The author collaborated with Yu Guang (China Geo University (Beijing)). The original issue of Land and Resources (No.3, 26)

Looking at the experience of mining management and mineral resources protection in the developed countries in the world, such as the oil base reserve strategy of the United States, the administrative and technical management implemented by the former Soviet Union, and the contract management in Indonesia all have the same characteristics: it is clearly stipulated that mineral resources are owned by the state; The management of exploration and mining licenses is quite centralized; Development supervision is quite extensive and in-depth; Mining illegal activities should not only be severely punished economically, but also be ordered to stop, and their criminal responsibility should be investigated.

1 The protection of mineral resources based on the laws of market economy

The United States is the most typical. Since the promulgation and implementation of the Lead Mine Lease Law in 187, its mining legislation and its mineral development management system have a history of nearly 2 years. Relying on its rich mineral resources, the United States achieved national industrialization in the 192s and became a superpower in the capitalist world after World War II. At the same time, the management system of mineral development in the United States has also experienced a gradual evolution process, that is, from the "free access" policy that simply encourages development to the current centralized management and control of the government, so as to achieve the goal of comprehensive utilization, protection and development of various mineral resources in a so-called "rational" way.

shortly after the end of the American civil war, the domestic economy was in a period of rapid development of heavy industry, and the demand for mineral raw materials expanded rapidly. At the same time, a large area of western territory also needed to be developed urgently. Therefore, in order to encourage the population to move westward, the federal government of the United States has formulated a special policy of "free access" to the mineral exploration and development of public land. As long as an application is made after a mineral occurrence is found on a certain land, a simple registration procedure (on-site stake demarcation) can be completed, and the concession for mining on this land can be obtained, even without paying the mining fee. In fact, the government has almost no restrictions on mineral development activities. The promulgation and implementation of the General Mining Law in 1872 restricted some mining activities. In the 2th century, the focus of American government's concern turned to the demand for mineral raw materials to ensure the long-term and stable development of its own economy. It implemented mineral exploration license and lease system for the development of some minerals, and in 192, it promulgated the Mine Lease Law. At the same time, in order to make full and reasonable use of mineral resources, a competitive bidding system is implemented for the development activities of some known mineral deposits, in which environmental impact, development profitability and mining area use fees are all important factors in bidding. After the Second World War, the United States successively passed the Materials Law (1947), the Land Law on the Outer Continental Shelf (1953) (revised in 1978) and the Deep Seabed Solid Mineral Resources Law (198), which improved and supplemented the provisions on the development and protection of mineral resources from different aspects, regardless of the needs of social and economic development.

in order to meet the demand of economic development for mineral resources, protect or encourage the development of certain minerals, and implement flexible economic control measures, such as mining royalties, according to the Mineral Leasing Law revised in 197, mining leasable minerals on public land should pay mining royalties, and the specific calculation methods and standards are determined by the relevant departments of the federal government. Due to different minerals, mining conditions and market supply and demand conditions, for areas that need to be encouraged to develop (such as remote and backward areas, areas that urgently need to increase employment opportunities), consciously reduce the mining area use rate and mining tax rate, and increase the resource depletion subsidy rate. For those minerals and areas that need to be restricted in development, the opposite economic adjustment policy is adopted to protect mineral resources and the environment. In order to rapidly expand domestic mineral production in an emergency, the U.S. government has also formulated and implemented a "strategic mineral reserve plan" for a long time, and established national strategic mineral reserves, such as Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, which is only allowed to explore but not allowed to be mined.

Japan, compared with other countries with the same population size in the world, is relatively poor in terms of its total mineral reserves and per capita reserves, especially oil, coal, uranium and other energy resources. Therefore, in terms of resource development, the government and enterprises have been seeking long-term stable supply of foreign resources by means of economic assistance and technical support, even at the expense of burying the purchased mineral products under the sea. On the other hand, the domestic resources are sparingly exploited and utilized to the maximum extent.

Enlightenment:

(1) Mining legislation and mineral development management policies must be adapted to the social and economic development. The realistic economy in the primary stage of socialism determines that China's modernization still has a long way to go, and it will be difficult to sustain without the guarantee of mineral resources. Therefore, China's mineral resources management policy must adhere to the road of sustainable development, and must firmly adhere to the guiding ideology of "rational development, utilization and effective protection of mineral resources" and "protection in development and development in protection". At the same time, in the allocation of resources under the socialist market economy system, we must adhere to the national macro guidance and give full play to the basic role of the market in resource allocation.

