Simandou is a range of hills located in the

Nzérékoré Nzérékoré (N’ko: , Adlam: ; also spelled N'Zérékoré) is the second-largest city in Guinea by population after the capital, Conakry, and the largest city in the Guinée forestière region of southeastern Guinea. The city is the capital of ...

and

Kankan Kankan ( Mandingo: Kánkàn; N’ko: ߞߊ߲ߞߊ߲߫) is the largest city in Guinea in land area, and the third largest in population, with a population of 1 980 130 people as of 2020. The city is located in eastern Guinea about east of the ...

regions of southeastern

Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...

, in the country's mountainous, forested ''

Guinée Forestière Guinée forestière (Forested Guinea) is a forested mountainous region in southeastern Guinea, extending into northeastern Sierra Leone. It is one of four natural regions into which Guinea is divided and covers 23% of the country. It includes a ...

'' region. At the southern end of the range the site of a large

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

deposit is currently being developed.

Geography

The Simandou Range extends north and south, it is located east of Banankoro and

Kérouané Kérouané is a town located in southeastern Guinea. It is the capital of Kérouané Prefecture. As of 2014 it had a population of 36,355 people. Mining investment in the region is ongoing, funded through the Tigui Mining Group, owned by Tigui Ca ...

, from southern

Kankan Region The Kankan region now has more than 6,167,904 inhabitants (2021) the most popular region of Guinea The region has five (5) prefectures (Kankan, Kérouané, Kouroussa, Mandiana and Siguiri), 53 sub-prefectures, 5 urban communes, 53 rural commun ...

into northern

Nzérékoré Region The Nzérékoré Region ( nqo, ߒߛߙߍߜߍ߬ߘߍ߫ ߕߌ߲߬ߞߎߘߎ߲) is a region in the southern part of Guinea. Its capital and largest city is Nzérékoré. It is one of the eight regions of Guinea. It is bordered by the countries of Sierr ...

. The highest point is Pic de Fon, elevation , in the southern portion of the range. Other peaks include Pic de Tibé, elevation , is located at the center of the range, and Pic de Going, , to the north.

Geology

The Simandou Range consists of a sequence of deformed

itabirite Itabirite, also known as banded-quartz hematite and hematite schist, is a laminated, metamorphosed oxide-facies iron formation in which the original chert or jasper bands have been recrystallized into megascopically distinguishable grains of quar ...

phyllite Phyllite ( ) is a type of foliated metamorphic rock created from slate that is further metamorphosed so that very fine grained white mica achieves a preferred orientation.Stephen Marshak ''Essentials of Geology'', 3rd ed. It is primarily compo ...

s, and

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

s within

Proterozoic The Proterozoic () is a geological eon spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8million years ago. It is the most recent part of the Precambrian "supereon". It is also the longest eon of the Earth's geologic time scale, and it is subdivided ...

basement rocks In geology, basement and crystalline basement are crystalline rocks lying above the mantle and beneath all other rocks and sediments. They are sometimes exposed at the surface, but often they are buried under miles of rock and sediment. The baseme ...

.http://www.hemscott.com/servlet/HsPublic?context=ir.access&ir_option=RNS_NEWS&item=64497524081696&ir_client_id=1245&transform=newsitem Rio Tinto - Iron ore resources, Simandou, Republic of Guinea, Rio Tinto News Announcement RNS Number 4634V, 29 May 2008, Accessed 12.12.2010

Ecology and natural history

The Simandou Range is an important area of conservation for the Guinean forest ecosystem of West Africa, one of the world's biologically richest and most endangered terrestrial ecosystems. The

Upper Guinean forests The Upper Guinean forests is a tropical seasonal forest region of West Africa. The Upper Guinean forests extend from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana to Togo in the east, and a few hundred kilometers inl ...

ecosystem, of which the Simandou Range forms part of, extends across southern Guinea,

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

, southern

Côte d’Ivoire Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

, and western

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

. It is believed to have once covered as much as , but over centuries of human activity, nearly 70 percent of the original forest cover has disappeared, leaving isolated patches of different forest types that host ecological communities of exceptional diversity and numerous endemic species. GDA (Global Development Alliance) Promotes Forest Conservation, Community Development, USAID Guinea, 20 April 2004, Accessed 11.12.2010 The variety of habitats found in the Simandou Range include humid Guinean

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

Western Guinean lowland forest The Western Guinean lowland forests ecoregion (WWF #AT0130) is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion of West Africa. It is centered on Liberia, with portions in surrounding countries. It is the westernmost tropical rainforest in Africa, an ...

