Walk in the Woods - Guinea

Partnerships have been evolving in some Western countries between big businesses and environmental or nature conservation organisations. However, comparatively little has been achieved in developing countries where increasing local jobs and incomes is of paramount importance and regulatory frameworks and policies are often ineffective and inconsistent. A promising development is taking place in Guinea, the world’s leading source of bauxite ore for aluminium production, where Alcoa and Alcan, two of the world’s main aluminium producers, are working with Conservation International to include consideration of ecological sustainability in the planning for a new alumina refinery.

Natural Resources in Guinea

Guinea is a West African country bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is one of the world’s poorest countries, in spite of significant reserves of ores for a number of metals and minerals including aluminium, diamonds, gold, nickel, iron, titanium, copper, manganese and uranium. Of these the exploitation of bauxite for the production of aluminium has reached large-scale proportions. Moreover the reserves of bauxite are vast, comprising about one third of all known global bauxite reserves. Bauxite mining and treatment are enormously important for jobs and the economy of the impoverished country, accounting for 85 per cent of export earnings and 20 per cent of GDP. Apart from mining, fishing, farming and food processing are the main fields of employment in Guinea.

CBG mine roadway and transport truck © CI Jason Anderson

Guinea is also a country of many natural resources and a variety of landscapes and ecology. These include a coastline with beaches and mangrove swamps, lakes, mountains and plateaus, tropical rainforest and dry lowlands. In the forested areas timber logging still remains a serious problem and concern.

The Government of Guinea is giving priority to the development of the mining sector. It is particularly interested in promoting jobs and incomes in a country where unemployment and underemployment is high and incomes are generally low. It wants to support investment in the mining sector and especially to encourage overseas investment. At the same time, Guinea has made global commitments to conserving the country’s environment. It is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and recently formed an independent Ministry of Environment.

With the cessation of hostilities in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia the potential for tourism in this part of West Africa could eventually be realised. With its dramatic and varied landscapes and ecosystems Guinea has a lot to attract visitors. There are two national parks in Guinea - Parc National du Badiar and Parc National du Haut Niger. However, these receive only a small number of visitors compared with the most popular national parks in some other countries in Africa.

Sangaredi is a town in the Prefecture of Boké in the north-west of Guinea. It is one of the main centres for the mining of bauxite in the country. Its population now stands at about 40,000. About 13 million tonnes of bauxite is mined annually by Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG) in Sangaredi. It is taken by railway to the port of Kamsar about 140 km away. CBG in Sangaredi produces nearly half of all bauxite in Guinea.

Sangaredi is a new town that is surrounded by a number of traditional villages that have existed for many generations. The surrounding area is also ecologically interesting and valuable. The remaining wooded areas are a haven for birds, amphibians, insects, plants, crustaceans and mammals. The rivers in the area are important for fish and other aquatic life.
	© CI Piotr Naskredi

In conjunction with CBG’s bauxite mining operations in Guinea, Alcoa and Alcan are looking to build an alumina refinery in the Boké Prefecture of Guinea to prevent the need for shipping all of the raw bauxite mined in the country to alumina refineries in other parts of the world. Through collaboration with CI, Alcoa and Alcan hope to minimise the environmental impacts of the refinery, as well as to make a lasting contribution to the sustainable development of the region.

Participants and their Roles

Conservation International (CI) aims to conserve the Earth’s most valuable and threatened ecosystems – areas known as the biodiversity hotspots. It is based in the United States and has projects in more than 40 countries in collaboration with nearly 350 local partners. CI prioritises supporting and strengthening the capacities of local organisations, as these organisations have a critical role in local conservation projects. It also emphasises the importance of working with other partners in conservation efforts, including local communities, companies and governments. Without cooperation with these organisations, conservation objectives could not be sustainable.

The Centre for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB), a division of CI, aims to seek synergies between the activities of international and regional businesses and local conservation and environmental protection. It wants to engage the businesses actively in local conservation measures and to promote inclusive sustainable development. It aims to convince businesses and governments that economic development and nature conservation aims can be reconciled and that solutions can be found in these potentially conflicting situations. It has developed a range of methods and processes to fulfil these aims.

