Accra, Ghana, October 19, 2019//-Newmont Goldcorp’s Akyem Mine has restored impacted forest reserve by more than three times in fulfillment of a commitment it made in its environmental impact statement.
The mining giant had committed to replenish by three folds portions of the productive Ajenjua Bepo forest reserve that were impacted by the Akem mine’s operations which began in 2013.
101 hectares were impacted. So far, through the Newmont’s Akyem mine reforestation project supervised by the Forest Commission, it has restored 317 hectares of degraded forests to make up for the impact, officials of the mining company, disclosed.
“This is more done the commitment made”.
The first phase of the project was 60 hectares, while second phase is 257 hectares at the Kweikaru forest which was toured by the officials of the company and some members of Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA) recently.
A senior environmental officer of Newmont Goldcorp’s Akyem Mine, Larry Anning-Dei, said: “We started with the 60 hectares in phase one which is at our open pit mining site in 2014 through the help of Forestry Commission, Newmont secured the land and the reforestation started in fulfillment of the commitment which enables the company to have its forest entry permit to mine in portions of the forest reserve”.
Tree species
According to The Local Tree Experts, the over 30 melange of indigenous species including mahogany, wawa, ofram, onyina, kusia, and emire which are planted by the mining company were sourced from the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG).
While the exotic cedrela species which has huge economic potential was introduced to compete with the indigenous species to enable them the latter grow faster.
Although the cedrela sepecies when matured in over 15 years time can be used for timber for export, it is being planted to spur the growth of the indigenous species.
“Over there are 60 hectares reafforestation. We have the indigenous, exotic and mix tress species composition which were planted at different planting designs. Currently, the percentage survival is 73.6 percent and maintenance has gone on up to this date”, he added.
Whilst the company had the phase one, through negotiations with the Forestry Commission in 2016, it was given the Kweikaru forest reserve (phase two) and implementation started in earnest.
“In 2016, we started with 175 hectares and the remaining part of it was concluded in 2018”, Mr Anning-Dei added.
Demarcations
So basically, where we are now was divided into two different sections, the first section was started in 2016 and the second section was started in 2018”.
He was quick to explain that different planting designs were employed. These Mr Anning-Dei mentioned include enrichment planting, assisted natural regeneration and then the MS312 and the MS48.
“Right now what we are doing is maintenance. Basically, we do pruning and some of the bawl that are crooked are removed so that the indigenous species will have time to grow because it takes like 30-40-50 years for them to be able to reach maturity”.
But he said that they want the trees to mimic the natural forest, so they deliberately incorporated exotic species particularly which are kind of fast growing species so that they will instigate competition so that the indigenous ones will also grow.
“What we have is the MS312 design. What it simply means is that between every indigenous tree species is 12 meters and between every exotic tree species is 3 meters”.
“Progressively, according to Mr Anning-Dei, they would thin-out the exotic tree species in the next 20 years to allow only the mix indigenous species stand in the re-afforested portions of the reserve.
Pointing to another plot, he stated: “Over there we have another different planting design that is the enrichment planting, and the MS48 is similar to the MS312 that we have here. But just that over there the indigenous composition is higher than what we have here”.
We also have what we called the enrichment planting basically means that it is about 4.2 hectares, when we mapped out that area we realized that it had a lot of economic trees but they were in patches, they were scattered, so we just planted some of the indigenous trees to supplement the stock”.
To this end, they cut line of eight meters apart and planted only indigenous trees which excluded the exotic plants.
Assisted natural regeneration
On the assisted natural regeneration, Mr Anning-Dei told the journalists that during the land preparation they realized that there were some seeds that had been in the soil for over 30- 40-50 years.
These kinds of seeds which they called the “recalcitrant seeds” take many years to germinate and grow to become mature trees.
“So that was the time when the condition was favourable for them to come up, so we were just not going to clear everything and plant. We tagged them and nurtured them as well. Then we incorporated them into our planting design”.
“You can see that there are some trees which are doing very well but they are not in line with what we planted. So, it was a deliberate plan for us to leave them”.
We have a riparian vegetation which spreads along the water course. We couldn’t just clear everything that would have exposed the streams so we left a 30 meter strip and then we did what we called spot-planting.
Mr Anning-Dei continued: “So we marked those areas and we planted not any other species but species that are able to grow at water-locked areas. We started with subaah (a tree species) but realized that the area was too water-locked so it could not survived.
So, we went to the Forest Commission and they recommended bamboo to us to plant. We went back to Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG ) and then sourced the bamboo species and we planted the bamboo along that riparian vegetation which is doing very well”.
Just as the journalists and Newmont officials entered they realized that they were some planted with a lots of bird nests on them. All those vegetations, according to the officials were planted by the mining firm with strict supervision from the Forest Commission.
They are maintaining the vegetations for the next 10 years before the Newmont gives it back to the Forestry Commission.
“It is the company’s expectation that after 10 years, the vegetations will have a uniform growth, well maintained and then have the cherished indigenous trees doing very well to serve their purpose. This is what we want”.
The Director of External Relations and Communications of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Ahmed Nantogmah added the reafforestation is being done in collaboration with the Forest Services Division of the Forest Commission as to which tree to plant, where, when, how to plant it and even how to take care of it.
According to him, Newmont is meeting the guidelines otherwise the Forest Commission would stop them from operating.
“Once they are operating and still being in the forest it means that they are meeting guidelines of mining in productive forest reserve.
Where by the company is even providing more tree cover and even growing trees that hitherto were not available and also growing trees that can be used for herb farms, and others”.
From the above, experts in mining are saying that responsible mining which is being exhibited by Newmont Goldcorp’s Akyem Mine does not cause deforestation in the country.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report