industry.

In his own presentation, Sellers said he had noticed a considerable improvement in cooperation between government departments and with industry over the last decade.

“The key to this message today is that we can’t do anything without engagement and without the involvement of the industry and the broader community,” Seller urged. “If we don’t do that then this thing we call social licence will get smaller for us.”

Western Australian Minister for Mines and Petroleum Bill Marmion, who officially opened the conference, said the government is committed to the responsible development of the state.

“I want to see Western Australia’s resource industry grow in a responsible, safe and sustainable way,” Marmion told the conference.

“I also want to see the benefits of this growth flow through into the WA community. However we won’t allow development at any cost.”

“What we will support, is a safe environmentally responsible development of WA resources by companies that understand and accept this responsibility.”

AMEC CEO Simon Bennison said the findings from the conference will be examined by AMEC and will likely be used to inform future policies and positions. The two day conference continues today.