SMFG’s Project is proposed in an area of extreme poverty where most of the population practices subsistence-style economic activities like slash-and-burn agriculture, hunting, grazing and tree-cutting for fuel and construction. Wildfires set by villagers frequently escape and burn the Mount Nimba WHS. In this context, with or without mining in an enclave at the northern end of the range, subsistence pressures represent the chronic and universal threats to the Nimba Mountains’ unique biodiversity.

The Project’s ESIA looks broadly and deeply at not only the proposed mine’s direct impacts, but at its indirect impacts and the broader context. It characterises the region’s socio-economic and cultural contexts, and local people’s dependencies on and management of natural resources. It assesses potential impact ‘outside the fence’ at the landscape level from potential population influx.

SMFG is therefore designing measures to discourage people from moving close to the Project in search of opportunities. For example, it will spread its workforce through shuttles and dispersed housing, move public relations, procurement and hiring to the company’s office in Lola City, and encourage alternative economic opportunities across Lola Prefecture.