The GISTM places a strong emphasis on community engagement, governance and independent review and it ties in with AngloGold Ashanti’s TSF monitoring system; we are in a good position in relation to compliance to the Standard.

The wall collapse at the Jagersfontein tailings storage facility (TSF) in South Africa in September 2022 has served to further underline the need to address the potential hazards around TSFs globally.

In response to the legislative changes in Brazil, which followed the Brumadinho TSF failure in 2019, our Brazilian operations began the mandatory decommissioning of existing TSFs by transitioning to filtered tailings stacking. This transition was completed during 2022.

In parallel, the team in Brazil was also required to develop and roll out an augmented TSF-related emergency preparedness protocol across all downstream communities that may be affected by a potential TSF emergency. Developing the new protocol required baseline characterisation studies to be carried out in the potentially affected areas as well as documenting livestock and domestic animals, and cultural and heritage assets in order to develop safeguards.

Extensive engagements were held with stakeholders, including employees, communities, the media, local government and a host of regulating authorities. The process also saw the completion of socio-economic studies, a communications strategy that included door-to-door information campaigns, public meetings, training, setting up a toll-free hotline, and simulated emergency system tests with communities. The experience in Brazil has been shared internally within AngloGold Ashanti operations and externally with ICMM member peers. It has also inspired the development of a company-wide TSF EPRP protocol, leveraging learnings from Brazil that can sensibly be applied across AngloGold Ashanti operations.