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On an open-pit mine, the slope is rarely the headline. It is the haul road, the pit wall, the bench that everyone assumes will simply hold, until, without warning, it doesn't. For the geotechnical engineers, mine planners and safety officers who carry that responsibility, the job is to make sure the ground never gets the chance to surprise anyone. It is a mission that demands more efficiency and more safety at the same time, with less room for environmental or community impact than ever before.

Maccaferri has spent decades inside that exact pressure point. Rather than positioning itself as a supplier of rockfall barriers and mesh, the company has built its mining division around a harder and more useful proposition: understanding why slopes fail, and engineering a response calibrated to that specific failure mode rather than a generic industry default.

The pattern Maccaferri's engineers see repeated across African mine sites is a familiar one. A mesh or barrier gets installed once, treated as a completed task rather than a living system and nobody circles back to ask whether it was ever rated for the impact energy the slope can actually produce. The rockfall event that follows is rarely a surprise to the geology, only to the people who assumed the job was already done.

Maccaferri's mining portfolio is built to close that gap. Its rockfall protection range, including dynamic and static barriers, high-strength drape mesh such as MacMat HS, and steel netting systems like MacArmour and SteelGrid is specified against real trajectory modelling and hazard characterisation, not off a catalogue. Alongside it sits Maccaferri's broader geosynthetics and earth-retention offering, including TerraMesh for slope and retaining wall stabilisation, and its HELLOMAC IoT platform, which lets mines monitor protection systems and geohazards continuously rather than trusting a single installation to hold indefinitely.

The work typically runs in three stages: understanding the hazard through rock mass characterisation and trajectory modelling before any product is chosen; engineering a response matched precisely to the energy and geometry of the slope in question; and sustaining that protection through ongoing monitoring so the system stays calibrated to a mine site that never stops changing.

What that adds up to, beyond any single barrier or mesh system, is a standard of care Maccaferri applies consistently, one where operational efficiency and responsible, sustainable engineering aren't treated as competing priorities, but as the same objective seen from two angles. It's a standard that translates directly into why Maccaferri is bringing that expertise to the stage at Slope Stability X26.

At SSX26

Maccaferri's session, "Rockfall Mitigation Solutions: Innovative Systems for Slope Stabilization, Hazard Protection and Infrastructure Resilience," takes place on Day 1 at 14h00.

The session will be presented by Blaise Trevyn Jacob, Head of Sales for Central and Southern Africa and lead of the Rockfall Mitigation Business at Maccaferri Africa. A civil engineer with more than a decade of experience spanning technical engineering, business development and strategic leadership, Blaise progressed from a specialised geosynthetics and rockfall mitigation internship in Italy through to senior management at Maccaferri Africa. He holds a BSc in Civil Engineering and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Practice, and is currently completing his MBA.

Delegates and partners can also connect with the Maccaferri team on the exhibition floor throughout SSX26 to discuss site-specific slope protection challenges.

For more on Maccaferri's mining sector solutions, visit https://www.maccaferri.com/za/applications/rockfall-protection-snow-barriers