Landscape Scale Planning in Extractive Sector

Landscape-scale Planning in the Extractives Sector – GEMMx Workshop

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Key Points from Small Group Discussions

Who can credibly initiate an integrated planning process?

  1. Very context dependent – may need a combination of players to address credibility with all constituents
  2. Indigenous peoples have initiated processes, but they are often not recognized and sometimes when people assert their plan/demands, they are criminalized or killed
  3. Government has a responsibility to initiate and engage, but where the government is not trusted or trustworthy, this is often not possible
  4. Those who initiate ideally need to have the influence, resources, capacity to shape the process well
  5. Political willingness is key
  6. Credibility of the organization may hinge on where they get their money

How should they go about it?

  1. Relationships should start well before the project begins
  2. Within a framework for planning and decision making that…
    • Is inclusive of everyone from all parties involved
    • Includes agreed upon terms for gathering information, planning, and decision making
    • Communicates information in an understandable way
    • Includes agreement on who and how to collect, communicate, manage, and own data
    • Includes the ability to effectively close a site as part of the discussion of the acceptability of opening a site
  3. Collaboration is important – among all players and in the design of the decision making process
    • Power balance issue – described as communities being concerned that the process will only arrive at a “yes”, want assurance there is the possibility of arriving at “no” ; likewise, companies want assurance that communities are willing to engage, and not reject the project out of hand.
    • All the participants need to see each other as having a legitimate role in the process – having legitimate voices on the issues at hand
  4. Need for mentoring and capacity development for data collection
  5. Need for Free prior informed and continuing consent
  6. Need to build confidence, which requires time, money, and energy
  7. Need for industry to coordinate among nearby sites – who can lead this process?

What innovations in information collection and sharing can apply at a regional scale? 

  1. Data collection process should be:
    • Collective
    • Based on trusting relationships
    • Within context of agreed upon information-sharing protocols
  2. Important for information to be accessible and understandable to all
  3. GIS as a promising way to organize and present information
  4. Agreements about organization and accessibility of information should be reached in advance of landscape planning processes

3 thoughts on “Landscape Scale Planning in Extractive Sector”

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