Forests are valuable for many reasons; regulating water flow, preventing floods and landslides, storing carbon and providing habitat for endangered species. If valuable areas are not identified and mining activities are not avoided in and adjacent to HCVFs, then the lost forest value might outweigh the benefits from mining.
Locating mining sites
1. Identify and manage High Conservation Value Forests
- The distribution and locality of mining activities needs to be considered prior to allocation of concessions and long before clearance and mining operations begin
- In situations where some habitat fragmentation is unavoidable, wildlife corridors connecting fragmented forests should be established to connect wildlife populations
- WWF recommends that new concessions are not awarded in primary forest or any area required to maintain or enhance HCVF
2. Carry out Environmental Impact Assessments
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are a legal requirement in all three territories in Borneo, and is a necessary pre-requisite prior to commencing mining operations.Despite this regulatory requirement, there are still a number of challenges to ensuring EIAs adequately assess and mitigate environmental impacts related to mining development in the Heart of Borneo.
- EIAs should identify the potential environmental and social issues relating to mining activities well in advance of the mining operations themselves and EIAs should be reviewed and approved by the local regulators before activities commence
- Mine developers (both small and large scale) can draw on global good practices for EIAs, including:
- Informed site selection: The EIA should be considered as a “site selection tool” and should be initiated as early as possible
- Use of the ‘mitigation hierarchy’: The EIA should prevent or avoid adverse environmental impacts using appropriate site selection and examining alternative sites; then attempting to minimise or reduce impacts and then repair or restore adverse residual effects, and offset any biodiversity losses
- Participative: The EIA should provide early and appropriate opportunities to involve the interested and affected stakeholders
- Effective monitoring: Monitoring is vital to ensure that the mitigation measures implemented are effective in avoiding significant environmental impacts
