As a requirement of the company's ELO1 exploration licence BCL is required to carry out a Landowner Identification Study with respect to the Panguna project area to formally document the tenement's customary landowners.
There are 510 blocks of land in the licence area and between 26 August and 3 September, BCL's local engagement team, led by operations manager Elly Sawa, working with Bougainville's Social Environmental Research and Consultancy Services conducted community awareness sessions in advance of data collection to support the study.
The meetings were held at Dapera, Moroni, Guava, Kaino, Enamira and Kokore and were extremely well supported with more than 1,320 stakeholders attending the sessions. Across all areas, understanding was reached about the process and information required for data collection.
Elly Sawa said that BCL greatly values the relationships it has built with landowners, the meetings went very well and underline the company's commitment to meaningful, ongoing engagement.
The fieldwork for data collections is expected to commence on 11 September through to 28 October (see schedule below).
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