2256 cases analyzed between corporate closure management and the structural challenges of post-mining development. 4.3 Implications of the model in the current scenario In the current context of energy transition and reconfiguration of the extractive sector, the adoption of this model implies a substantive change in the way companies and states conceive of mine closure. For companies, it means extending the time horizon of social management and assuming that the legitimacy of closure depends both on technical compliance and on the ability to contribute to an orderly territorial transition. For states, it means strengthening institutional frameworks and subnational capacities that enable the territory to move beyond mining. In mining territories, the model offers an alternative to reactive closures that have deepened social and economic vulnerability, allowing closure to be transformed into a deliberate transition process geared toward resilience and territorial legacy. In this sense, closure ceases to be the end of the extractive cycle and becomes a strategic turning point from which it is possible to reconfigure the foundations of territorial development in a post-mining scenario. 5. CONCLUSION The comparative analysis of Peru and Colombia confirms that mine closure cannot be reduced to a technical procedure aimed at regulatory compliance, but rather constitutes a decisive process of territorial transition with long-term social, economic, and institutional effects. Evidence shows that formally adequate closures can coexist with post-mining territories unable to sustain autonomous development trajectories when the transition is not planned from early stages, the socioeconomic dependencies built during the operation are not managed, and responsibility for the territorial future is implicitly transferred to states with limited capacities. Under these conditions, closure tends to amplify pre-existing structural vulnerabilities rather than becoming a mechanism for territorial transformation and resilience. Consequently, the article argues that shifting the focus from social closure to socioeconomic transition constitutes an indispensable conceptual and operational change for mining territories. Conceiving closure as a continuous process that begins in the early stages of the mining cycle and is integrated into territorial development allows for the management of dependencies, the strengthening of multi-stakeholder co-responsibility, and the orientation of legacy building beyond regulatory compliance, in line with the ICMM's Social Performance framework. Reimagined in this way, closure ceases to be the end of extractive activity and becomes a strategic turning point that redefines territorial sustainability and conditions the possibility of consolidating resilience, institutional legitimacy, and truly fair and sustainable post-mining development trajectories. The proposed strategic social management model contributes precisely to closing the gap identified between closure understood as an orderly exit and closure conceived as a process of territorial transformation. Its added value lies in making visible and manageable what regulations tend to omit: the loss of positive impacts, the risks derived from extractive dependence, and the need to strengthen local capacities before the mine's withdrawal. In a global context marked by the energy transition and the reconfiguration of the extractive sector, this approach is not only relevant but urgent. REFERENCES Arond, E., Vega-Araújo, J., Peña Niño, J., & Patzy, F. (2025). Just coal transitions in Colombia: Between policy and reality. Stockholm Environment Institute & Natural Resource Governance Institute.
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