Summary
The Ambatovy Project plans to
supplement mitigation and benefit
enhancement measures directed at
specific impacts, with wider social
investment. This investment would
be a response to expectations of
negative impacts that will occur as a
result of the project, but that are not
amenable to full mitigation. An
example would be negative effects of
migration. The project will also
address unpredictable impacts that could evolve, as these are
discovered through social monitoring, including consultation with project
affected people and their governments. Examples could include
pressures of migratory populations on schools or increases in crime.
Madagascar is in a process of decentralization that has seen the
establishment of multiple planning agencies. The project will offer
participation in planning to those agencies involved in the
implementation of programs if needed. Such project contributions to
social investment will be a benefit to communes around the mine site,
but also across a wider area insofar as regional planning capacity and
initiatives are supported.
Social investment
Andasibe
Although the sacred waterfall at the mine site cannot be relocated, its
sacred aspect can be modified. This is accomplished by virtue of the
people’s loss of contact with it – if rituals cannot be conducted there, it is
no longer considered sacred by them. Such cases are common in
Madagascar, occurring for example, in areas of urban expansion. For
this to occur, however, proper protocol involving correct rites and rituals
must be observed. Discussions and negotiations with resident groups
will be conducted in this regard, facilitated by the proponents’ Malagasy
cultural specialists in order to find acceptable solutions.
Culture
It is in the interests of the project to understand socio-economic trends
such that where the project is able to intervene effectively, it has the
information to do so. The project has a long term interest in healthy
communities. In addition, putting in place a monitoring framework that
attempts to understand cause and effect is important to both the
proponents and affected people. This will contribute both to maintaining
a constructive relationship between affected people and the project and
to adjusting project mitigation measures in response to evolving impacts.
A socioeconomic monitoring plan will be implemented, with three main
components:
Monitoring
•
operations monitoring of project inputs (benefits enhancement), to
track success;
•
monitoring effectiveness of mitigation of negative effects; and
•
monitoring more widely, to better provide a context for adaptive
management and additional social investment.
January 2006
Ambatovy Project — 17
