Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Mining News of Note -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (28371)	11/3/2008 10:17:55 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 193536

Biodiversity will be future mining industry issue – Rio Tinto CEO miningweekly.com By: Martin Creamer Published on 3rd November 2008 Updated 5 hours ago Biodiversity was poised to become the future emerging issue of the global mining industry, Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese said on Monday. Albanese told journalists on a visit to Rio Tinto’s new QMM mineral sands project in Madagascar that mining companies were encountering a new elevated set of expectations each time they attempted to attract mine capital or elicit opinion on how to access land for mining. “That will be the case even more so in the future, so get used to it. It’s coming for the industry,” he said. This was why, in Madagascar, Rio Tinto was preserving species, preserving local knowledge, replicating disturbed areas “breathing new science in to these areas”. Albanese said Rio Tinto’s biodiversity strategy embraced “the variety of life on earth, the different animals, plants and micro-organisms, their genes and the ecosystems of which they are part”. He recalled how Rio Tinto’s Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) in South Africa had been “stopped in its tracks” at the ilmenite-rich St Lucia, in Kwazulu-Natal, after five years of legal battle. “We had a good plan, but it wasn’t good enough,” he said. Since then, Rio Tinto had introduced the its goal of “net positive impact” on biodiversity, which meant “minimising” the impacts of mining and “contributing to biodiversity conservation” to ensure that the region was left, not in the same shape, but in better shape as a result of the company’s presence. The Rio Tinto accompanied the large contingent of media into the middle of a forest, which the company had saved in Madagascar. It was the last remnant of 220 ha of forest left in the 2 000 ha area, where deforestation for charcoal had taken place, which now continued to host five different species of night and day lemurs, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. Seventy-five per cent of the already degraded area would be planted with fast-growing species, which would provide product for the local community, and the remaining 25 % would be restored, both in terms of wetland restoration and primary forest restoration. The mining sector, Albanese said, dug big holes, but did not necessarily fill them up exactly the way that they started off. “We do have a very visual effect on the environment and we have basically to more than offset that effect, and generally make more subtle improvements By visiting the Madagascar project, the media was, Albanese added, witnessing global best biodiversity practice. The company had already planted a million trees as part of a road stabilisation exercise and income-generating pursuits had been organised for local communities. Biodiversity manager Manon Vincelette said that Rio Tinto’s budget of $3-million a year for biodiversity preservation had been matched dollar for dollar by USAid.