Shifting the Corporate Focus to Community

Posted: 16 May 2005

Representatives of communities affected by US-based mining company attend shareholder meeting.

Community representatives from five countries suffering social and environmental problems from the operations of Denver-based Newmont Mining Corporation visited its headquarters in April to bring their concerns directly to company leaders and shareholders.

In meetings with the representatives, Newmont officials made several commitments.

Newmont’s top management agreed to have regular meetings with the Western Shoshone Project to “find and develop opportunities that benefit the Western Shoshone and Newmont.” The next day, Newmont put this commitment in a letter delivered to Kristi Begay, one of the Western Shoshone’s leaders.
Peruvian representatives of the GRUFIDES organization met with Newmont officials, including CEO Wayne Murdy. At this meeting, Murdy committed to respond to the concerns raised by Father Marco Arana, the leader of GRUFIDES, about the impacts of Newmont’s Yanacocha mine on community health and livelihoods. The next day during the shareholder question-and-answer session Murdy again voiced his commitment to respond personally to Father Arana.
A meeting with Ghanaian representatives led to a commitment by Newmont to support establishment of an independent monitoring mechanism for one of its new projects in Ghana.

The representatives, from Ghana, Romania, Peru, Indonesia, and the United States are all working with Oxfam America and Earthworks on the global No Dirty Gold campaign.

Their visit coincided with Newmont’s Annual General Meeting, at which they directed questions to CEO Wayne Murdy during the question-and-answer session of the meeting. Representatives also met with other Newmont officials, and all participated in press conferences, as well as a public event on mining and social responsibility at the University of Colorado.

Shifting the Focus of the Meetings

According to Keith Slack, Oxfam America’s Senior Policy Advisor, having the community representatives at the annual general meeting drove the discussion in the shareholder meetings and influenced the media coverage. “There were extensive presentations and discussions by Newmont on issues of community and environmental responsibility, as well as in the press coverage of the event, all of which either focused on or mentioned the efforts of our partners.”

Simon Billenness, Oxfam America’s Senior Policy Advisor on Corporate Engagement, said that the meetings struck an atypical tone. “I have never heard a corporate CEO use the word ‘community’ so many times at an annual general meeting,” Billenness said afterwards.

Each of the representatives had different specific issues of concern about Newmont Mining’s operations in their community. But they shared basic interests about Newmont’s way of working and the mining industry in general. Mirtha Vasquez, from the Peruvian organization GRUFIDES currently engaged in defending the environmental rights of the community of Cajamarca, summarized her position, which was similar to her colleagues: “The population of Cajamarca is not against mining, and does not want to harm Newmont’s interests, we only want this company to be socially responsible, to resolve the problems they have caused, to respect the population and to not threaten their way of life. If this does not occur, mining will never mean the possibility of economic development, it will only be a threat to…those who live where mining occurs.”