An eco-friendly mine?
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under madagascar
Mining giant Rio Tinto has an ambitious conservation agenda in connection with its titanium mine near Tolagnaro, Madagascar. It has created conservation zones that it won’t mine and pledged to regrow the forests that it destroys.
Critics say it won’t succeed, in part because too little will be conserved. NGOs also say the mine has been detrimental to local people, but the government approves because it represents significant foreign investment.
The above photos were taken at the Mandena nursery, where plants are grown to one day repopulate the forest. A few shots are also from around Tolagnaro, also known as Ft. Dauphin. Rio Tinto does not allow photography of the mine itself.
Tags: environment, flora, ft dauphin, madagascar, mining, nursery, photography, plants, titanium, trees
MBG: Development through conservation
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under madagascar
Chris Birkinshaw (right) and Christian Camara (center), both of MoBot, inspect flora at the Ankafobe reserve in Central Madagascar
Solofo, president of the local fokontany, checks sohisika seedlings at the nursery
Seedlings of sohisika, a tree endemic to only a few small stands of forest in central Madagascar
Before leaving Madagascar, I took a day-trip with botanists Chris Birkinshaw and Christian Camara from the Missouri Botanical Garden to inspect a small nature reserve and several associated projects.
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Tags: ankafobe, antananarivo, conservation, environment, madagascar, missouri botanical garden, photography, plants, sohisika, trees
Does this look like a titanium mine?
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under madagascar
The mining company's big gambit
I came to Ft. Dauphin in remote southern Madagascar for one primary purpose: to visit the Rio Tinto titanium mine that is pledging to be environmentally friendly.
This photo came from the nature conservancy at the first mine site in Mandena; the nursery above will be used when the company attempts the gargantuan task of regrowing precious littoral (coastal) forest out of fields of sand left behind by the mine.
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Tags: conservation, environment, forest, ft dauphin, madagascar, mining, nursery, plants, rio tinto, titanium
