Topography
The Nimba Mountains emerge abruptly from lowlands, with extreme slopes, rising over 1,200m.
Climate
The weather fluctuates across the year between intense rainfall and storms, and heat and drought.
Biological Diversity
The Nimba Mountains harbour an extraordinary diversity of species and ecosystems.
The Nimba Mountains are characterised by intense rain and fog in the wet season, a hot dusty dry season, and windy storms during the transitions between wet and dry seasons.
These conditions and the mountains’ extreme topography and age have led to the evolution of an extraordinary diversity of fauna, flora and ecosystems. These conditions present major challenges for SMFG as it designs and engineers the Project to this unique context. SMFG has adopted the unusual approach, for a mining project, where design starts by considering the constraints first, and then designs the project within them.