Sustainable development

Green-striped frog at Anglo Coal Australia’s Dawsonmine’s regenerating Brigalow habitat

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) has been involved in five of Anglo American’s Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) peer reviews at operations in South Africa, Brazil, Namibia and the UK during 2008.

Each review takes three days and engages operational management, the environmental management team and the review team, comprising representatives from across Anglo American and FFI. Following introductory presentations, a comprehensive site visit is conducted at operational and other relevant areas, such as adjacent areas of high biodiversity value.

The site’s overall biodiversity-management approach, including the systems and processes that are used to support this, is assessed against the Anglo American BAP guideline and the Anglo American biodiversity performance standard. The review team looks for a clearly articulated business case for biodiversity management that is in keeping with the biodiversity risks and opportunities identified for that specific operation, as well as the involvement of a cross-business unit team in the development and implementation of the BAP. It also aims to highlight potential links between the operation’s plan and local long-term conservation plans or priorities.

The peer review findings provide feedback to all sites on the quality of their existing management programme, and makes recommendations for improvement. The feedback report may also become the basis for an action plan for sites without pre-existing BAPs.

The results of the partnership with FFI have exceeded its original objectives. FFI believes that Anglo American has deepened its understanding of biodiversity and has benefited through the sharing of related knowledge across the Group. Working in collaboration with Anglo American operations has provided FFI with an opportunity to engage at site level with production and environmental teams, and enabled FFI to influence the way Anglo American does business.

This ultimately helps FFI implement a key institutional strategic objective: to secure land for conservation.

FFI has identified areas of good practice across all operations that have undergone peer reviews, which has assisted FFI with benchmarking, contributing to its knowledge base of the sector, and understanding the opportunities within the sector.