ICMM - International Council on Mining & Metals

CASE STUDY

Integrating biodiversity into environmental management systems

Background

Mining often occurs in or near sensitive natural environments, so biodiversity protection needs to be a key part of the operation’s environmental management programme. Impacts resulting from exploration and mining operations can be widespread or confined, direct or indirect, permanent or transient, and positive or negative. In addition, interactions between mining operations and local communities can multiply or offset biodiversity impacts.

Possible Biodiversity Impacts of Mining

The amount of damage done to local biodiversity during mining or the enhancement of it that is accomplished will depend on:

• how well the potential impacts were foreseen during baseline surveys, environmental impact assessment and project development;
• how well the impacts are managed during exploration, operational mining, rehabilitation and closure; an
• whether the rehabilitated land, infrastructure and management are sustainable after mining has gone.

Examples of direct negative effects are fairly obvious:

Damage or clearing of native vegetation leading not only to direct losses but also to fragmentation of habitat; rainfall runoff from disturbed land leading to soil erosion, turbidity, siltation or pollution of local streams; introduction or spread of weeds (including agricultural and commercial exotic species), pests and diseases of native flora and fauna; alteration of groundwater levels through mine de-watering, resulting in vegetation impacts; and exposure of acid-generating rock or subsoil that leads to contamination of waterways with acid and mobile metals.

Indirect negative impacts often involve interactions between the mining operations, its workforce and local communities. Many examples of this relate to an operation’s opening up access to remote regions, to migration and settlement of people in the region, and to the impacts these people have on the local biodiversity. Some types of mining might also restrict access to land that was previously used by local communities – uses that may have been linked to traditional subsistence livelihoods or to recreational uses in affluent societies. Either way, pressures for these land uses can be transferred to new undisturbed lands, with subsequent impacts on biodiversity.

Yet mining can also contribute positively to biodiversity outcomes beyond the impacts or activities of the operations, through a wide range of programmes such as:

• regional flora and fauna surveys;
• education and training;
• research funding;
• sponsorship of community environmental groups or projects; and
• local and regional economic developments that have biodiversity spin-offs.

Many of the negative impacts listed above can be avoided or can even result in positive biodiversity outcomes if appropriate consultation with regulators and local communities is undertaken and if planning and management are applied. Engagement, collaboration and cooperation between government, local communities and mining companies are all critical for optimum biodiversity outcomes to be realised. An example of a positive outcome is mine rehabilitation designed to produce a fuelwood plantation, agroforestry or grazing land.

Environmental Management Systems

In essence, an Environmental Management System (EMS) can be considered

• a tool to improve environmental performance;
• a means of systematically managing an organisation’s environmental affairs;
• the part of an organisation’s overall management structure that addresses immediate and long-term as well as direct and indirect impacts of its products, services and processes on the environment; and
• an ordered and consistent way for organisations to address environmental concerns through optimisation of resource allocation, transparent assignment of responsibility and ongoing evaluation of practices, procedures and processes – with a focus on continual improvement.

All the likely positive and negative impacts of mining on biodiversity can be integrated into an operation’s EMS as items in the Aspects and Impacts Register. Ideally, this will be developed in consultation with stakeholders or will at least take their views into consideration. Any potentially significant impacts must have management programmes developed to deal with them.

It is important to note that biodiversity integration should not be about creating a system that competes with what already exists within individual companies or the rest of the industry. In order to effectively integrate biodiversity considerations into decision-making and activities, a company should not need to adopt an entirely new suite of systems or practices. These should instead be integrated into a company’s ongoing management systems and operations. In this way they will build on systems already widely used within the industry.

One of the most widely used systems is ISO 14001. Developed by the International Organisation for Standards, this specifies requirements for an EMS to enable an organisation to formulate a policy and objectives that take into account legislative requirements and information about significant environmental impacts. It applies to the environmental aspects that the organisation can control and over which it can be expected to have an influence. It does not itself state specific environmental performance criteria.

Integrating Biodiversity

In terms of biodiversity, the company should prepare a register of relevant legal regulations and voluntary practices, including corporate standards and environmental guidance and codes of practice published by professional and industrial bodies the organisation belongs to, such as ICMM. The register might also include:

• information on protected areas and their legal status;
• listed vulnerable species and risk of impacts in areas of operation; and
• Biodiversity Action Plans for the areas in question.

If there are significant potential impacts on biodiversity that could arise during or following major accidents or emergencies, the company should undertake a more detailed risk analysis, identifying vulnerable resources and sites and drawing up plans for emergency preparedness and contingency measures for each potential impact. This is particularly relevant if the project is in or near a sensitive biodiversity area.

In cases where biodiversity is a significant aspect of one or more projects, biodiversity criteria may also be incorporated in existing performance contracts in order to emphasise the focus on biodiversity within line management.