The DOI matches its Crossref record; 54 of the 54 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Mining and the African Environment
Open accessAbstract
Africa is on the verge of a mining boom. We review the environmental threats from African mining development, including habitat alteration, infrastructure expansion, human migration, bushmeat hunting, corruption, and weak governance. We illustrate these threats in Central Africa, which contains the vast Congo rainforest, and show that more than a quarter of 4,151 recorded mineral occurrences are concentrated in three regions of biological endemism—the Cameroon‐Gabon Lowlands, Eastern DRC Lowlands, and Albertine Rift Mountains—and that most of these sites are currently unprotected. Threats are not uniform spatially, and much of the Congo Basin is devoid of mineral occurrences and may be spared from direct mining impacts. Some of the environmental impacts of African mining development could potentially be offset: mining set‐asides could protect some wildlife habitats, whereas improving transportation networks could increase crop yields and spare land for conservation. Research and policy measures are needed to (1) understand the synergies between mining and other development activities, (2) improve environmental impact assessments, (3) devise mitigation and offsetting mechanisms, and (4) identify market choke points where lobbying can improve environmental practice. Without careful management, rapid mining expansion and its associated secondary effects will have severe impacts on African environments and biodiversity.
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Cites
Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity
Lambin, E. F., & Meyfroidt, P. (2011) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1100480108 · Cited by 3,160
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Self-citationInfrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage, Transport Costs, and Trade
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Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s
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How will oil palm expansion affect biodiversity?
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Impacts of roads and linear clearings on tropical forests
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Self-citationAverting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas
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Watson, J. E. M., Dudley, N., Segan, D. B., & Hockings, M. (2014) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature13947 · Cited by 2,397
Agricultural expansion and its impacts on tropical nature
Laurance, W. F., Sayer, J., & Cassman, K. G. (2014) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2013.12.001 · Cited by 1,522
Self-citationCatastrophic Declines in Wilderness Areas Undermine Global Environment Targets
Watson, J. E. M., Shanahan, D. F., Di Marco, M., Allan, J., Laurance, W. F., Sanderson, E. W., Mackey, B., & Venter, O. (2016) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.08.049 · Cited by 483
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“The mining and smelting of critical minerals involve the destruction of habitats, the introduction of invasive species through road networks, and long-term toxic effects on aquatic eco-systems (Edwards et al. 2014).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Edwards, D. P., Sloan, S., Weng, L., Dirks, P., Sayer, J., & Laurance, W. F.
- Venue
- Conservation Letters
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2013-12-18
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 302-311
- ISSN
- 1755-263X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2159176571
- Cited by
- 382
- References
- 54
- FWCI
- 25.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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