Drive to protect trees
THERESIA Ott steers her 4x4 clear of a giant African land snail as it trails across the sand track deep in what appears to be an ancient coastal forest outside Richards Bay.
Passionate about preserving nature, she pulls the steering wheel hard to the right, saying: “Sorry, but I don’t drive over snails.”
Ott is the superintendent in charge of Richards Bay Minerals’ rehabilitation programme at its sand-mining plant on the Zululand coast.
Ott points to the rich canopy that arches far overhead. “These trees germinated 20 years ago,” she says.
The scene is serene, cool and deeply shaded with rich tones of green and, on the face of it, the forest is ancient and pristine. But all is not as it seems. This forest is “new”, and when compared with the ancient trees that stood in places cleared for mining, these soaring forests could be considered just “babies”, as Ott calls them, but as they age, more species are added and the habitat becomes more like the relatively undisturbed forests north of the mining site.
As long as there is a demand by consumers for goods containing gold, silver and other minerals such as titanium, iron, rutile and zircon and there are profits to be made, the world’s pristine places will face the continued threat of degradation.
However, Ott says RBM is determined to mine responsibly.
With a doctoral degree in zoology, Ott spent years doing field work on the diet of the leopards of the Baviaanskloof in the Western Cape, and on studying elephant land use and its impact on the landscape in Zambia and Malawi.
She would not have imagined herself working for a mining company, but while studying at the University of Pretoria, she became involved in a research project on the mine’s rehabilitation programme. “I was then appointed as an ecologist back in 2012 and have never looked back,” she says.
“There will always be a need for resources, such as those extracted by mining, so the best thing to do is to ensure that extractive industries are responsible – here, I help to restore the landscape to what it was. Our achievements so far are something to be proud of, but we can’t stop there,” she says.
RBM spends more than R10 million a year on the 37-year-old rehabilitation programme that employs more than 100 people through four contractors who all come from the local community.
Now the massive challenge facing the mining giant, which is managed by the international company Rio Tinto, is to facilitate the two host communities, who are ultimately the landowners, to manage and protect the rehabilitated forests.
“We have a very important environmental education programme running in the community schools in partnership with Wessa Ecoschools and the Wildlands Conservation Trust,” said Ott. “For the last five years we have also been running a research programme with the CSIR on crops suitable to the area as potential alternative land uses to forestry.”
Ott says that while two thirds of the rehabilitation programme involves the replanting of commercial plantations in accordance with RBM’s approved environmental management plan and one third is dedicated to restoring the indigenous forests in partnership with the local community and regulators, they are in the process of linking agricultural operations with environmental best practice to ensure better sustainability.