Where are mines located in sub‐Saharan Africa and how have they expanded overtime?

Mining is a multi‐billion‐dollar industry spanning major to artisanal and small‐scale mines, with diverse local to regional socio‐economic and environmental impacts. Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) has large deposits of minerals, which has made it a global epicentre for investors in the extractive industries. Here, we identified and mapped 469 company‐owned and community‐managed mines across SSA, most of which are formal, to explore their distribution and areal extents and understand the potential threats they pose to conservation. The dominant eight commodities in SSA are gold, copper, iron, limestone, uranium, diamond, bauxite and petroleum, making up 405 mines and occupying 85% of the 3,055 km2 total areal extent. Mining significantly expanded between 2000 and 2018, with 260 (58%) new mines created and major expansion of many older mines. Hotspots of mining activity are apparent in the copper‐belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, Ghana, and the Niger‐delta region of Nigeria. These mining ‘hotspots’ are distributed in close proximity to regions of high carbon stocks and value to biodiversity conservation, with the areal extent of mines more than doubling between 2000 and 2018 to 1192 km2 within 10 km of a protected area, suggesting susceptibility to deforestation and other environmental consequences. The identification of mines and their changing spatial extent is imperative for monitoring future encroachments in SSA and to conservation and habitat recovery. Furthermore, Africa needs to introduce sustainable mineral development policies to safeguard and protect its forests, especially reducing the frequency of protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement (PADDD) events.