(2) The development of mineral resources in China should be classified and managed by regions, and the macro-control measures should be flexible. China is rich in mineral resources, with 168 minerals with proven reserves, which is one of the few countries in the world with good mineral resources. However, there is a great difference between the rich and the poor, especially the large-scale minerals that play an important supporting role in the national economy, so the management policies should be different. In addition, the geographical distribution of minerals and the huge gap between local economic development also require different treatment in mining policy. According to the Outline of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, according to the functional orientation of optimized development, key development, restricted development and prohibited development areas determined by the carrying capacity of resources and environment and the potential of tuxedo, the corresponding policies and evaluation indicators are formulated. Obviously, the mining development policy in the western region should be similar to that in the United States in the second half of the 19th century, while the eastern region should be moderately restricted, and so on.

2 mineral resources protection with administrative supervision as the mainstay

The former Soviet Union is the most typical. Before 1987, the whole process of geological survey, mineral deposit exploration and mineral resources development and utilization in the Soviet Union was supervised by the state. This mechanism plays a certain role in ensuring the implementation of relevant national laws and regulations, ensuring the correctness of mineral development and utilization evaluation, improving the economic and social benefits of mining industry, protecting resources from being destroyed and the environment from pollution. The State Geological Supervision Bureau, the State Reserves Committee, the State Safety Production and Mining Supervision Committee and other supervisory and supervisory organs are powerful institutions for the state to manage geological undertakings and mining.

the policies and regulations of mineral resources protection in the former Soviet Union are mainly embodied in the micro-management of mines. In 196s, in order to reduce the loss of mineral exploitation, compensation measures for geological exploration were introduced to reduce the mining loss by economic means. In the 197s, the task of recovering minerals during mining and processing was further stipulated in the national economic plan, some mandatory standard documents for determining and calculating mining losses were issued, and a national unified reporting system for mining losses was implemented. In 1984, the 25th Congress of the former Soviet Union put forward in the basic task of economic development in the Soviet Union: "It is necessary to promote new and effective mining methods and systems for mineral deposits and apply advanced mining, mineral processing and processing technologies, so as to improve the recovery degree of useful minerals, ensure the complete and comprehensive processing of mineral raw materials, and greatly reduce the harm of waste to the environment." The practice results show that the fixed index of mineral recovery rate, the benefit index and the penalty for exceeding the fixed loss have little impact on the benefit of mining enterprises and have not achieved the expected results. Facing the reality of the gradual deterioration of the mining industry, the Central Committee of the former Soviet Union adopted the Basic Principles of Fundamental Reform of Economic Management in June 1987 and implemented the Joint Company Law of State-owned Enterprises. The economic reform of the former Soviet Union entered a new stage. The main feature of the reform of geology and mining sector is to reform the central organ and the whole mining management system with the transformation of enterprise management mechanism as the core. The central idea is to change from administrative leadership to economic leadership, to democratic management and to give full play to the role of enterprises and individuals. Enterprises implement the anti-consumption management mechanism characterized by complete economic accounting and self-financing, thus making the protection of mineral resources change from complete administrative management to operational market management.

after Russia's independence, the legislation on mineral resources management has been strengthened. For example, in 1992, the Law of the Russian Federation on Underground Resources was promulgated, and the supporting laws and regulations of the resource law were formulated and implemented, such as the Regulations on Resource Use License, the Regulations on Reproduction Fund of Mineral Raw Material Base, and the Minimum Payment Rate for the Use of Underground Resources. On July 3, 1994, Resolution No.876 of the Russian Federation adopted the Outline of the Development Plan of the Federal Mineral Raw Material Base of the Russian Federation from 1994 to 2. At the end of 1995, the product sharing agreement law was promulgated. Through the promulgation of a series of laws and regulations, the legal basis for the utilization, protection and management of groundwater resources has been formed. The state department in charge of geology and mineral resources follows the principle that "underground resources are owned by the state" and is authorized by the government.

Enlightenment:

(1) The protection of mineral resources under the compartmentalized system is difficult to achieve the goal of effective protection and rational utilization of mineral resources even if there is an independent authority department higher than the ministries. The separation between administrative management and enterprise management, the inconsistency between the main behavior of mining industry and the rational development and effective protection of mineral resources, and the fact that mining enterprises have obtained recoverable reserves at low prices or priceless prices have weakened the work of mineral protection. This is also a problem faced by the protection of mineral resources in China. Therefore, it is very necessary to explore the way of asset management of mineral resources and design a set of management system with perfect national macro-policies, local administrative management in place, and consciously implementing mineral resources protection policies with economic and administrative levers in cooperation with mining enterprises.

(2) At present, in order to coordinate many problems in mineral resources distribution, exploration and development, we should learn from the technical methods of the former Soviet Union and Russia in mine management, make the production of enterprises strictly follow the technical indicators, and draw lessons from the failure of low punishment, so that the assessment of "three rates" indicators is closely linked with the profits of enterprises. On the macro level, establish and improve the secondary trading market of geological exploration results and mining rights, so that the value of resources can be truly and truly reflected.

