Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip from 1976 shows a vast area of environmental degradation caused by waste materials dumped by the Mount Isa Mines company, and describes the company’s efforts to rehabilitate the area. The narrator, Harry Butler, is shown on a rise above the mine slurries as he describes the ’400 hectares of desolation’. He narrates aspects of the history of the mine and then, at the site of the company’s regeneration program, describes rehabilitation methods such as the use of furrows to protect young plants.

Educational value points

• The clip reveals an attempt by the Mount Isa Mines company to restore damaged land around its mines. After decades of exploiting the environment and reducing areas around the mines to 'wasteland’, the company recognised its responsibility to repair the damage. The plan was, as Harry Butler reports in the clip, to turn the environment back to its original condition.

• The clip shows in close-up the mining residues that have damaged the natural environment around Mount Isa Mines. When lead, zinc and silver are extracted from ore, the residues are often mixed with water, and the resulting slurry is then transported to evaporation ponds. During evaporation the heavier particles, called tailings, settle on the ground and leave a layer of chemicals used in the extraction process, including soluble mineral salts.

• In 1976 when the clip was filmed environmental restitution of tailings dumps and ex-mine sites was still in its infancy. Using native plants to regenerate damaged land was a new revegetation practice that was undertaken only when a first attempt, using a cash crop, failed. Today, nearly all revegetation employs native, and generally very hardy, species.

• The inclusion of dry ash from the local coal-fired power station and the leaching out of soluble salts from the slurry were important elements in revegetating the tailings dumps. A 1975 CSIRO report on the field trials that preceded the regeneration program shown in the clip found that without the inclusion of ash no plant growth was evident and that leaching out of salts increased plant growth significantly.

• In the clip, two strong elements produce interesting television: a dramatic landscape and Butler’s engaging style of presentation. The clip is filmed with a series of camera angles that make the most of the 'vast wasteland’ and against the dramatic backdrop Harry Butler delivers his unscripted lines with ease and enthusiasm. Music is not used or needed.

• Harry Butler (1930–) CBE, Australian of the Year in 1979, was a popular television presenter of two natural history television series during the late 1970s, but is a controversial figure among some sections of the public for what are seen as his pro-mining views and his opposition to Indigenous land rights. Butler believes that true conservation must incorporate sustainable use of resources and he is an environmental consultant to mining companies.