Vision and strategic objectives for sustainable development of the Apuseni Mountains mining settlements

The restructuring of the mining sector in Romania since 1989 has had extremely serious social, economic and environmental consequences for the mining settlements. Following the mine closure programs and socio-economic and environmental regeneration efforts the situation has only slightly improved, the settlements being still very vulnerable in terms of quality of life and prospects for sustainable development. In this paper the authors have developed a vision for sustainable development of the Apuseni Mountains mining areas that would support policy writing and lead to the identification of appropriate solutions for socio-economic and environmental development of the studied area.