776
I bet it's an engineering marvel though.
(lemmy.world)
General rules:
Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.
We make logging companies "replant forests" (yes it's not at all the same as the old growth but it's something). Why do we let mining companies completely rape the land and replace nothing? It doesn't even look like they backfill with the unused debris, much less restore topsoil or plant anything.
Here in the UK I know of lots of old mines and quarries that, because the ground is inherently unstable once the mining has finished, the land gets reclaimed as a nature reserve. Think nice walks, wildflowers, native trees, marshlands etc. A lot of effort goes into making habitats for insects, birds and animals.
Whether or not it is all paid for by the mining companies, I don't know.
Underground mining and strip mining are very different in the possibilities to recover.
Both underground mining and strip mining will devastate natural and urban areas in Germany for centuries. For the former black coal and iron mining areas they basically have no solution except to keep the pumps running indefinitely as the flooded underground mines would collapse, causing sinkholes and eating the houses on top. For the strip mining, these will be scars on the earth until geology has taken care of it in a few million years.