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As preferred sustainable landusers of the Australian rangelands, mining operations should legacy net environmental and community benefits in the regions in which they operate. The positive and negative environmental implications of the Olympic Dam mine in arid South Australia are compared in this study. Criteria assessed include the relative area of affected vs improved landscape, environmental research, pest control and the facilitation of proactive conservation and sustainable diversification outcomes. A call is made for consistent treatment of potential environmental impacts across all rangeland users and the adoption of biodiversity trading to improve regional conservation outcomes. A challenge is issued to all miners and other rangeland landusers to demonstrate that, like bilbies, their net effects are beneficial to the environments that they have inherited.