Professor Junguo Liu played a key role in the First Global Standards for Mine Site Restoration#

The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) recently released the publication of the International Principles and Standards for the Ecological Restoration and Recovery of Mine Sites, a first-of-its-kind framework with standards for socially and environmentally responsible restoration in global mining activities. Prof. Junguo Liu was a pioneer in advocating the preparation of the standards.

Prof. Liu, elected as Member of Academia Europaea in 2020, is a professor and vice president of North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power in China, a Chair Professor of Southern University of Science and Technology, China, and a Senior Guest Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria.

In April 2019, Prof. Liu visited Xuzhou, a Chinese city winning the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honor, primarily due to the success of the ecological restoration of mining sites and urban renewal. He proposed preparing an international standard for the ecological restoration of mining sites with local partners. In May 2019, Prof. Liu contacted the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and collaborators to progress an SER Mine Site Restoration Standard. The collaboration among partners worldwide resulted in the final release of the First Global Standards for Mine Site Restoration.

In the Mining Standards Announcement Run of Show (Eastern Hemisphere) on 17 November, key authors introduced the standards and discussed their implications for stakeholders involved in the mine site restoration. Prof. Junguo Liu introduced the current situation regarding mining site restoration in China and how these standards could help improve performance. He also shared the successful case of ecological restoration of mining sites in Xuzhou city, China, where the idea of these standards originated.