MMG Limited owns and operates the Rosebery zinc, copper, lead and gold mine on the west coast of Tasmania. The mine has been operating since 1936. In 2020, work started on MMG Rosebery’s closure prefeasibility study (PFS). Part of this work included the development of a stakeholder engagement plan that incorporates four methods of public participation: inform, consult, involve and collaborate (adapted from the IAP2 spectrum).

The company started formal engagement with the community about Rosebery’s post-mining future in September 2021 when it hosted a one-day mine closure readiness workshop. The workshop was facilitated by the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM), part of The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute. The workshop aimed to build a collective understanding among stakeholder groups about Rosebery’s current level of dependency on mining and to identify post-mining options that consider community values, assets, resources and impacts. The facilitation team used CSRM’s participatory, multi-criteria method (the Town Transition Tool (TTT)) to guide the collation of local knowledge and to identify socio-economic data gaps. The research team analysed how the TTT was used to develop a collective understanding of mine closure readiness among Rosebery mine’s stakeholders.

The next major step in MMG’s engagement on mine closure was a visioning workshop which focused on identifying assets, opportunities and challenges in creating a sustainable post-mining future for Rosebery. Scheduled for 2022, the workshop was postponed until June 2023 due to issues with recruiting community liaison staff needed to coordinate the workshop and engage with potential participants.

This report documents the research findings associated with the visioning workshop.