The Environmental Department of ArcelorMittal Liberia (AML) with support from the company’s senior management team is reinforcing the planting of trees in promoting other environmental protection initiatives aimed that helping to mitigate the effects of climate change in Yekepa and beyond.
AML’s Chief Executive Officer, Joep Coenen; Chief Operation Officer, Adriaan Strydom, and other senior managers officially launched the initiative recently and reaffirmed their support and commitment to upholding the highest environmental standards.
CEO Coenen underscored the importance of the project, as its launch on November 11 coincided with the COP27 meeting on global warming which was held recently in Egypt.
He also challenged the Environmental Department and the entire AML workforce and community stakeholders to plant two new trees for every tree that is cut down. Coenen urged the Environmental Department to continue to monitor and educate employees on the effects of deforestation and climate change.
ArcelorMittal Liberia’s Environmental Manager, Alvin Poure, congratulated the CEO and other senior team members serving as role models to thousands of employees, as the department seeks to make the exercise an inclusive and participatory initiative for all AML employees.
“We have witnessed the random and indiscriminate cutting down of trees even in Yekepa for charcoal making and construction purposes. We decided to commence here in Yekepa, and in the next two years, we expect to plant not less than 12,000 trees here, and half a million trees in the next five years in the Nimba landscape.”
The tree species planted included Xylopia Vellesia, Samanca Dinklagei, Berlinia Confusa, Kola Gigantea, Albizia Ferruginea, and Ceiba Pentandra, some of which Environmental and Reforestation Officer Linda Dolo said to have medicinal properties.
Expressing support in separate remarks, Project Area Manager Miantor Suah said since his project is concerned with building the concentrator, a huge facility that will take about a hundred hectares, there is a need to replant trees that will be taken out to protect the environment and not to be left vulnerable.
Sharing a secret about nature, Chief Operation Officer Adriaan Strydom said, “There is only one thing about nature; what we take out, we must put it back. This is a good initiative. As a mining engineer, it burns my heart to root out trees, but the environmentalists are also here to put it back.”
Currently, there are several varieties of tree species in the nursery in the botanical garden of ArcelorMittal Liberia with most of them already in readiness for transplanting.
In 2011, ArcelorMittal Liberia launched a Biodiversity Conservation Program (BCP) to directly respond to the destruction of the Nimba forest. Since its inception, ArcelorMittal Liberia has invested over $5 million USD into the BCP.
The BCP utilizes a comprehensive multi-stakeholder consultation approach, ensuring engagement at various levels in order to develop and implement sustainable mitigation plans.
To achieve this, several memorandums of understanding have been signed between ArcelorMittal and the Liberian Forestry Development Authority for joint support and management of the forests in the Nimba Mountains.
Working with local communities, tailored interventions, and programming activities by ArcelorMittal Liberia to protect the environment have generated a positive impact on the conservation of the forest and the protection of threatened and endangered species in the Nimba Mountain Range.
Through the BCP, local hunters who once posed a threat to the survival of endangered species are being transformed into ambassadors for the protection of wildlife, while farmers have been trained into, and are now practicing more sustainable and environmentally friendly conservation agriculture farming techniques.
The two main components of the BCP focus on agricultural intensification and forest conservation, working with the one to achieve the other.
In forest conservation, the program assists the communities and the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) of Liberia to develop an improved model of joint forest management while the agricultural intensification activity helps farmers reduce the practice of shifting cultivation through the introduction of low-technology improvement to ensure food security.
In forest conservation, the program assists the communities and the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) of Liberia to develop an improved model of joint forest management while the agricultural intensification activity helps farmers reduce the practice of shifting cultivation through the introduction of low-technology improvement to ensure food security.
Comments are closed.