Case: Consultation Round Table in Oreganal
10 October 2007
This case illustrates a successful community engagement process which helped solve a botched resettlement process started by a previous mining operation. Tensions arising from faulty physical infrastructure, shortfalls in income restoration plans and some land title problems were solved through the empowerment of a Consultation Round Table between the community of Oreganal and Cerrejón.
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Background
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Oreganal was a small village that gave its name to the Oreganal Lease (~3000 Ha), located in the Municipality of Barrancas, La Guajira Department, Colombia. This community's resettlement process was started in 1992 by Carbones del Caribe, a Colombian mining company with thermal coal exploration and extraction rights in the area. Its resident families were collectively relocated to Nuevo Oreganal, a nearby area in the surroundings of Barrancas in 1997.
A committee for the development of Oreganal was set up in 1992 by its residents to represent its interests in the resettlement process. By 1994, the committee and key stakeholders had agreed to divide the affected population into three groups entitled to compensation.
The committee also participated in, and agreed on the housing design and construction and land replacement terms and continued to play its part until the end of 1996. However, conflicts arose as its composition and the community's expectations, which prompted its dissolution early in 1997. This led the coal company (Carbones del Caribe) to approach possessors via direct negotiations.
This lack of community cohesion led to multiple land problems, because former possessors started to return to the original site. By 1998, 79 mud huts had been built by encroachers on the plots of land acquired in Old Oreganal. Intervention by the judiciary and Police authorities was chosen in an attempt to sort out the problem. In addition to this, Nuevo Oreganal dwellers started reporting critical cracking in the floors and walls of their houses, which had been built as part of the resettlement process.
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By mid 2002, when the Oreganal lease became its responsibility as part of a merging process, Cerrejón was faced with the challenges posed by this case. It promptly inspected housing in early 2003 and contracted a qualified consultant to evaluate both houses and public buildings and, in June 2003, consultancy concluded that none of them complied with Colombian construction regulations and that 14 of the houses were critically cracked, which implied a serious risk for residents in case of collapse.
During the same period, some community members presented claims for alleged remnants of unpaid plots of land at the old site, lack of employment and unequal cash payments to relocated residents by the mining company. Simultaneously, the Old Oreganal site was being gradually and progressively occupied.
In the meantime, there was strong opposition by members of the community to Cerrejón officials at meetings, sabotage and resistance to the housing repair works that started in the second half of 2003.
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The challenges
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Inhabited plots on the old Oreganal site imposed a critical restriction on the mining plan, which had to be adjusted, thus impacting coal production and royalties for the Municipality of Barrancas.
Direct contacts with the Oreganal Community between 2003 and 2005 brought about socio-economic difficulties in the resettlement process of the previous ten years. These problems required the company’s attention and efforts, which it focused on creating and maintaining open channels to work together with the community in benefit of its members.
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Breakthrough
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Aiming at a definitive solution to the problem, Cerrejón invited key institutional representatives who had participated in the resettlement process in the 90s (Municipality, State Government, Ombudsman, etc) to a meeting to discuss and agree on the mechanisms to explore solution alternatives acceptable to both the company and the community. A Round Table was set up in July 2005 with all the stakeholders and regular meetings were held to build up a participative process to propose, evaluate and agree on acceptable terms and put an end to the illegal and hostile actions by some community members, as well as strengthening relations with the company.
The dialogue included an analysis of the process and the difficulties involved, role definitions, evaluation and problem solving, a definition of common objectives and all the steps to be taken as agreed on by participants.
Finally in March 2007, Cerrejón signed an agreement with the community's representatives, backed by the La Guajira Departmental Governor’s office, the office of the Mayor and community leaders of Barrancas, the Ombudsman’s office, the regional Attorney General’s office and representatives of Ingeominas (National Mining Institution).
The new community policy and community engagement approach allowed the Cerrejón team to gain increasing trust from the community in the social plans discussed with them. This allowed stakeholders to engage in a social development process to improve the quality of life of community members and extend a social license for the company to continue its mining activities.
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The agreement sought on the definition of a procedure to enable the community members who returned to the old Oreganal site and occupied plots of land there in an irregular manner, to agree to remove their belongings and allow Cerrejón to continue the mining process under the Lease.
By June 2007, all 36 plots of land occupied had been released back to Cerrejón, in accordance with the terms of the agreement at the Round Table.
It is important to note that this approach allowed a solution to a problem inherited by Cerrejón, which has been unsolved for the past 13 years. Currently Cerrejón has possession of the entire area for mining activities.
The success of this procedure was based on a confidence building strategy between the Company and the community.
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