Rio Tinto will spend A$28 million to build a "toad containment zone" across 7,500 square kilometers of western Australia, working with Curtin University and others to prevent poisonous cane toads from reaching the Pilbara region where the mining company operates.
The five-year project begins in 2027. It will cut off water access between the Great Sandy Desert and the Indian Ocean by blocking dams, storage tanks and other ground-level water sources that cane toads depend on during dry months.
Cane toads were introduced to Australia in 1935 to control sugar cane beetles. They have since spread west across the country's northern landscape at 40 to 60 kilometers per year, according to the Australian government. Ben Phillips, a professor at Curtin University, said the toads would reach Pilbara within two decades without action.
Native species at risk include the northern quoll, whose numbers are decreasing, the goanna lizard and the ghost bat. The toads produce toxins lethal to these animals and have no natural predators or controlling diseases in Australia.
Roberta Hunter, a ranger in Australia's Nyangumarta Warrarn Indigenous Protected Area, said of the effort: "When toads come close to our country, we want to be there to stop them because we don't want the country to be destroyed."
Rio Tinto's involvement follows the company's 2020 decision to destroy two sacred Aboriginal rock shelters in Pilbara that sat above iron ore deposits. That decision cost the former chief executive his job and prompted Rio Tinto to commit to rebuilding trust with Indigenous communities.