Culture and Heritage

Intro

Culture and heritage are fundamental to the identity of many communities and damage to heritage sites can cause strong feelings in the affected community with social, political and legal opposition a not uncommon end result.

Irrespective of the nature of the business enterprise, good cultural heritage management is critical to obtaining permission to access land and contributes to the strength of the relationship between a company and a community.

When it is all said and done a community is more likely to have a positive view of a company if they see evidence that the company values what is important to them.

Guide

Guide to Cultural Heritage

WHY CULTURAL HERITAGE MATTERS:

Culture and heritage are fundamental to the identity of many communities. We know from the not so distant history of large-scale industrial development that ineffective management of cultural and heritage concerns can lead to conflict and that damage to heritage sites is likely to cause strong feelings, with social, political and legal opposition an all too common result. Using good practices early is particularly important and is critical if you need community permission to access land for development. Starting well will have a big influence the quality of your long-term relationships, the effectiveness of your broader community engagement efforts and the sustainability and legacy of operations.

WHAT TO DO:	HOW TO DO IT:
Understand the legal and other requirements related to cultural heritage	The following groups are good places to start: Ministries of archaeology, culture, or similar national or heritage institutions; National and local museums, cultural institutes, and universities; Local communities and religious groups for whom the cultural heritage is traditionally sacred; Historical or traditional users and owners of cultural heritage. Inside your company the person responsible for maintaining the exploration licences could be able to provide a list of permit conditions.
Identify culturally significant places inside the project footprint so they can be protected, moved or compensated for	Since cultural heritage is not always documented, consultation with local people is essential for identifying it, understanding its significance, assessing potential impacts, and exploring mitigation options; Local staff are usually an easily available source of information; Reduce the likelihood of inadvertently damaging something important by including locations on all project plans and ensuring information is shared with all consultants and contractors. Add another level of protection by barricading and signposting if possible; Have a procedure for handling chance finds before starting ground disturbing work required during the assessment phase (see below for some ideas).
Allow ongoing community connection to and use of culturally significant places that are protected within the project footprint	Offer continued access to local communities, subject to legitimate health, safety and security concerns; Where health, safety, or security is a consideration, alternatives to open access need to be identified through community consultation. Possibilities could include alternative access routes, specifying dates and times when access will be provided, providing health and safety equipment and training for specified users of the site, or other measures that balance access with health, safety or security measures; Document the access agreements so that people coming onto the project later know what the rules are.

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO:

Chance Finds Procedure: This will set out what needs to be done when cultural heritage objects are unexpectedly uncovered during field-based activities. In particular the procedure needs to specify steps to be taken if human remains are found, as these may be of high cultural sensitivity and need to be treated with particular care. Steps typically include:

Immediately stopping work in the vicinity of the find;
Notification of the accountable site manager;
Notification of the police if human remains have been found;
Notification of cultural heritage authorities if required;
Use of local community members and heritage experts to assess the significance, and report it if required by law;
Determining the right way to manage the find in consultation with community groups and interested parties; and
Resumption of work if permitted and agreed.

Develop a Cultural Heritage Management Plan: The content of your plan will depend on the existence of heritage values in the area. It may be two or two hundred pages long depending on the level of cultural heritage complexity. In some areas and jurisdictions legislated or formal guidelines may shape the content. Including a cultural heritage assessment in the ESIA scope will reduce contract administration and will help to avoid duplication, while using a local expert for the heritage work demonstrates respect for local knowledge.

More Resources
Getting more from your baseline studies
If you are serious about managing social risk then establishing a quality social baseline is an absolute necessity. After all, if you don’t know the starting point you can’t measure the change...
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Mining and Social Licence
Social Licence to Operate is a mining industry concept. The expression was first used by Canadian Jim Cooney in 1997. This was a decade after the landmark 1987 Brundtland Report and a few years after the concept of the triple-bottom-line was first described by John Elkington. Its use has now spread well beyond the mining industry and as has happened with triple-bottom-line and sustainable development, the term "social licence" has been interpreted and used in many ways. Licence to Operate is currently seen by many as one of the biggest risks to the mining and metals industry, just as it was back in the 1990’s when Jim Cooney coined the term...
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CSRM: Cultural heritage management
IFC PS8: Cultural Heritage
This is a good starting point for anyone wanting to get their head around how to address issues relating to cultural heritage their project or operation might be facing. The ideas are pretty simple - protect cultural heritage from the impacts of project development and promote the fair sharing of any benefits that may arise from the use of cultural heritage.

The standard, guideline and other useful resources are available on the IFC website:

https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2012/ifc-performance-standard-8
IFC Webinar: Performance Standards 101
A good way to spend an hour getting an introduction to how the performance standards work.

You'll find more useful IFC-generated information here.
Why Cultural Heritage Matters
The guide is a response to requests from Rio Tinto employees for tools and advice to help them deal with and manage cultural heritage issues that affect and are affected by company activities. It is a bit of a ‘big company’ view but it still has a lot to offer anyone looking to do better. The case studies are particularly useful.
Zandvliet and Anderson: Getting It Right
This book has been written for corporate managers who are responsible for company operations in societies that are poor and politically unstable. Many such managers are frustrated with the situations they face. They try their best to run effective, profitable and beneficial operations that take account of the needs of all their stakeholders, including local surrounding communities. But, even with their best efforts, they encounter community dissatisfaction, unrest, opposition, and delays and, worse yet, threats and violence. Why does this happen?

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Luc while I was feeling my way during my early days in Ghana and am forever thankful for the lesson (obvious with the benefit of hindsight) that resource development by default creates tension and conflict, and that it is how companies approach conflict – as an opportunity or as a threat – that shapes the ongoing relationship between company and community. Some of the ideas in the book have been particularly sticky:
1. Relationships matter – at a personal and business level this seems a no-brainer but sometimes the connection seems to get lost when it comes to communities
2. Company impacts are never neutral – they can be negative or positive but from the time a company starts work on-the-ground it starts to create change
3. People everywhere get annoyed about the same issues – this one gave me a lot of comfort that I could be confident applying the ideas to my particular circumstances plus, the issues are not complicated – behaving appropriately, taking responsibility for impacts and fair distribution of benefits are the keys
4. Relationships require ongoing effort – again not really earth-shattering news, so it is somewhat surprising how often it happens that over time we take things for granted and it takes a nasty wake-up call to show us how far we’ve gone off the rails
5. Company actions shape the nature of relationships – this last one relates back to the third point, because the reality is that the three issues that most influence a relationship - impacts, benefits and behaviour – are all company-initiated actions, and it is totally within the company’s control to determine what it is going to do and how it is going to act
You can find (and buy) the book online.

Intro

Guide

Guide to Cultural Heritage

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