Africa is experiencing an unprecedented surge in mineral and hydrocarbon development. The landscape is being turned upside down in search of the materials and energy that drive the 21st century economy. A map showing new mining, oil and gas projects in Africa is often outdated in a matter of months as new finds are revealed, investment deals brokered, and exploration and development projects rolled into place on the ground. While the potential economic gains for governments and corporations from these booming extractive industries are immense, the threats to the social, cultural and ecological fabric of African nations are equally profound, and have raised many concerns as the region’s economies grow.
One particular challenge is the threat being placed on an already stressed native biodiversity. Mineral and hydrocarbon development can result in broad scale changes to habitat structure and composition as a result of both direct and indirect impacts generated during the project exploration, development and operation, and close-out phases. The severity of these impacts represents particularly acute challenges for species with limited capacity to abandon sites and colonize new areas, and many IUCN Red List species unfortunately fall into this category. Given the severity of these threats to wildlife and habitats, companies have begun to recognize that these impacts create significant risk to their operations.
Africa’s great apes stand squarely at the center of these challenges. All great ape populations are at risk, and the threats from mineral and hydrocarbon development to remaining populations are adding significant impacts to a cumulative mix that jeopardizes their long-term survival.
In an effort to mitigate this challenge, many businesses are now working with governments, NGOs, planners and field scientists to explore management practices that follow a mitigation hierarchy based on avoiding and minimizing adverse impacts first, and then compensating for the residual impacts and risks to great apes and other threatened species, with a goal, where feasible, of producing a net positive gain. While the development of these best practices has the potential to reveal how economic development can proceed without completely sacrificing the biodiversity and ecosystem services that represent essential “natural capital” for all nations, the answers are not yet conclusive enough to verify the practices most suitable to sustaining great apes. Moreover, it is doubtful that companies can truly achieve no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity when serious impacts on critical species, such as great apes, occur. However, more widespread testing and adoption of these measures will be essential if we are to sustain viable populations of apes over the long term.
The following report explores the significant threats and risks to apes resulting from the activities of extractive industries, and outlines some of the policies and practices being applied to mitigate these challenges. Section 2.0 examines some of the specific impacts that can be expected to affect great apes and their habitat during the exploration, development, production, and close-out phases of mineral extraction. Section 3.0 looks at methods and tools being applied to respond to these impact risks, including a review of the broad elements of a process known as the “mitigation hierarchy”, in which meticulous planning and management practices are employed to avoid and minimize adverse impacts, and then mitigate and compensate for those that cannot be avoided. Section 4.0 reviews some of the ways these methods are being adopted through voluntary and regulatory mechanisms at national and international scales.
The report concludes with a case study of an emerging mining project in Central Africa, and explores in detail one attempt to implement the mitigation hierarchy in one of the earth’s most important centers for chimpanzee and gorilla populations.
