A growing global population has increased demand for the earth’s resources, impacting our planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity. Our Head of Nature and Ecosystems, Dr Ian Hudson, shares his thoughts on how we can transition to a more sustainable relationship with nature.
The natural world contributes to human existence and our quality of life in lots of different ways. However, with a growing global population driving demand for the earth’s resources, many indicators of ecosystem health and biodiversity are showing a rapid decline1. A concerted effort is needed to tackle this issue.
Anglo American is committed to respecting the natural environment in which we operate. Our Sustainable Mining Plan (SMP) goals and critical foundations, which includes Anglo American’s approach to health and safety, the environment and communities, are applicable across our operations.
Biodiversity is one of three key areas included under the Healthy Environment pillar of our SMP.
As outlined in the plan, our goal is to deliver net positive impact (NPI) on biodiversity across Anglo American by 2030. This means any biodiversity losses resulting from our direct operational activities, post our 2018 baseline, must be outweighed by biodiversity gains achieved within the same location.
Dr Ian Hudson, Anglo American’s Head of Nature and Ecosystems, leads our Group’s efforts in this space together with his multi-disciplinary team. He is pleased to see biodiversity higher on the agenda than ever before, along with a growing focus on the need to integrate climate and nature solutions, and increased advocacy for the more sustainable use of nature.
This push, he says, has been reflected at ‘many of the big climate meetings’ he and his team have attended in recent months – including Climate Week NYC and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Leaders Forum. The reason for this, he believes, is quite simple:
“Sometimes, you have to break down big problems into smaller pieces to move at the speed and scale required”, Ian said. “It has served a purpose to take a more sequential approach to climate change, with initial conversations focused predominantly on greenhouse gas emissions, to make the progress required.
“However, climate, society and nature are interconnected, and always have been. We’ve got to do all three and we’ve got to do them together. I think we are starting to see that more parallel approach, which is needed and will only intensify further over the coming years.”
The release of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ (TNFD) final recommendations, to which Anglo American provided active input as a taskforce member – the only mining company currently represented – has been “one of the most significant outcomes in recent months”, according to Ian. He hopes it will do for nature what the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) has done for managing climate risk – by providing guidelines for businesses to address nature-related risks, while promoting greater transparency around those risks and improving the quality of disclosures.
Ian said: “There is so much more collaboration and knowledge sharing that has to happen. That has been one of the big drivers of the TNFD; to bring that cross-sectoral view – financial institutions, investors, corporations, civil society and government all working together, with good data at its roots.”
The ability to analyse and understand this data is also an imperative, said Ian, “allowing us to see where battles are being won and lost, and putting a greater focus on the areas, habitats, biomes and states of nature that need more help than others; as well as identifying what measures and who the best people are to drive that change.
“Nature risk isn’t the easiest thing to measure. It is probably among the most complicated datasets you can get. A molecule of carbon is a molecule of carbon, but there’s no such equivalent for nature. We need to collect much more information, from many different sources and perspectives, to be able to fully understand what is happening.”
Our approach in action
Guided by our Group Biodiversity Standard, we monitor and evaluate biodiversity from the outset of a project, as well as measuring our impact at sites that are already operational. One such example is our use of environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling at Woodsmith in the UK, where this technology has been deployed.
eDNA allows us to collect samples of genetic material left behind by animals and organisms as they interact with their environment – such as saliva, skin cells or excretions – before sequencing and comparing them with reference libraries. We can identify many species from a single sample with speed and ease, with Ian explaining: “Tools like artificial intelligence, big data, the ability to scan and process information at a level we could never achieve previously; these can help us to build up a view much more quickly, and find patterns and stories in the data.
“In setting our SMP goals a few years ago, we put a lot of emphasis on gathering quality data related to our interactions with nature. My advice to those at the beginning of their journey is to start with your baseline. That enables you to understand where you are, your direct and indirect impacts, and you can move forward from there.”
The data gathered at Woodsmith led to the discovery of a species thought to be extinct locally: the harvest mouse, with evidence of its presence helping inform how we now need to manage the land around this operation – including adjusting planned vegetation around a wetland area on-site and helping to boost grassland growth, among other measures.
At our Quellaveco copper mine in Peru, we have developed a Biodiversity Management Plan with a similar purpose; to mitigate the impact of construction and operations on species inhabiting this territory – including 55 species of fauna and 33 of flora that are either endemic to the area or catalogued as being in some state of formal protection.
The Quellaveco environment team has implemented various conservation actions, including propagation trials to maintain, revegetate and improve wild flora through operating an experimental nursery to determine the best protocols suited to the various sites. Management actions like building watering points at strategic locations for animals such as the guanaco, and carrying out permanent monitoring of the suri or Andean rhea, a bird in danger of extinction, have also been put into action.
More sustainable mining technologies and ways of extracting mineral resources can also help preserve natural habitats. This is part of the novel design philosophy at Woodsmith, which can be accessed from within the North York Moors National Park, a protected landscape. The Woodsmith team have taken measures to minimise the environmental impact, and have designed the mine infrastructure to be sympathetic to its location: the number and size of the buildings have been reduced and mined ore will be transported underground via a tunnel system to the materials handling facility in Teesside – in recognition of the sensitivity of the area – with no mineral coming to surface in the National Park.
Ian thinks the progress being made at Anglo American and our learnings can stimulate positive action, and field opportunities to collaborate further down the value chain.
“For companies further along in their efforts, like we are today,” he said, “my suggestion is to create opportunities to work together, to find the connection points between our different businesses – not just the products that we buy and sell – and determine if there are things we can develop and take forward together. That way, we can achieve more action, more momentum, within the value chain.
“The biodiversity management programmes we have in place, the tools we are using to monitor their effectiveness, demonstrate progress. When you talk about resilience and ecosystems finding balance, nature is attuned to do this; give it a helping hand and it will help itself. It’s amazing how quickly things can recover. We’ve just got to do our bit on the mitigation side.”
The global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services: Summary for policymakers, IPBES