• Ensuring a safe environment for the people living in close proximity to unsafe derelict and ownerless mines.
• Reducing the State’s liabilities with regard to derelict and ownerless mines in South Africa;
• Mapping areas that have been heavily impacted by historical shallow undermining activities in the North West Province.
• Developing a national mine closure strategy.

Furthermore, the Council for Geoscience is engaged in the preliminary phase of a process to map the shallow undermined area in the Gopane area, North West Province. This is a rural municipal area that is heavily impacted by historical mining activities. Over the years, the Council for Geoscience has closed a considerable number of the mine openings that meet the above criteria. Very few mine openings remain and efforts are ongoing to finalise their closure. An important benefit of the project is that the rehabilitation of legacy mines has the potential to create employment opportunities in rehabilitation and, later, in monitoring. Often communities are severely disadvantaged when mines in the vicinity close down, with the primary source of income and economic activity in an area being shut down, often leaving a degraded environment.