Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Am Kirchtor 1, 06108 Halle, Germany.
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Puschstrasse 4, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Sci Adv. 2024 Apr 5;10(14):eadl0335. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adl0335. Epub 2024 Apr 3.
The rapid growth of clean energy technologies is driving a rising demand for critical minerals. In 2022 at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), seven major economies formed an alliance to enhance the sustainability of mining these essential decarbonization minerals. However, there is a scarcity of studies assessing the threat of mining to global biodiversity. By integrating a global mining dataset with great ape density distribution, we estimated the number of African great apes that spatially coincided with industrial mining projects. We show that up to one-third of Africa's great ape population faces mining-related risks. In West Africa in particular, numerous mining areas overlap with fragmented ape habitats, often in high-density ape regions. For 97% of mining areas, no ape survey data are available, underscoring the importance of increased accessibility to environmental data within the mining sector to facilitate research into the complex interactions between mining, climate, biodiversity, and sustainability.
清洁能源技术的快速发展推动了对关键矿产的需求不断增长。2022 年，在《生物多样性公约》第十五次缔约方大会（COP15）上，七个主要经济体结成联盟，以提高这些脱碳关键矿产的可持续性。然而，评估矿业活动对全球生物多样性威胁的研究却很少。我们将全球矿业数据集与大型类人猿密度分布相结合，估计了在空间上与工业矿业项目重叠的非洲大型类人猿的数量。研究结果表明，多达三分之一的非洲大型类人猿面临与矿业相关的风险。特别是在西非，许多矿业区与分散的类人猿栖息地重叠，而这些栖息地通常位于类人猿高密度区域。对于 97%的矿业区，都没有类人猿调查数据，这凸显了矿业部门内增加环境数据可及性的重要性，以促进对矿业、气候、生物多样性和可持续性之间复杂相互作用的研究。
