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NOTE: CMCA Review CompletedThe Ok Tedi Mine CMCA Review officially ended on 29 June 2007 with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement by the parties. This concluded an 18-month process involving 500 meetings and many thousands of people from 150 villages. This project website will continue to be maintained and provided with updates as the actions arising from the review are put in place. All major documents from the review as well as updates on implementing the MoA can be found in the downloads section. What is the CMCA review?
The Ok Tedi mine is located in the remote Star Mountains of the western-most border of Papua New Guinea, in south-east Asia. It is a copper mine that disposes of its mill tailings and waste rock to the river system. It is a method that had imposed considerable environmental impacts on the Ok Tedi and Fly River systems that receive the mine waste. These environmental impacts have also had a high impact on many of the communities living along the Ok Tedi and Fly River. In 2001, the mine's operating company, Ok Tedi mining Limited (OTML), negotiated new agreements for compensation for those impacts in return for their consent to continue operating the mine. This consent from about 50,000 people living below the mine was granted within the context of the mine's social and economic impacts. Papua New Guinea is a developing nation, and the Ok Tedi mine is the single greatest contributer to both the national and Western Province economies. The environmental impacts pose a dilemma for the mining company, the affected communities, and the governing bodies that both regulate the environment and benefit from the mine's income. The consent to continue mining and the terms of compensation were struck in the Community Mine Continuation Agreements (CMCAs). The agreements, signed on behalf of the communities, are subject to review in five years, and if the predictions of impacts on which they were based changed the communities and the company are able to sit down to discuss revised compensation. The agreements are due for review by the end of 2006. OTML has communicated with the communities downriver from the mine about the review and provided more information about greater impacts than previously predicted for a number of the CMCA regions. OTML has put in place a consultation process to enable this review to happen. The review was developed to reflect OTML's Charter and to embody the following Guiding Principles :
A consultation process was designed in consultation with community leaders from the nine CMCA regions that would allow the parties to the CMCAs to review the agreements, and negotiate new compensation in regions where the impacts were predicted to be greater. A full copy of the Guiding Principles and more information on the consultation process can found on the downloads page. Why "wanbelistap.com"?"Wanbelistap" is a Tok Pisin (most common Papua New Guinean language) expression that roughly means, "we are together on this journey". It can mean that, "while I may not be there with you physically, I am there is spirit, and will be there when it is done". This website is intended to support the CMCA review process principles by providing an independent forum for disseminating communication materials used in the process, and in particular, embed the principle of transparency. It is one of a range of communication tools being used in the process to inform people interested in it of what the decision-making process is, what decisions are being made and by whom and where the decision-making process is at. This means that www.wanbelistap.com is both an instrument of the process's principles, and provides a means for interested stakeholders to be "together on this journey". The site will be updated with minutes, reports and communication materials generated as part of the process on a regular basis. External feedback is welcome, and contact details can be found here. |