montane Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

and

gallery forests A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

, and the rare and endangered West African

montane grassland Montane grasslands and shrublands is a biome defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The biome includes high elevation grasslands and shrublands around the world. The term "montane" in the name of the biome refers to "high elevation", rather than th ...

habitat. The Pic de Fon forest at the southern end of the range is a relatively intact area of approximately 25,600 ha that contains many typical flora and fauna of the

Guinean montane forests The Guinean montane forests are a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion of West Africa. The ecoregion occupies the portions of the Guinea Highlands lying above 600 meters elevation, extending across portions of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia ...

ecosystem, including endangered species such as the

Nimba otter shrew The Nimba otter shrew (''Micropotamogale lamottei'') is a dwarf otter shrew and belongs to the mammal family Potamogalidae. Otter shrews are shrew-like afrotherian mammals found in sub-Saharan Africa. They are most closely related to the tenrecs ...

(''Micropotamogale lamottei''), the

West African chimpanzee The western chimpanzee, or West African chimpanzee, (''Pan troglodytes verus'') is a Critically Endangered subspecies of the common chimpanzee. It inhabits western Africa, specifically Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Guine ...

(''Pan troglodytes verus''), the

Diana monkey The Diana monkey (''Cercopithecus diana'') is an Old World monkey found in the high canopy forests in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and western Côte d’Ivoire. Named for its white brow which is said to resemble the bow of the Roman goddess Diana, thi ...

(''Cercopithecus diana diana'') and the

Sierra Leone prinia The Sierra Leone prinia (''Schistolais leontica''), also known as the white-eyed prinia, is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is found in Ivory Coast, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Its natural habitat is thickets and fore ...

(''Schistolais leontica''), a bird of the West African highlands known from only three other sites in the world. Frog ''

Hylarana fonensis ''Amnirana fonensis'' is a species of frog in the family Ranidae. It is endemic to Simandou, Guinea. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed h ...

'' is known from nowhere else. The area has so far been protected by relative isolation but its

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

is now threatened by the encroachment of agriculture, unregulated

bush meat Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are hunted for human consumption, most often referring to the meat of game in Africa. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity for inhabitants of humid tro ...

hunting,

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

, uncontrolled bush fires, road development, destructive mining operations by foreign companies and human population growth. Government agencies' lack of capacity to enforce environmental legislation increases the threat.

Land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...

conflicts and ecologically destructive

subsistence farming Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...

practices (

slash and burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegeta ...

agriculture), exacerbated by poverty, also pose problems for the environment. The range has two classified forests: Pic de Fon, designated in 1953, with an area of 256 km², and Pic de Tibé, designated in 1945, with an area of 60.75 km².

Mining

Simandou has the potential to become the site of the largest integrated iron-ore mine and infrastructure project ever developed in Africa, consisting of a large new source of iron ore and creating a 650 km new railway to the Guinean coast at Matakong. However, the potentially lucrative blocks I and II were mired for several years later in litigation of possible corruption. This corruption, which occurred through the use of bribery involved two Western foreign companies -

Rio Tinto Rio Tinto, meaning "red river", may refer to: Businesses * Rio Tinto (corporation), an Anglo-Australian multinational mining and resources corporation ** Rio Tinto Alcan, based in Canada ** Rio Tinto Borax in America *** Rio Tinto Borax Mine, a ...

, a British-Australian company and BSGR. Around 2015, the mining project seemed to have been sidelined due to dwindling global iron demand. However, a version of the full original mining project was re-instated in late 2019 and confirmed in 2020 with the signing of a new agreementSMB-Winning consortium deal
/ref> with the Chinese company SMB-Winning.

Namesake

There is a town of the same name in nearby Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). This town is not to be confused with Siamandou further to the west.

References

External links

Rio Tinto Simandou website home page
accessed 25 December 2010

accessed 25 December 2010 * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080613081112/http://www.riotintoironore.com/ENG/operations/301_simandou.asp Rio Tinto Iron Ore website Simandou page accessed 25 December 2010
"Mining Groups Target West Africa", by William Macnamara, FT.com, 18.5.2010
site accessed 25 December 2010, page now behind payscreen * {{WWF ecoregion, id=at0114, name=Guinean montane forests, accessdate=12 December 2010 Afromontane Mountain ranges of Guinea Guinean montane forests Rail transport in Guinea