Newmont Mining Corporation

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Newmont's PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara's (PTTNT) operation in Batu Hijau, Indonesia, has made great strides improving and preserving coral reef habitat in neighboring bays. Past fishing practices and natural causes severely degraded the reef over the years.

Newmont's former Minahasa mine located on the island of Sulawesi, now in closure, successfully implemented a similar program in waters around its operation to rebuild reef destroyed by illegal fishing practices using poison and explosives. Buyat Bay Book (PDF)

The man-made reefs consisting of hundreds of artificial reef balls - a mixture of sand, cement and small stones - were placed in Maluk, Benete and Jelenga bays. The reef balls replace coral reef damaged by fishing and create a habitat for aquatic life, thus enhancing the local ecosystems.

The reef balls accelerate the development and dispersion of natural coral reef, improve the habitat and increase population of marine biota such as fish, lobster, and hard and soft corals. It also helps increase the fish catch for local fishermen. The reef balls contribute to the colonization of marine animals, including feather star, nudi-branch, butterfly fish, striped catfish and surgeonfish.

Continuous monitoring of the emerging reefs ensures the project's success by guiding the placement of additional reef balls. This monitoring also provides valuable information to the marine scientists on reef development and practices.

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Newmont's Batu Hijau mine in Indonesia transports our non-toxic and sand-like mine tailing through an undersea pipeline due to the earthquake-prone region and shortage of land for disposal. After discovering and patching a leak in the pipeline in 2005, the mine began using new technology to monitor the thickness of pipeline walls to ensure it remained intact.

At least twice a year, environmental crews shut down the tailing disposal system to insert a special inspection tool into the pipeline, where it continuously emits ultrasonic sound waves that measures how long it takes for the waves to bounce off the walls. These measurements indicate variations in thickness and contour to identify worn areas along the 2.1-mile (3.4 kilometer) pipeline.

It takes 24 hours for the tool to travel through the pipeline, which takes about 80 million measurements along the way. After the tool floats to the surface, data is downloaded for analysis. Using the data, the mine can create a two- or three-dimensional topography of the pipeline, helping engineers better predict when pipe replacement or patching may be necessary.

To improve understanding and awareness of the importance of preserving the environment, Newmont's Batu Hijau operation shared lessons it had learned with 35 community leaders from Sekongkang and Jereweh Districts on waste management techniques that they could apply within their neighborhoods.

The initiative was part of the legacy the mine established in 2000 by creating Environment Day, devoted to environmental education and conservation programs for locals. Environment Day has been an effective environmental conservation program for the mine, and attracts more participants each year. Programs are held in partnership between Batu Hijau and the West Sumbawa Administration, and sponsored by a number of the mine's contractors.

"Environmental preservation would be very effective if everyone starts it in his or her own families and communities," said Grant Batterham, the operation's environmental manager.

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Our Batu Hijau operation in Indonesia collects ongoing data to monitor the marine environment. While mining operations do not impact sea turtles, egg poaching by local community members for food and trade is an ongoing concern.

Four species - the green sea turtle, hawksbill, olive ridley and leatherback - are facing extinction, partially due to lack of community education and awareness of the problem. Our operation started an initiative to increase turtle populations in the Sumbawa Barat district - a favorite spot for the turtles to lay and hatch their eggs.

Batu Hijau's staff provides turtle conservation training for local schoolchildren based on a monitoring program it has had in place since 1994. Local schools have adopted this into their curriculum with the aim of fostering generational changes toward preserving local turtle populations. In 2005, we also helped establish a cooperative coastal-conservation program led by a local NGO. Volunteers surveyed and tagged nesting turtles, and also built a community-based hatchery at the main nesting beach.

The jointly funded project, which included a $30,000 donation from the Batu Hijau mine, helped us better manage turtle conservation efforts, which culminated in the successful release of 3,500 baby turtles into the sea. The program expanded in 2006 and successfully released more than 5,500 hatchlings.

In January 2007, the program halted due to community issues at Talonang; therefore, no hatchlings were released. A redesigned turtle conservation program involving other local community groups based in Sekongkang started in the third quarter 2007, who built a new hatchery at Sekongkang with a clutch of turtle eggs incubating in this hatchery during fourth quarter. Sekongkang beach is suitable to run a hatchery and is nearby other community development projects.

The Sekongkang hatchery began to incubate turtle eggs on Dec. 26, 2007, and most of these were green turtles (Chelonia mydas). The first baby turtle hatched on Feb. 24, 2008. That year, 2,571 turtles successfully hatched; most of which were released to the sea. Ten percent of the hatchlings were kept in a display tank for educational purposes, although eventually they will be released to the sea as well. Legitmid, the local NGO that manages the hatchery, held 15 turtle release events in 2008. Visitor donations reached 2,174,000 Indonesian Rupiah. Visitors included Newmont employees, school students and community members around Sekongkang.

Newmont has also promoted sea turtle education programs for elementary and junior schools. Teachers distribute tests to students from four elementary schools with the aim of seeing the progress of students' knowledge and the capacity of teachers to teach materials at their schools.

Newmont's Batu Hijau mine in Indonesia (also known as PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, or PTNNT), transports sand-like mine tailing through an undersea pipeline due to the earthquake-prone region and shortage of land for disposal. After discovering and patching a leak in the pipeline in 2005, we began using new technology to monitor the thickness of pipeline walls to ensure it remained intact.

At least twice a year, our mine shuts down the tailing disposal system to insert a special inspection tool into the pipeline, where it continuously emits ultrasonic sound waves that measures how long it takes for sound waves to bounce off the walls. These measurements indicate variations in thickness and contour to identify worn areas along the 2.1-mile (3.4 kilometer) pipeline.

It takes 24 hours for the tool to travel through the pipeline, which takes about 80 million measurements along the way. After the tool floats to the surface, it is picked up and data is downloaded for analysis. Using the data, we can create a two- or three-dimensional topography of the pipeline, helping engineers better predict when pipe replacement or patching may be necessary.