Alcoa As one of the world’s leading aluminium producers with operations in a number of countries throughout the world, Alcoa has given priority to addressing environmental concerns in its operations and developments. The company has implemented a sustainability strategy that it applies in its processing operations and the development of new projects such as the proposed refinery in Guinea. The strategy is based on the goal of simultaneously achieving financial success, environmental excellence, and social responsibility through partnerships in order to deliver net long-term benefits to shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, and the communities in which Alcoa operates.

The key sustainability issues that Alcoa prioritizes in its planning and operations are:

• Climate change.
• Engagement with stakeholders, both internal and external.
• Integration of sustainability into business.
• Measurement systems.
• Energy strategy.
• Products.
• Biodiversity.
• Technology.
• Facility end-of-life activities.

This commitment to sustainable business practices led Alcoa to team up with CI in Guinea to conduct an Initial Biodiversity Assessment and Planning (IBAP) project.

Guinée-Ecologie (Guinea Ecology) is the main counterpart local organisation that CI works with in Guinea. CI can also count on the support of the Guinean government, as well as a number of specialists, biologists, zoologists, botanists and other environmental researchers throughout the world.

Initial Biodiversity Assessment and Planning

With funding and logistical support from Alcoa and Alcan, CI and Guinée Ecologie recently conducted an IBAP in order to inform the companies’ decision-making and planning processes for the proposed alumina refinery. The IBAP consisted of a desktop biodiversity characterisation and scoping study to get a preliminary sense of the biodiversity of Boké Prefecture within a global and regional context, followed by a biological survey examining the flora and fauna of several sites within the Prefecture, and punctuated by a multi-stakeholder workshop to formulate a biodiversity action plan for the region that takes into account the survey findings and the socio-economic context of the area.

The scientific survey team conducted their study for over two weeks in late April and early May 2005. The team included experienced tropical biologists from both foreign and West African institutions, including eight Guinean experts. The surveys focused on the Rio Kapatchez, Kamsar and Sangaredi areas within Boké Prefecture, and in some cases represented the first biological surveys in nearly 50 years. Several important species were observed, including a rare crab species recorded at only one other site globally, species from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and numerous species never before recorded in Guinea.

Survey team with binoculars observing birds © CI Jason Anderson

The survey was followed by a two-day multi-stakeholder workshop in June 2005 in Conakry, Guinea. With over 60 participants from civil society, government, local communities, and the private sector, the group formulated an action plan for conserving biodiversity in the Boké Prefecture of Guinea.

Fire-cleared vegetation, a method for clearing land for agricultural cultivation and major threat to the Boké region’s biodiversity identified at the workshop. © CI Jason Anderson

Environmental Impacts of Alumina Refining

The mining and refining of bauxite, in common with other metal ores, are intrinsically ecologically disruptive processes. Informed in part by the biodiversity information gathered through collaboration with CI, Alcoa and Alcan will have to work to mitigate several impacts as their refinery project moves forward:

• Disposal of ‘red mud’ bauxite residue. Typically 1.0 to 1.5 tonnes of residue is produced for every tonne of alumina. Although the residue is alkaline when generated, Alcoa/Alcan have committed to neutralising this material before disposal in sealed ponds.
• Air pollution from bauxite, lime, and alumina dust, dust from low-grade bauxite, and production of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide gases from calciners and the powerhouse.
• Noise.
• Accidental spillage and leakage, especially of caustic soda. Alcoa/Alcan have extensive management systems and requirements for environment, health, and safety accident prevention.

Development of the Bauxite Industry in Guinea

The liberalisation of the mining sector in Guinea together with increasing world market demand is creating pressure for development of additional bauxite mining and refining facilities. At present there is only one bauxite refinery in Guinea, at Friguia, operated by RUSAL, a Russian group, as a local company called CBK. There are several proposals by different consortiums for building alumina refineries in Guinea. The planned Alcoa/ Alcan facility would itself be quite large, with a proposal to produce 1.5 million tonnes of alumina per year. If all the proposed plants become operational then the cumulative environmental impact could be considerable, potentially similar to the situation in Western Australia where there are four refineries in close proximity.

