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Freeport-McMoRan Enhances Pollinator Habitats While Providing Educational Opportunities

GLOBE- Since 2011, Freeport-McMoRan’s Pollinator Conservation Initiative has worked to increase habitat relied upon by pollinators, while providing learning opportunities for all ages through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

More than a dozen Freeport-McMoRan sites throughout North America have implemented pollinator conservation and education projects both on and off company properties. In the past year, staff reached 1,500 students and community members through pollinator-focused education and outreach activities, including Earth Day celebrations, pollinator education workshops and hands-on planting events in the field. These types of programs have been recognized through the Wildlife Habitat Council’s Conservation Certification program.

The Pollinator Conservation Initiative has resulted in success stories companywide.

Poppies. Courtesy Photo

At Freeport-McMoRan’s Miami operations in Arizona, the site maintains a pollinator garden that hosts not only a diversity of native wildflowers, but provides a butterfly puddle (a water source) and a bee block for wood-nesting solitary bees. Invasive plant species are regularly managed using best management practices in consultation with conservation experts. The garden also serves as an outdoor classroom for students to learn about relevant STEM topics.

The company’s Copper Queen Branch in Bisbee and Sierrita operations near Tucson have each taken a different approaches to pollinator conservation by collaborating with schools in their communities to establish native wildflower gardens on school grounds.

In addition, numerous operations utilize their reclamation areas to promote pollinator and wildlife habitat. A diversity of native plants – comprising grasses, forbs, wildflowers, woody shrubs and trees – are included in sites’ reclamation seed mix to bolster ecosystem diversity, structure and function.

To learn more about how Freeport-McMoRan promotes opportunities to conserve and enhance wildlife resources in the areas in which they operate, please visit us. 

 

To read more on pollinators, see our April article: Pollinator Projects to Lift the Spirit, by Patricia Sanders

 

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