Biodiversity
protection

Our approach

Without responsible practices, mining activities contribute to biodiversity loss, which affects wildlife, economic activities and people who depend on natural resources. This is compounded by climate change – a main driver of biodiversity loss.

Exxaro's biodiversity management plans guide our efforts in the protection and conservation of biodiversity-rich ecosystems within mining right areas. These ecosystems include the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, threatened and protected species, and invasive plants (categories 1a, 2 and 3).

Our biodiversity management plans incorporate:

• Biodiversity protection initiatives: Relocation and conservation programmes, invasive plant eradication, and wetland and pan research
• Monitoring, measuring and reporting data and performance: Environmental and social impact assessments before we mine, biomonitoring and environmental incident reporting
• The goals of our Social Impact strategy: Contributing to livelihoods through job creation and learning opportunities

We are reviewing and updating our biodiversity management plans following the review of our ESG policy and the implementation of the TNFD recommendations.

Exxaro complies with the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, 2004 (Act 10 of 2004) in our approach to biodiversity protection.

Cennergi manages biodiversity at its facilities with an environmental management programme. This approach aligns with the Equator Principles and the IFC’s Performance Standard 6 (IFC PS6) guidelines on biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of living natural resources. Cennergi’s biodiversity monitoring and mitigation plan aims to achieve no net loss of biodiversity.

Recognising that we need to address climate change and biodiversity loss simultaneously, we adopt nature-based solutions that enable biodiversity protection and restoration as part of our response to climate change (Climate change adaptation and resilience).

Biodiversity protection initiatives

Relocation and conservation programmes

Grootegeluk & Manketti Game Reserve conservation

Our 22 000ha Manketti Game Reserve optimises land use and the sustainability of Grootegeluk by maintaining the ecological balance of the prescribed area and managing land not impacted by mining operations. The game reserve generates income from commercial hunting, game trading and accommodation at Manketti Lodge.

In 2023, Grootegeluk completed the second monitoring cycle for the six seasonal pans created in 2021. The monitoring results continue to be promising, and show improvement in diversity of the invertebrate and dragonfly communities.

Dullstroom Birds of Prey

Matla and Belfast: African grass owl and bat protection

Exxaro manages a large area of open grassland that provides a unique opportunity to protect suitable habitat for the African grass owl. In partnership with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, our monitoring and protection plan enables us to actively manage the grass-owl population to ensure mining and associated activities do not impact the population.

We assist the Dullstroom Birds of Prey Centre with the safe and controlled release of grass owls and bats in the Belfast Mine conservation area. The centre rescues, raises and rehabilitates orphaned or injured birds, and releases them back into their natural habitat.

Owl boxes and bat banks are installed to create a balance within the ecosystem along the Klein Komati River and surrounding agricultural areas. Grass owls help control vlei rat populations and bats reduce insect species that are considered pests in local communities.

Preventing bird and bat fatalities

Cennergi’s bat curtailment programme at Amakhala Emoyeni aims to reduce fatalities through proactive monitoring. Cennergi employs local carcass search companies to monitor bird and bat fatalities in accordance with the South African bird and bat wind energy facilities guidelines. The avifauna specialists prepare the semi-annual bird and bat monitoring reports submitted to lenders, BirdLife Africa, Endangered Wildlife Trust, the DFFE and other relevant authorities.

Cape vulture management

Cennergi supports the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Eastern Cape vulture safe zone research at Amakhala Emoyeni.
This programme aims to reduce Cape vulture fatalities at operating and proposed wind energy facilities. It also stabilises the local population by addressing threats in the safe zone. It is the first habitat safe for vultures within wind energy facilities and the surrounding landscape.

Cape vultures have incredible eyesight that allows them to spot animal carcasses from about 6km away. To minimise collisions with wind turbines, we implement the on-site Cape vulture food management programme, which entails removing livestock and wildlife carcasses.

The Greater Kromme Stewardship (GKS) initiative

The GKS, established by the Tsitsikamma community windfarm, Jeffery Bay windfarm, Oyster Bay and Gibson Bay windfarms together with the Kromme Enviro-Trust, is a response to the environmental impact of wind energy farms within the Greater Kromme area. The initiative aims to create safe havens in the district for valuable plants, animals and habits as part of a biodiversity stewardship approach.

Biodiversity stewardship allows ordinary people to become responsible stewards of the natural spaces they own through a legal process of declaring nature reserves on private land, either for a whole property or just an environmentally significant part of a property.

To date, a total of four new protected nature reserves have been declared and two are in the final stages of being declared. Since its inception six years ago, the initiative has been widely recognised for securing more priority land for conservation in the Kouga region than any other independent conservation body in the last 50 years.

Invasive alien plant eradication

Exxaro monitors, controls and eradicates invasive alien plant species on our sites to improve water quality and prevent surface water runoff, contribute to flourishing indigenous vegetation, increase species diversity, and conserve availability of productive land.

We aim to prevent:

• Biodiversity decline
• Fauna changes impacting feeding or nesting of indigenous animals
• Extinction of indigenous species due to genetic pool loss (pine, wattle and hakea trees prevent fynbos species growth)
• Greater risk of catastrophic events (fire and flooding) due to ecological imbalance
• Lower productivity of rangeland due to selective grazing
• Soil erosion and dam and river siltation due to invasive alien species consuming more water than indigenous flora
• Sandy and nitrogen-poor natural soil

Exxaro also provides training through an external service provider, equipping community members with the knowledge and skills to contribute to invasive alien plant eradication.