The impetus for developing alumina refining plants rather than just bauxite mining operations has partly come from the government; but this has also become more of an economic imperative as the quality of the remaining bauxite ore has declined. The best quality reserves have largely been exhausted and the ores being exploited contain, on average, 50 per cent alumina. It makes less economic sense to ship this ore to be processed elsewhere if half, or more, of the material would be waste. The proposals for the alumina refining plants also include plans for infrastructure improvement, particularly of roads and railways. Poor infrastructure in Guinea has been a barrier to the development of the mining sector up to now.

Of the planned new alumina plants the one being proposed by Alcoa and Alcan is at the most advanced stage. These companies favour lessening the environmental impact of a new refinery wherever possible. The processes evolved through the development of this plant could form a model for future developments of bauxite mining and alumina refining in Guinea, as well as providing a model for similar infrastructure developments in other global locations.

CI is currently promoting this model of collaboration through further development and promotion of the Initial Biodiversity Assessment and Planning (IBAP) methodology.

Future Directions

The IBAP that has been carried out in the Boké Prefecture of Guinea will be used to inform planning decisions about the new alumina refinery that Alcoa and Alcan intend to install there. The final report will also be made publicly available for all interested parties and there are plans for distribution of hard copies in Guinea once it has been finalised.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Marielle Canter, Manager of the Energy & Mining Program at CI CELB in the preparation of this case study.

Further Information

Conservation International - The Centre for Environmental Leadership in Business (CI CELB)
Conservation International
1919 M Street, NW Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
USA
Tel: +1-202-912-1000
Fax: +1-202-912-1047
Website: http://www.conservation.org
This is the main web site for Conservation International and contains general information regarding the places they work and strategies they employ in those locales.
http://www.celb.org/
This web site contains more information about the Upper Guinea forest ecosystem and brief details of the IBAPs that CELB has organised as well as other useful information.

Alcoa Corporate Center
201 Isabella Street
Pittsburgh, PA
15212-5858
USA
Tel: +1-412-553-4545
Fax: +1-412- 553-4498
http://www.alcoa.com/
The Alcoa web site contains a lot of information about the position of the company on sustainability, safeguarding the environment and biodiversity as well as reports and articles on projects where the company’s sustainability criteria were applied and information on how the company is accomplishing its sustainability targets.

For a more detailed discussion of the mining sector in Guinea in relation to bauxite mining prior to 1997 see:
Bonnie Campbell (Department of Political Science, University of Montreal, Canada), Environmental Policies, Mining and Structural Adjustment in Guinea, presented at the Panel ‘The Political Economy of Natural Resource Policy’, Part II, at the International Studies Association 37 th Annual Conference, March 21, 1997, Toronto, Canada, http://www.unites.uqam.ca/grama/pdf/
Environmental%20Policies-Guinea.pdf

For a detailed discussion of the environmental issues alumina refining see:
Environmental Protection Authority, Western Australia, Expansion of Alumina Production from 2.0 Million Tonnes Per Annum to 3.5 Million Tonnes Per Annum at Worsley Refinery, and Associated Bauxite Mining Activities at Boddington, Bulletin 823, June 1996,
http://www.epa.wa.gov.au/docs/787_B823.pdf

Environmental Protection Authority
PO Box K822
Perth Western Australia 6842
(Westralia Square, Level 8
141 St George's Terrace
Perth, Western Australia 6000)
Telephone: +61-8-9222 7000
Fax: +61-8-9222 7155
E-mail: info@environment.wa.gov.au
Website: www.epa.wa.gov.au

Alyson Warhurst, Mining and the Environment Case Studies from the Americas, published by the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC), PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9.
Tel: +1-613 236-6163
Fax: +1-613 238-7230
E-mail: info@idrc.ca
This document can be downloaded from the following web address:
http://web.idrc.ca/es/ev-9341-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
This includes case studies from Chile, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru as well as discussion, comparison and assessment. Note that Chapter 7:
Liliana Acero, Environmental Management in the Bauxite, Alumina, and Aluminium Industry in Brazil, considers the cases of plants operated by Alcoa and other companies in Brazil http://web.idrc.ca/es/ev-31010-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

TVE/ Practical Action gratefully acknowledge support for the HANDS ON programmes from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Commission (EC), the UN Foundation and UNDP/The Equator Initiative in collaboration with the Government of Canada, IDRC, IUCN, BrasilConnects and the Nature Conservancy.