Environmental Assessment
Volume C-4.2
Slurry Pipeline
Fauna
Ambatovy Project
99
January 2006
regional planning process determines that there is an advantage to
leaving them in place. The road along the slurry pipeline and associated
access routes and bridges that have been constructed will usually be left
in place, but could be decommissioned, depending on the decision of
local stakeholders and government planners at the time of closure.
Impact Analysis
Site Clearing
The area of new disturbance for the slurry pipeline will be 936 ha (Table 4.2-2).
This value does not include side access roads to the proposed pipeline route,
worker camps and laydown areas as the location of these ancillary features has
not been finalized. Due to fine-tuning of the route, the largest impacts from the
slurry pipeline will occur in previously disturbed habitats. Of the 936 ha that will
be disturbed, less than 5% will occur in primary, undisturbed habitats.
Table 4.2-2 Change (%) in Habitat Area as a Result of Site Clearing Within the
Slurry Pipeline Local Study Area
Habitat Type
Baseline Case
(ha)
Impact Case
(ha)
Change
(ha)
Change
(%)
azonal forest
81
81
0
0
transitional forest
187
182
-5
-2.7
degraded zonal forest
1,537
1,484
-53
-3.4
primary zonal forest
1,403
1,380
-23
-1.6
marsh edge
26
26
0
0
wetlands
406
401
-5
-1.2
water
128
128
0
0
coastal shrubland/ grassland complex
(a)
297
293
-4
-1.3
clearing/tavy
30,778
29,978
-800
-2.6
pasture
308
306
-2
-0.6
rice paddies
278
269
-9
-3.2
woodlot/plantation
693
658
-35
-5.1
other
(b)
153
153
0
0
total
36,275
35,339
-936
-2.6
(a)
Includes beach ridge habitat type.
(b)
Includes industrial sites, quarries, railway, roads and villages.
Herpetofaunal species richness was greatest in the primary zonal forest habitats
surveyed in the slurry pipeline LSA, with much lower richness in the other
habitats, particularly disturbed. Although the habitats were not recorded for each
bird species, over 80% of bird species recorded in LSA are forest-dwelling
species. Therefore, the greatest potential impacts of pipeline construction will be
to species that occupy forest habitats. The pipeline route has been fine-tuned to