3 mineral resources protection under government monitoring and independent decision-making by enterprises according to market conditions

Indonesia is the most typical. Indonesia implements classified management on the development of mineral resources. That is, Class A strategic minerals, such as oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, nickel, cobalt, tin, etc., are only allowed to be developed by the state. Only under special circumstances, such as some small coal mines, the Minister of Mines and Energy has the right to set aside limited lots for private enterprises to exploit; Class B important minerals, including 34 kinds of minerals such as gold, silver, copper, iron, manganese and bauxite, can be explored and developed by state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, joint ventures and individual operators, but the right to development is still in the hands of the Minister of Mines and Energy, and can be handed over to the relevant departments of local governments under special circumstances; Class C minerals include dozens of minerals such as asbestos, mica, rock salt, precious stones, marble, dolomite, sand and clay, and the development activities of these minerals are mainly controlled and managed by the provincial government. Because the development of mineral resources in Indonesia mainly depends on foreign capital and technology, we can see the clue from the terms of the contract signed between the government and foreign mining enterprises to investigate its mining policy and mineral protection.

in the early days of opening to the outside world, that is, around 1967, in order to get rid of the difficulties faced by the mining industry at that time as soon as possible and quickly increase the output value and income of the mining industry, the Indonesian government implemented an exceptional preferential policy. The "first generation contract", that is, the development contract of the Ezberg porphyry copper mine signed by the Indonesian government and Freeport Company, the government agreed that the company would be exempted from land rent and mining area use fees, and would help the company solve possible market problems. The tendency of emphasizing development and neglecting protection is very obvious.

the second generation work contract signed between p>1968 and 1972 clearly stated that foreign-funded mining enterprises should not only pay a certain amount of land rent and mining area use fees, but also transfer their shares to Indonesia year by year (selling 2% every year), and began to pay attention to the rights and interests of mineral resources owners and national interests, which required mineral protection.

The third-generation work contract signed in p>1973-1984 not only required to speed up the share transfer (5% per year) and increase the land rent and mining area use fee, but also increased the terms of "regional development fee", "excess profit tax", "export tax" and "government's control and supervision over mining enterprises". The government began to restrict miners' activities in the form of contracts to achieve the purpose of protecting mineral resources.

the fourth and fifth generation work contracts signed after p>1985 not only further strengthened the government's supervision over foreign-funded mining enterprises, but also specifically stipulated that mining enterprises should ensure environmental protection and reclamation after mining, and formulated specific and effective measures to urge the company to implement them.

Indonesia's attitude (or policy) in introducing foreign capital to develop minerals has undergone an evolutionary process from rejection and exclusion to full opening, while gradually strengthening government control, which not only achieved the goal of reasonably and effectively developing its own resources, but also benefited Indonesia continuously in mineral development. Under the supervision of the government, mining enterprises mine, process and sell mineral products according to the work contracts signed with the government, and cherish the underground proven resources because they are self-invested or paid, which makes the mineral protection work achieve good results economically. This has a lot of inspiration for China's mineral development and protection.

Enlightenment:

(1) Classified management, the high concentration of mining rights ensures the effective utilization of domestic mineral resources, and avoids the possibility of indiscriminate mining and excavation from the beginning. In September 25, China issued the Notice on Issues Related to Standardizing the Authority of Exploration License and Mining License (Guo Tu Zi Fa [25] No.2), which adjusted the authority of exploration license and mining license of 34 important minerals approved and registered by the Ministry of Land and Resources and authorized provincial land and resources authorities according to law. Its purpose is to strengthen the management of energy minerals, bulk pillar minerals and protective specific minerals, and improve the macro-control ability of the central government on mineral resources development. At the same time, the application for exploration and mining licenses by foreign investors and domestic investors will be treated differently, and the foreign investors and domestic investors will be treated equally. The State Council's Decision on Strengthening Geological Work further clarified the principle of classified and graded management, adjusted the authority of examination and approval of mining rights, and enhanced the central government's ability to regulate and control the exploration and exploitation of important mineral resources. Strengthen the supervision and management of mineral resources exploration activities, and prohibit the behavior of circling without exploration or mining instead of exploration according to law.

(2) It is necessary for China to vigorously carry out the rectification of mining order. Restricting or even closing unqualified production mines and strict mining access system are favorable measures for rational and protective development of mineral resources. However, in order to make up for the shortage of mining funds, it is a good way to adopt the "work contract" mode of individual regions and minerals to jointly explore or develop with foreign investors, absorb foreign advanced management and production technology and cultivate all kinds of talents.