Long before they send in the excavators or truck their first haul of ores from the land, miners who care about people and planet know they must first make meticulous plans for site restoration and community safety. Professionals in training, David Becca and Alton Wegner see themselves in the thick of this process, leading eco forward rehabilitation of Jamaica’s mines and quarries. 

That day is fast approaching.

In 2025, David and Alton will be among the first BSc graduates in Mines and Quarry Management from the University of Technology (UTech) in Jamaica. They’re an emerging generation of mining experts steeped in the sustainable mining culture, and coached to be free thinkers who ask hard questions, challenge the status quo and innovate solutions.

Eye to the Future

David Becca is already exploring: ‘How can these mined out areas be used differently?’. “In Jamaica, mined out areas are currently used for farmland, and I want to explore if there is anything else they can be used for, like parks and housing areas,” Becca explains.

Alton Wegner has similar ambitions for mine rehabilitation, including the restoration of ecosystems and creation of recreational parks.

“I (want to use) this knowledge (to) operate my own limestone quarry using the best practices that are efficient and safe with the consideration of the environment while protecting our health and contributing positively to the economy”, Alton declares.

“Everything we see, have, and use, every single day, is possible because of mining. From our laptops, smartphones, tablets, all those components are from mining. If we can’t grow it, we mine it,” Alton states. “It’s great knowing that I’m among those helping Jamaica locate the resources to advance our development.”

David and Alton’s views are reflective of UTech’s new, forward-thinking BSc in Mines and Quarry Management programme, which is financed by the European Union under the Development Minerals Programme implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Development Minerals Programme, now concluding its second phase, is implemented in Jamaica by UNDP in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining through its Mines and Geology Division. 

The four-year degree programme was conceptualized to fill a gap in the education and training of persons working in more than 230 mining and quarrying operations in Jamaica – a significant finding of the 2017 Baseline Study financed by the ACP-EU Development Minerals Programme.  

The training gap also hints at a larger challenge in the mines and quarry sector. A recent rehabilitation assessment by the Mines and Geology Division pointed to poor quarrying techniques; illegal quarries and abandoned sites; and non-existent institutional experience in revegetating quarries. The assessments of mines indicated tardy rehabilitation of mined out pits, poor quality rehabilitation work, and frequent management changes which disrupted rehabilitation work. Government has implemented restoration bonds, piloted a UNDP-financed demonstration project to revegetate a quarry, and amended the Quarries Control Act in 2015.

UTech’s new degree programme is now poised to play a significant role in cementing government’s regulatory interventions and to addressing persisting challenges of poor quarrying methods outlined in the assessment, by improving revegetation of quarries as well as mine rehabilitation.

With an eye to the future, Professor Young says It’s now critical for government to enforce its own policy position on mandatory training tied to licensing. “This would be the incentive to get persons to do the course,” he concludes.

The BSc is the only degree programme of its kind in Jamaica and the region. Importantly, it supports government’s new policy which requires university level training for managers in the extractive industry as a prerequisite for licensing. “And so, we met that challenge at UTech”, explains Professor Garfield Young, Dean of UTech’s Faculty of the Built Environment.

UTech’s degree programme was first birthed in Maputo, Mozambique where UTech Associate Professor, Dr Lawrence Neufville, participated in a Development Minerals curriculum sprint financed under the ACP-EU Development Minerals Programme. Drawn from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, participants were on a mission to develop curricula beneficial to their countries. “Of course, as a part of my return-to-work plan, I sat about trying to create a curriculum that would have been specific to the Jamaican situation”, Dr Neufville recalls.

After two years of rigorous market surveys, consultations and quality assurance checks, approval by UTech’s academic Board and a public launch followed in 2021.

The programme is designed to also attract persons who would not normally qualify to sit for a university degree, Dr Neufville says. This includes those who intend to work in mining facilities as well as regulatory mining and environment services that are critical for shaping a modern mining and quarry sector.

It’s now critical for government to enforce its policy position on mandatory training tied to licensing. Professor Garfield Young, Dean, Faculty of Built Environment, UTech

With Dr. Neufville who led the process, and myself, supporting it at the highest level of the faculty, we had to do extensive market survey, interview operators of mines and quarries in Jamaica; interviewed players of central government and local government. We conducted a survey of potential students and potential employers … And it became clear that there was a gap, and that there was a market for offering this course of study.

“When we were developing this course, we looked not just within the region (where there was no other similar course) … we looked beyond to Sweden, Russia, Germany,” says Professor Young. “… We explored what it is they do to develop the kind of thinking in their students that would challenge the status quo and that will protect the environment.”

The Environment matters in our programme – UTech lecturers

“When you talk about sustainability, people see a dichotomy,” says Professor Young. “They say how can you be training persons to extract minerals from the earth and simultaneously talk about sustainable development, (but) in our mind, there is no dichotomy.”

Sustainable Mining is possible

“There is a sustainable way of extracting material from the earth. So, we teach our students restoration, mines closure. We teach them about restoration and rehabilitation. That’s an important element in our course of study. “(When) we mine, it can result in what looks like a very ugly aftermath of extraction, but when it’s properly planned, when it’s restored, that doesn’t have to be the case. And we have some good examples of that in Jamaica, we also have some bad examples … But we expect that (graduates) will be able to implement decisions … show that they know what sustainability is about and was considered (during the planning, extraction and restoration phases),” says Young. “Sustainability is a thread that runs through all the courses we offer”, he emphasizes.

“It’s a fundamental pillar on which the programme is developed,” reaffirms Dr Neufville. “Students learn the land has to be returned to an alternative land use once its value has been extracted … (We teach them how to get it back) to some kind of productivity … through the reclamation process … (they) must be aware that at the end of mining, the land has to be returned to as close as practicable to what it was before.”

Twenty-five persons are now registered at various levels in the degree programme with the first cohort of graduates set for 2025. Students are being placed in three-to-four-month internships to apply their education in real world settings. The plans are to increase student intake through intensive marketing campaigns utilizing funding from the Development Minerals Programme.

“It’s an excellent course … not just the theory, but the practice. It’s actually based on how things are done in the industry. If persons are exposed to this, we expect to see massive improvement in how mines and quarries are managed and how the operations are allowed to go forth in the future. “We think this bodes well, for Jamaica and for any country with an extractive industry”, Professor Young concludes.