Preparation of lnadscape retoration/rehabilitation/reclamation and plan of mining areas in the case of Kastamonu-Devrekani

The open pit mining is the most damaging form of increased mining activities caused by mankind's growing demand for raw material. This kind of mining activity, especially open pit mining, is the main cause of damage on land form, vegetation, wildlife, infrastructure and hydrologic structure of earth. As a result of international conferences in 90s, such as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, etc, mankind is deeply concerned about the enviromental issues. In those aspects, one of the most important means of remedy to the environmental damages is landscaping works. The landscaping works / terra restoration on the destroyed areas caused by human intervention and/or natural disasters, provides total recovery to its original state (restoration), land improvements (rehabilitation), or to convert into different usage of land (reclamation). The chrome mine in operation, at the Kastamonu Devrekani district, have been chosen as an example of such studies on open pit areas. Activities mentioned in this study continue at the site since 2008. The study consists of the landscape restoration processes before, during and after stages of the mining activities. The main problem regarding before, during and after stages of the mining activities are listed by observation on natural and cultural landscape elements with connection to the official geographic and topographic studies. Recommendations are structured with a focus on rehabilitation and reclamation. In addition, there has been a research on 200 people living around and working at site about their thoughts of landscaping works planned. At this study, SPSS 20.00 software version is used in the evaluation and descriptive analysis was applied. As a result, landscape restoration work together with landscaping plans / landscaping approaches have to be used not only in mining industries, but in every disturbed landscapes. We reached to a conclusion that the landscape restoration processes before, during and after activities started need to be approached by multi-disciplinary groups.