Reimagining Broken Landscapes as Part of the Transition in the Hunter Valley, NSW

Australia is the largest coal exporter in the world, and the rural Hunter Valley in New South Wales is the source of much of this coal. Air and water pollution from surface mining operations is a concern here as with other mining locations around the world. Over the next 20 years, 17 mines are scheduled to close with 130,000 hectares of mined owned land to be relinquished for alternative land use. The debate about rehabilitation and repurposing of mined and mined-owned lands is, however, still in its infancy. The public debate about mine closure has focused on economic concerns as these link to the ideals of a just transition, and little attention has been offered to how landscape regeneration and rehabilitation present both as challenges and opportunities for post-mining futures. The question of mining legacy opens up many questions, but of particular concern are the issues linked to 25 so-called final voids. As the mining industry wraps up, these final voids constitute the area that will not be back-filled at the end of mining operations. They have been approved by the NSW Government to be left as holes in the ground, with the remediation plans focusing on bringing them to the state of "stable, safe and non-polluting". Whilst the remediation plans ensure that the voids will be left in an ecologically sound state, what this means for community and landscape remains uncertain. This chapter takes the final voids as its empirical starting point and interrogates what challenges these voids present for local communities in a post-mining future. It explores the wicked problem of the final voids, and, drawing on data collected as part of writing a community-endorsed Blueprint for Restoration, we question how ruination and hope may come together in a path for just transition.