Aluminium is natural. It is the 3rd most abundant element in the earth crust. Therefore, mining bauxite requires very small land use, making it perfectly possible to reforest or recultivate disused mining sites.
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The industry is committed to the reforestation of extraction sites. 80% of all forest areas exploited for bauxite end up reforested with award winning state of the art techniques.
The remaining 20% is turned into agricultural land for the benefit of local communities.
Bauxite mining is a relatively small land use operation when compared to other types of mining. Since enough bauxite is available from a typical sq. kilometre of land mined to produce one million tonnes of aluminium metal, the land area mined annually throughout the world is only 30 sq. kilometres, "equivalent to one half the size of
Further reading:
From EAA:
Bauxite mining and Rain Forest
From the International Aluminium Institute:
