The role of government and the community has changed significantly
over the last two decades in relation to environment protection,
particularly in the mining sector. Increased community expectations have
moved well ahead of regulatory requirements, and there is now a much
greater appreciation generally of the concepts of ecologically sustainable
development and intergenerational equity, and the gap between current
practice and practices which would be in harmony with these concepts.
Besides providing a `safety net' through regulations to ensure that basic
environmental performance standards are met, government is now
working proactively with the mining industry to encourage higher levels
of environmental performance. This paper describes some initiatives
between the Commonwealth government and the industry designed to
achieve these higher levels of environmental performance, through
programs aimed at the paradigms of best practice environmental
management and continual improvement.