Cornwall’s 4,000-year mining heritage has left more than engine houses behind. Geologist Eva Marquis, innovation fellow and lecturer at the Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter, works on critical minerals, the circular economy and responsible mining in the landscape she grew up in. Its abandoned mine workings now host ferns, lichens and microbial mats that glow under UV light.
Those accidental ecosystems raise one of the hardest questions in mine closure: should old mine sites be remediated, or have generations of history given them a value of their own? For Eva, the answer depends on context, and on managing resources at a regional scale rather than one project at a time. One mine may be manageable. Three in the same region stack up mine waste and impacts that outlast closure, often leaving local governments to carry the cost.
The conversation also covers Cornish knockers and pasties, the UN Resource Management System, critical minerals policy, and a sustainable future for Cornwall.
Produced by Critical Productions. Sponsored by Satarla. Learn more at responsiblerawmaterials.com
Further Resources
- Listen to Eva’s talk at the 2023 RRM conference on ‘The United Nations Resource Management System – first application to SW England‘
- The UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre
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