Abstract

Central African countries such as Gabon are free from significant biological, mining, gas and oil resources, the exploitation of which is accompanied by negative social, economic and environmental impacts. For this country, the problem is how to reconcile the exploitation of mineral wealth, the protection of the environment, the conservation of biodiversity and the preservation of the integrity of the populations? In this article, we examine the case of Gabon by highlighting the particularity of this country, its mining status, the main lines of the evolution of its mining history and a sketch of the negative social, economic and environmental impacts as detailed in many works. After these steps and after having identified the limits of the solutions that have been applied to date to minimize these impacts, we propose an alternative likely to promote mining in line with the sustainable development objectives of this country. A sub-Saharan African country of 267,667km2, crossed in the middle by the equator and located on the Atlantic coast in the Gulf of Guinea, Gabon is a former French colony, independent since 1960. It is a sparsely populated country with 1,811,079 inhabitants (RGPL-2013). 87% of its population is concentrated in cities which represent only 1.1% of the territory. It is a forest, oil and mining country committed to the preservation of the environment and climate change adaptation or mitigation. The exploitation of mineral wealth (manganese, niobium, gold and uranium) represents just over 6.2% of exports for a contribution of 5% to GDP. The mining research work carried out within an institutional framework or by private companies confirms the strong mining potential of Gabon’s subsoil. Gabon is therefore a country of mining production in which projects are currently being developed for iron, manganese, talc, potash and other evaporites, phosphate carbonatite, niobium, rare earths, gold and diamond.