Mine Closure 2026 Program
15–17 September 2026 | Sofitel Melbourne On Collins, Melbourne, Australia
Mine Closure 2026 Conference Program*
*Program may be subject to change.
Panels
Day One
Closure Financing
Facilitator
Peter Harvey
Managing Director
Sentinel Consulting/Rio Tinto
Peter is a passionate advocate for responsible mining practices and creating a positive environmental and social legacy. He works as a consltant across the extractive sector focusing on ensuring sustainability is considered throughout an asset’s lifecycle, from design and construction to operation, closure, and transition.
Panel Members
Andrew Arthur
Chief Financial Officer
Endolith Mining, USA
Andrew is CFO and CCO for Endolith Mining, a Denver based bio-tech company that optimises microbial communities to maximise recovery from copper heap leaching. This includes low grade mineralized waste, and mine restarts. An accountant by training, he previously spent over 20 years at BHP in various roles including Vice President of Strategy and Development for Uranium and then Copper, and then Vice President of Resource Engineering which included global standards for mine closure, and briefly, accountability for BHP’s Legacy Assets.
Luke Kitchen
Director | Climate Change and Sustainability Services
Ernst and Young
Luke is an experienced mine closure professional with expertise spanning closure planning, closure strategy, rehabilitation liabilities and closure cost estimation. Drawing on experience across a wide range of commodities, jurisdictions and stages of the mining lifecycle, he specialises in connecting technical closure requirements with financial outcomes. Through his work assessing rehabilitation provisions and financial assurance arrangements for mining companies, Luke brings a practical perspective on the drivers of closure costs, liabilities and long-term closure risk.
Rebecca Getty
Director of Legacy
Agnico Eagle Mines, Canada
Closure practitioner, environmental manager, exploration geologist and promoter of things that are responsible and equitable, Rebecca has worked in mining since 2008 and combines a love of collaboration, the environment and sustainable development to achieve good outcomes for complex legacy sites. Her work experience includes closure planning, due diligence, cost estimation, assurance matters and advisory, environmental management and technical reporting to international standards, in Australia, Chile, Africa, Indonesia, and North America.
Day Two
Indigenous Perspectives
Facilitator
Caroline Williams
Engagement Manager
CRC TiME
Panel Member
Kia Dowell
Chairperson
Gelganyem Limited
Kia is a Gija woman from Warmun Community in the East Kimberley, Western Australia. Her traditional Aboriginal name is Wadjbarreyal and her skin name is Nangala. Kia joined the board of Gelganyem in 2017 and was appointed as chairperson shortly after. Kia combines over 20 years of multi-disciplinary roles ranging from an international career as an elite athlete to executive leadership across strategy and policy in the Australian Government.
Wanyubi Marika
Chairperson
Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation
Day Three
Adaptive Closure Planning for Climate Change
Facilitator
Kim Ferguson
Director Mine Closure
WSP Global Inc.
As WSP’s global practice lead for mine closure, Kim is based in Vancouver and has more than 25 years’ experience across Australia, Africa and South America in closure planning, environmental management, impact assessment and stakeholder engagement. Kim is a facilitator of the AusIMM Integrated Mine Closure Course and has made significant contributions to global closure practice, including as a working group member and reviewer for the ICMM Integrated Mine Closure Good Practice Guide (2nd Edition).
Panel Members
Dr Lucy Commander
Research Manager
Alcoa of Australia
Lucy Commander is a research leader, knowledge broker, and restoration seed ecologist with more than 2 decades of experience advancing native plant conservation, mine rehabilitation and ecological restoration in Western Australia. As research manager at Alcoa, she oversees the Forest Research Centre and leads a multidisciplinary team delivering co-designed research to improve environmental management and mine rehabilitation in the Northern Jarrah Forest, just south of Perth in Western Australia.
Professor José F Martín Duque
Professor of Geomorphology
Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
Jose has a PhD in geology and is a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. He has an extensive academic and professional career in the area of geomorphic rehabilitation of mined lands. Jose has investigated and published extensively, and has a broad international experience, in this topic. As a result, he founded the research and transference group called Restauración Geomorfológica (restauraciongeomorfologica.es). This group aims to be a bridge between mining and the environment, helping to introduce the highest possible standards of ecological restoration, from geomorphology, in this necessary and important economic activity.
Heather Thomson
Principal Consultant (Tailings)
SRK Consulting, Australia
Heather is a Chartered Professional Engineer who specialises in the design, construction, operation and closure of tailings storage facilities (TSFs). With almost a decade of experience, Heather understands that water is the key to a safe and stable TSF. She is experienced in modelling surface water and assessing soil-water interactions such as slope stability, dam breaches and erosion, allowing her to find solutions to challenging problems. Her recent projects include designing an integrated TSF and hydropower facility in Papua New Guinea, and a 1,000-year post-closure landform evolution model for a TSF in South Australia.