We implement invasive alien plant eradication in three stages:

	Stage 1 Development of invader species management plan	Stage 2 Physical implementation (removal of invader species)	Stage 3 Maintenance (eradication of invaders on rehabilitated land)
Mpumalanga
Belfast
Leeuwpan
Matla
Limpopo
Grootegeluk
Tshikondeni

Completed

To start in 2024

Ongoing

Since 2016, full-time local SMMEs have successfully managed Cennergi's invasive alien plant control programme.

Wetland rehabilitation and pan research

We monitor and evaluate our wetland rehabilitation activities to ensure on-site mitigation measures deliver anticipated returns.

Monitoring, measuring and reporting

Exxaro employs an external service provider to conduct aquatic, terrestrial habitat and wetland health biomonitoring as part of our WULs for Grootegeluk, Belfast, Matla, Leeuwpan, Tshikondeni and Thabametsi. We measure biological indicators to assess the condition of wetlands, riverine and terrestrial ecosystems. This includes evaluating the physical and chemical characteristics of an ecosystem. Monitoring takes place during wet and dry seasons.

Each operation has a biodiversity plan with procedures that guide how inspections, audits and biomonitoring programmes should be conducted.

Biomonitoring includes assessing our river systems’ health to ensure mining operations do not cause any harm to these systems. Monitoring guides the mines on how to mitigate or manage any impacts identified. The ultimate outcome of the biomonitoring programmes is to protect these water resources and increase water availability and species diversity.

As part of biomonitoring, certain parameters are sampled and sent to an independent laboratory. The results are analysed and give an indication of management actions that must be implemented to improve wetland biodiversity. These actions are tracked to ensure improved compliance and ecosystems health.

We are also setting targets and developing KPIs for our BUs, which we aim to complete by the end of 2024. Detailed procedures and KPIs will ensure we honour our commitments.

We discuss this under environmental incident reporting.

Case study:

Partnering for environmental stewardship

Exxaro collaborates with the Dullstroom Bird of Prey Centre on a biodiversity intervention through the rehabilitation and soft release of birds of prey.

Through this partnership, Exxaro allocated a site within the designated conservation area at Belfast Mine to facilitate the soft release of selected species, providing the ideal habitat characteristics for these raptors. The birds are placed in a semi-natural environment, constructed by a local SMME from Emakhazeni, that provides protection and access to food, allowing gradual acclimation to the wild to aid full independence.

The overarching objectives of this collaboration are to increase the biodiversity of the Belfast conservation area, aid the conservation of red-listed species and contribute towards Exxaro’s ESG mandate.

This partnership embodies our commitment to environmental stewardship and preserving our natural heritage.

Our performance

We focused on monitoring our wetland rehabilitation areas this year, with rehabilitation of new areas planned for the 2024 financial year.

Belfast

We monitored and managed rehabilitated wetland areas. Part of wetland rehabilitation management is to eradicate alien invasive species plants. A local community contractor was appointed for invasive alien plant eradication. Exxaro provided the contractor with training, equipment and start-up capital, and assisted the contractor to register as a co-operative.

Belfast planted 100 Searsia Lancea trees on the mine rehabilitated surfaces for carbon sequestration, carbon credit and/or carbon offset purposes.

Matla

An indigenous forest was established at Matla when 100 indigenous trees were planted at the new Mine 1 shaft area. Other than having an impact on local biodiversity, the trees also serve as a wind break, improving the visual impact of the shaft as well as improving the air quality in the area.

Grootegeluk

We plan to relocate any baboon spiders and other species of concern that will be impacted by the expansion of the pit area in 2024 and 2025. The relevant permits for this will be obtained as part of the process.

The service provider will be appointed in the first half of 2024 and should commence with the invasive alien plant eradication in the second half of 2024.

Tshikondeni

The local community conducted invasive alien species control through Exxaro’s partnership with the Impact Catalyst.
The community cleared 1 429.56ha.

Cennergi

No red data mortalities were recorded at Tsitsikamma (2022: none). No secretary bird (sagittarius serpentarius) fatalities were recorded at Amakhala Emoyeni (2022: one).

Unfortunately, one Cape vulture fatality was recorded (2022: one), one immature martial eagle (polemaetus bellicosus) and one blue crane (grus paradisea) fatality was recorded at Amakhala Emoyeni (2022: none).

The martial eagle is a regionally and globally endangered species and the blue crane is classified as “near threatened” regionally and “vulnerable” globally. Both birds are priority species at Amakhala Emoyeni with a fatality threshold of zero in terms of the adopted biodiversity monitoring and mitigation plan.

In collaboration with the Endangered Wildlife Trust and International Finance Corporation, Cennergi is exploring an offset opportunity for Cape vultures through the Cape vulture safe zone project, and WildSkies is investigating approaches to reduce cumulative impact on blue cranes.

A bat curtailment programme was implemented at Amakhala Emoyeni between October 2022 and May 2023. The bat fatality threshold was not exceeded for the monitoring period and, as a result, the programme will not need to curtail turbines during the October 2023 and May 2024 period. However, the need for curtailment will be informed by the new bat fatality data from the fatality monitoring programme.