On track to achieve no net loss of forest at Madagascar’s biggest mine

Abstract

Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals requires reconciling development with biodiversity conservation. Governments and lenders increasingly call for major industrial developments to offset unavoidable biodiversity loss but there are few robust evaluations of whether offset interventions ensure no net loss of biodiversity. We focus on the biodiversity offsets associated with the high-profile Ambatovy mine in Madagascar and evaluate their effectiveness at delivering no net loss of forest. As part of their efforts to mitigate biodiversity loss, Ambatovy compensate for forest clearance at the mine site by slowing deforestation driven by small-scale agriculture elsewhere. Using a range of methods, including extensive robustness checks exploring 116 alternative model specifications, we show that the offsets are on track to avert as much deforestation as was caused by the mine. This encouraging result shows that biodiversity offsetting can contribute towards mitigating environmental damage from a major industrial development, even within a weak state, but there remain important caveats with broad application. Our approach could serve as a template to facilitate other evaluations and so build a stronger evidence-base of the effectiveness of no net loss interventions.

Quasi-experimental analysis of new mining developments as a driver of deforestation in Zambia

“…Mining developments can also cause the downgrading, downsizing, and degazetting of protected areas 16 , both as a consequence of a mining licence being issued and in response to increased pressure from population shifts 9 , 13 . An increase in forest cover is also possible in the proximity of a mine due to land management activities by the mining company as part of a restoration or compensation measures 11 , 17 . Understanding the deforestation footprint of mining developments is important as it represents impacts to biodiversity, through the loss of habitat 3 , 18 , the physical environment, through the loss of carbon and changes in ecosystem functions 19 , 20 , and people, through the loss of timber and non-timber forest products 21 , 22 .…”

Biomass carbon emissions from nickel mining have significant implications for climate action

“…However, improved practices using endemic plants that effectively colonize stripped areas and reduce soil toxicity could increase rehabilitation success (23). Careful use of offsetting could also help to avoid net carbon losses, as has recently been suggested for Ambatovy in Madagascar (24). However, it is still essential that irrecoverable carbon losses, for example from old growth forests, are avoided (25,26) and that biomass impacts from nickel mining are considered in national and global targets to reduce or halt deforestation.…”

Analysis: the biodiversity footprint of the University of Oxford

“…com/3tkkbjh). Similarly, the Ambatovy metals mine in Madagascar is on course to offset its impacts on biodiverse eastern rainforests by preventing deforestation of those same habitats through small-scale agriculture 14 .…”

“…Yet forest gains are not estimated to balance losses until sometime between 2018 and 2033 (ref. 14).…”