Mining Industry Perspectives on Handling Community Grievances: Summary and Analysis of Industry Interviews

Abstract

The global economic crisis is an acute reminder of the fact that the decisions and actions of private sector actors have an impact on a range of individuals and groups in society beyond their shareholders or commercial partners - namely, on their external stakeholders. This is true of all corporate sectors. But perhaps no sector has a more direct and tangible impact on its external stakeholders than the extractive sector. Extractive companies are typically working in locations where they are taking over or operating near land and property belonging to communities, affecting water usage in the area and other environmental resources, bringing jobs and opportunities into the area, relocating families, affecting artisanal miners, generating public revenues and so on. These various impacts of extractives projects may be positive or negative, but they are never neutral. They therefore frequently engender tensions, conflict, grievances and disputes, and all the more so where there is a history of conflict in the region, independent of the industry, as is often the case.