The Nimba site team recently hosted a team of international scientists from Frogs & Friends e.V. as part of their annual in-field data monitoring program focusing on the unique Mount Nimba Viviparous Toad (Nimbaphrynoides occidentalis).
The local and international research team, led by Dr Mark-Oliver Rödel, Dr Johannes Penner and Dr Joseph Doumbia, has been studying the Nimba toad species since 2007, in a program led by the Natural History Museum of Berlin, with dedicated funding and in-kind support provided by HPX.
The Mount Nimba Viviparous Toad is unique for being the world’s only known amphibian to give birth to fully developed live young, similar to mammals. They are found in high altitude, montane, grasslands, regions, and as amphibians, they are rare, since they survive without the need for a fixed water habitat. More details on the toads and the research program can be found here: https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/science/nimba-project.
The Nimba site team also hosted a second research team and film crew accompanying the Frogs & Friends researchers, led by Professor Dr. Gregg Mitman, a professor of history, medical history, and environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and European Research Council’s Research Professor at the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Mitman was accompanied by the project’s postdoctoral researcher, Emmanuelle Roth, who holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Cambridge, doctoral student and conservation biologist, Shadrach Kerwillain, and Ester Roij, a specialist wildlife camerawoman, who has worked on several BBC natural history films, as well as Liberian cinematographer, Alexander Wiaplah.
Their research project, Fragments of the Forest, http://fragmentsoftheforest.com, is supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant, and aims to improve understanding of all the socio-economic relationships at play in the diverse environments of forest life.
HPX maintains its strong commitment to working with international research foundations to ensure the rich biodiversity of the region in which we operate is well understood. Our research partnerships inform our approach to planning for the sustainable development of Nimba, as we explore opportunities to protect the region for local communities.
About High Power Exploration
HPX is an American exploration and development company focused on advancing its high-grade long-life iron ore mine in the Lola region of the Southeastern region of the Republic of Guinea. HPX’s major shareholder and technology provider is I-Pulse Inc, a US Company founded and chaired by Mr. Robert Friedland and has a number of high profile American institutional and private investors as shareholders.
For more information about HPX and the Nimba project, please contact:
Members of the Frogs & Friends e.V. Mt Nimba toad 2024 field surveyors on-site at SMFG
A Mt Nimba viviparous toad behaving for its 2024 weigh-in at SMFG
Fragments of the Forest film crew, with SMFG HSE & Technical Services Manager, Bangaly Bangoura
Members of the Frogs & Friends e.V. field surveyors in search of the Mt Nimba toads, working in 5m x 5m blocks
