Biodiversity

Overview

Helping to create and maintain the diversity of natural life is a responsibility that we take very seriously.  We operate in regions throughout the world that are recognised and valued, both locally and globally, for their biodiversity and we are committed to managing them by reducing our impacts and capitalising on conservation opportunities.

There is now increasing expectation that industry should take a role in conservation management. Our biodiversity programmes enable us to better understand and address identified issues through a sustainable development approach, involving traditional landowners and local communities, governments and local non government organisations (NGOs).

Policies and programmes

Our strategy states that we aim to have a net positive impact (NPI) on biodiversity. We, therefore, need to demonstrate that our actions have positive effects that outweigh the inevitable negative effects of the physical disturbances and changes of land associated with mining.

In 2006, our biodiversity programmes have been focused on two key issues that affect our ability to achieve goal:

• Being able to effectively measure and communicate our impacts on biodiversity and the performance of our management actions.
• Methodologies for innovative compensation or offsetting of residual biodiversity impacts.

The opportunities for minimising negative effects and creating positive outcomes will vary greatly from one project or operating site to another.

As a first step, our operations use mitigation measures, which include actions designed to avoid, minimise and rectify negative impacts. Offsets (sustainable conservation actions) and other conservation actions (capacity building programmes, livelihood initiatives) may then be necessary to compensate for the residual, unavoidable harm to biodiversity and help us to achieve a net positive impact on biodiversity.

NPI is a long term goal and a challenge for us. We are working in partnership with international conservation NGOs, who play a key role in progressing our understanding of biodiversity conservation issues and practical approaches to its management. By working together, we aim to raise the bar within the industry sector as a whole.

For locations of our operations that are near biodiversity rich habitats, see our biodiversity maps.

Results

Overview

We are at an early stage of developing ways to measure Group wide biodiversity performance, in addition to understanding how different operations are managing biodiversity across the diverse conditions in which we operate, from brown field industrial areas to sites located within biodiversity hotspots. Developing this understanding and tracking performance over time is critical to achieving our biodiversity performance objectives and reporting on our goal of NPI.

We carry out extensive reporting on the effects of our business on biodiversity in the areas in which we operate.

Detailed results

Biodiversity assessments

Having an understanding of the environment in which we work is a key starting point towards achieving our biodiversity goals.
Eighty one percent of our operations have carried out some form of biodiversity assessment, at some stage in their project lifetime.

Although 64 per cent of operations recorded carrying out biodiversity assessments, additional to those undertaken as a requirement for environmental impact assessment procedures, we need to further imbed this research and monitoring into operational environmental management. This will include increasing our understanding of how we impact biodiversity, both within and outside our operations, and wider regional biodiversity issues.

Management programmes

We believe that the transfer of the biodiversity knowledge and impact assessment through to biodiversity management plans - either as stand alone programmes or integrated into site environmental management systems -  is a critical step in the development of an effective biodiversity management programme.

In 2006, 29 per cent of operations had developed biodiversity objectives, targets and associated management plans. Half these operations had specific staff assigned and resources allocated to address biodiversity issues. Over the next few years, we will be working to ensure that operations which pose the greatest risk to biodiversity have fully integrated biodiversity work into operational management procedures, thus ensuring a comprehensive approach.  

Land in close proximity to biodiversity-rich habitats

Having an understanding of the location of locally, nationally, regionally or internationally identified areas of biodiversity importance can assist with identifying the extent of impact of company operations on biodiversity-rich or sensitive habitats/ecosystems.

Our operations reported on the area of land that they owned, leased or managed which fell within a five km radius of one of the above mentioned protected area systems

In 2006, 17 operations indicated that they had land in close proximity to these internationally recognised biodiversity-rich habitats. The total area of this land was 2,655 square kilometres, which represents 0.8 per cent of our total land holding. These operations had identified the risks to biodiversity resulting from their activities and had measures in place to address them.

Fifty nine percent of land in close proximity to biodiversity rich areas is used for exploration purposes. Although the majority of this land will never be mined we are working to integrate biodiversity risk assessment and management planning into project decision making, to ensure an early and proper understanding of risks and opportunities for biodiversity conservation and protection.