Under the Mining Act 1978, an Annual Environmental Report (AER) is required for all mining projects that have an AER condition on the relevant tenement.
A condition requiring the submission of an AER is imposed on the tenement following the approval of a mining proposal.
The objectives of the AER are to:
- Document mining activities for the reporting year and proposed activities for the following year.
- Document environmental management and rehabilitation activities for the reporting year, and proposed activities and developments in the following year.
- Report on the progress and status of achieving environmental outcomes and closure objectives for the site, including the provision of relevant monitoring reports or data.
- Provide an assessment of compliance with conditions.
The Annual Environmental Report Guideline provides an overview of the structure and information required when reporting on mining activities in Western Australia.
Submit an Annual Environmental Report online
Reporting Compliance with Environmental Outcomes
For mining proposals submitted under the 2020 Statutory Guidelines for Preparing Mining Proposals (and the previous 2016 Guideline), DMIRS expects the AER to include an evaluation of compliance with environmental outcomes and progress towards achieving closure outcomes. DMIRS recommends using a modified version of the ‘Example Environmental Outcomes, Performance Criteria and Monitoring’ table provided in Appendix 7 of the Mining Proposal Guidance – How to prepare in accordance with Part 1 of the Statutory Guidelines for Mining Proposals with two additional columns on the right hand side which serve to allow:
- monitoring results and environmental performance against environmental outcomes and performance criteria to be summarised; and
- monitoring evidence documents to be listed (e.g. as built reports, water quality monitoring reports)
An example table is provided here.
For activities approved under the Guidelines for Mining Proposals in Western Australia (2006), or earlier mining proposal submissions, this section requires detail on performance against approved closure outcomes and performance criteria.
View publicly available summary information
Summary information of all AERs submitted online since November 2012 are publicly available via the AER Submission Search Tool.
The information includes:
- Report Details
- Environmental Group Site – Site Summary
- Environmental Group Site – Site Summary Table
- Environmental Group Site – Site Plan and Mining – Area of Activity sections of an AER.
Contacts
Technical Issues
For technical issues with the Environmental Assessment and Regulatory System (EARS) please contact our IT Service Desk which is available Monday to Friday (excluding Public Holidays) between the hours of 8:30 am and 5:00 pm (GMT+8).
Phone: +61 8 9222 0777
Email: IT.servicedesk@dmirs.wa.gov.au
General EARS 2 enquiries
Phone: +61 8 9222 3535
Email: EARSManager@dmirs.wa.gov.au
Related information
Environment documents and publications