"New policy compels mining firms to restore degraded land", 11 December 2019.

Mining firms, which have been evading the responsibility to rehabilitate land degraded by their mining activities, will no longer be able to get away with it following the introduction of a new system of calculating rehabilitation expenses. Donat Nsengumuremyi, the Director of Mineral Extraction and Processing at Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board, told The New Times that, initially, mining operators had to inject money in Rwanda Environment Fund (FONERWA) as guarantee fee that the Government could spend in rehabilitating areas degraded by mining companies. However, he explained that the operators intentionally undervalue the real cost of rehabilitation...

With degraded land due to mining activities, consequences such as erosion, flooding, loss of biodiversity were escalating. To avert the operators’ trickery, the official said that a new tool dubbed “Environment Bond Calculator” whose guidelines were issued in August this year has been developed to calculate the real cost needed for the rehabilitation...To solve the problem, before commencing mining activities, mining operators must show Environment Impact Assessment for their projects. “This shows an Environment Management Plan that indicates how they will restore the degraded land with an attached real cost calculated by the ‘newly developed Bond Calculator ’, he explained...

Nsengumuremyi said that the operators will deposit a fraction of the cost to FONERWA and a big part of it has to be guaranteed by the bank that can agree to work with the mining operator. “We became flexible so that the operators can still use their money in their business instead of having their money lie idle in FONERWA but they must show us a bank that will serve as a guarantor for them in case they fail to rehabilitate degraded sites,” he said...