Environment

7.7 Bibiani's role in the debate on protected forests

Bibiani gold mine is located in western Ghana, 250 kilometres north-west of Accra. The open-pit mine, which was commissioned in 1998, is in the Sefwi-Bibiani belt, host to over 17 million ounces of gold, and the second-most significant gold-bearing belt in Ghana after the Ashanti Belt to the east.

Owning some of the world's largest gold deposits, Ghana's gold mining industry has more than doubled in the past decade. However, there are concerns that the forests, beneath which lie the valuable gold deposits, are in danger of disappearing. Opponents claim that much of Ghana's formerly forested areas has been lost, and that existing forest reserves are progressively being converted into other forms of land-use, in this case, surface mining. Mining is blamed not only for deforestation, but also for altering entire physical ecosystems. However, it is the view of AngloGold Ashanti that mineral development can alleviate deforestation pressures and contribute to the reforestation of disturbed areas.

An example of how this can be realistically achieved is AngloGold Ashanti's Bibiani mine; this operation also begins to dispel the myth that mining operations in developing countries operate to lower standards than their counterparts in developed countries.

Bibiani mine is an ISO 14001 certified operation and has received significant recognition for both its environmental and safety performance. In 2001, it was cited by the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency as an Environmentally Committed Company (Mining Sector).

Bibiani has a policy of progressive rehabilitation; this means that instead of leaving its rehabilitation obligations till the end of operations, mined-out areas and associated waste are reforested as they become available. Standard methods of rehabilitation are used (including flattening of dump slopes, the application of topsoil and tree-planting of these areas, the last of which is carried out by local contractors and casual labour).

Bibiani also runs a nursery which produces a wide range of indigenous species for its rehabilitation efforts. Some of these plants are donated for local community purposes. The environmental monitoring programme includes measuring the growth performance of a selected number of timber species on the revegetated areas.

The mine's rehabilitation practices have been refined over time, to the extent that the success of these rehabilitated mining areas have become the subject of both significant national scientific and political interest. (See box below.)

The former Minister of Mines, Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, an entourage of senior government and party representatives visited Bibiani to view the rehabilitation results in May 2004. It is claimed that the success of these efforts played an important role in the decision to grant permits to mine and explore in Protected Forest areas.