Ecological Monitoring and Social Assessment for Sustainable Rehabilitation

Mining of mineral and mankind are intricately interwoven in society today. The world’s economy depends to a great extent on mining. Though mining is attributed as important industry next to agriculture, however environmental problems resulting due to mining activities could not be underestimated. It is essentially important developmental activity, where ecology suffers but this ecological loss could minimize though proper monitoring and assessment for sustainable afforestation. The area of land currently disturbed by mining in the world is estimated approximately 386,000 hectares. For sustainable management of planted forest sites it is important to assess biodiversity which give information on progress of forest development at various stages of trees, shrubs and herbs. It is believed that the restoration of biological diversity use to induce changes at community level and have an advantage to provide much information in a single index. It has been found that abundance, dominance, frequency, density and importance value index changes serve as indicators of habitat rehabilitation. Monitoring of ecological indicators gives guidance for diversity maintenance. The diversity was closely related with community development. The change in diversity due to shift in dominance from year to year has been found to be related to colonization by many accessory plant species. It is observed that increase distance from the mine site support increase in diversity and species richness index values because of less erosion and more availability of nutrients for plant growth. Most of the mining activities have been carried out in the area where the farming and forestry activities form integral part of livelihoods. Due to loss in agricultural cultivated and forest lands people lives in the area loss their livelihoods which impacted their socio-economic status. On other hand developmental activities also create opportunities for employment and development in the area. Socio-economic conditions of the inhabitants of mineral belts have both positive and negative socio-economic implications of mining activities. Mining activities have raised the income of local people and changed the standard of living of common man to a considerable extent.