The biodiversity program initiated by Vale's Sudbury operations picked up a national award from the Mining Association of Canada on Monday at the 2018 CIM Convention in Vancouver.
The Towards Sustainable Mining Environmental Excellence Award was presented to Vale for the programs it has in place to support regreening and land reclamation efforts to undo decades of ecological damage from mining and smelting operations.
"The program has been successful because of a sustained commitment to community collaboration and an innovative approach to environmental stewardship," said Lisa Lanteigne, environment manager for Vale's Ontario Operations.
Specific work that led to the award included:
• Growing more than 300,000 trees annually in its greenhouse for planting throughout the City of Greater Sudbury;
• Investing $250,000 and donating 50,000 tree seedlings annually to the City of Greater Sudbury's Biodiversity Action Plan;
• Promoting pollination by raising bees on its Smelter property along Highway 55 in Sudbury and planting milkweed for monarch butterflies, which are great pollinators;
• Seeding hundreds of acres each year by air through an aerial seeding program that has reclaimed approximately 8,000 acres since 1990; and
• Raising and releasing more than 100,000 fish to date into local waterways through a comprehensive fish-stocking program.
Vale showcases "what best practice looks like in our sector, whether it be spurring local economic development and entrepreneurship in communities where they operate or adopting innovative methods to restore mining areas back to nature," said Pierre Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada.
Vale's Ontario Operations was also acknowledged as a finalist for the TSM Community Engagement Excellence Award for funding and supporting the City of Greater Sudbury's new emergency mass notification service, Sudbury Alerts.
