Newmont Mining Corporation

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Malnourishment, an impact from poverty and poor health conditions, has been a pervasive health problem throughout Indonesia. We have worked for many years with village leaders to teach our employees, their families and expectant mothers the benefits of sound nutrition. Mine employees also rotate village visits each month to provide children with a three-month supply of food, which contains rice, sugar, green peas, biscuits, salt and powdered milk.

Since the program's inception, we delivered thousands of food packages to needy families. We monitor the nutrition program's effectiveness and evaluate the children's ongoing health needs. The number of malnourished children in Sekongkang and Jereweh has dropped from 10.11 percent to approximately 0.70 percent.

Several villages in Indonesia will have access to clean, fresh water thanks to Newmont's operations in the host areas. As part of the closure of the Mesel gold mine on the island of Sulawesi and the commitment to leaving a positive social and environmental legacy, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya (PTNMR) has set up clean water projects for the villages of Ratatotok and Buyat.

A drilled well and water pump in Ratatotok and a gravity-driven spring water source in Buyat - as well as reservoirs, pipes and pumps to channel the water to houses - have saved villagers the need to walk long distances each day to access fresh water. Initially intended to supply water to about 766 families, the projects now deliver fresh water to about 1,200 families - or 5,000 people.

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Prior to the development of PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara's (PTNNT) Batu Hijau mine in Indonesia, the villagers living in the area relied on subsistence farming to support their families. While the mine brought thousands of new business and job opportunities to the region, we can only directly and indirectly support a finite number of jobs.

To maximize the business opportunities, some residents needed support to establish or to further develop alternative livelihoods to ensure their income stream would continue after mining ceased. In one such instance, a program between the mine and local agencies was established to demonstrate to the local subsistence farmers new agricultural techniques that would improve their farms' productivity.

Our Batu Hijau mine, partnering with Serikat Petani Nelayan Sumbawa Barat, a local foundation that carries out various agriculture and coastal community development programs, provided agricultural-management training to farmers in 15 local villages. We designed our training program to improve rice crop yields through a process known as System of Rice Intensification (SRI).

The SRI technique involves transplanting rice seedlings earlier than the traditional timeframe. In addition, we plant rice seedlings individually rather than in clumps to allow better aeration, easier access for weeding and more room for root development. These activities increase tillering, that is, the generation of shoots from the base of the plant. SRI plants typically have 50 to 80 tillers compared with five to 20 tillers on conventional rice plants.

However, one of the most important aspects of the SRI is that it challenges the accepted view that rice, as an aquatic plant, grows best in standing water. Farmers trained in the SRI technique use a sequence of paddy flooding with the subsequent draining of the water, allowing a period for rice to grow in the relatively dry paddies. Using the SRI techniques, farmers have been producing up to three times more rice per hectare than they had using their traditional methods.

To further aid the efficiency of the paddies, farmers were encouraged to use compost rather than man-made fertilizers, which reduces production costs and environmental impacts.

Rice, a staple food throughout Indonesia, historically was the only crop grown in the areas around the Batu Hijau mine. However, we planted several demonstration crops to illustrate the viability of growing crops beyond just rice. In fields near the SRI rice paddies, the Batu Hijau team successfully completed a melon-cultivation demonstration project designed to assist area farmers with diversifying their crops to increase their long-term economic potential. Batu Hijau initially planted approximately 1,000 melon plants, which yielded 2.5 tons of melons. Based on the successful crop, we planted another 4,000 melon plants, which yielded 10 additional tons.

This community development demonstration project was a great success and clearly has shown that a melon competitive with the current market can be cultivated in areas that historically produced only rice and non-staple crops.

"This pilot study was a great success and demonstrates that melons can be cultivated in dry-type farming land with some dedication and hard work," said Malik Salim, senior advisor of external relations. "We want to introduce and encourage farmers to cultivate other types of plants that have potentially high sale prices and solid markets. The quality of this melon is competitive, and we will continue to facilitate and support similar projects to help farmers increase their livelihood."

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Malaria is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes that is prevalent in areas of Africa, Asia and South America. People with malaria often experience fever, chills and flu-like illness. Left untreated, they may develop severe complications and die. In some African countries, malaria is one of the leading causes of community illness and death, especially in young children and pregnant women.

Newmont partners with the International SOS to reduce the incidence of malaria at mine sites in Indonesia and Ghana. The malaria-management programs include mosquito eradication strategies, personal protection, behavior modifications measures, and prompt diagnosis and treatment.

In 2008, incidence remained less than 2 percent. In addition, the malaria incidence rate in the mine work force at the facility clinic dropped from 53 per 1,000 employees in 1998, to five per 1,000 in 2007 and less than four per 1,000 employees in 2008.

Adapted from Beyondthemine.com

Newmont's security personnel receive rigorous training, including human rights training, so that they can carry out their duties in the most appropriate and effective way. At our Batu Hijau mine in Indonesia, we have taken into consideration gender diversity as a key to building better relations with local stakeholders.

Our security personnel are usually the first point of contact between the operations and community members because they are the ones who manage the access points into the operations. At Batu Hijau, we found that by having female guards stationed at security checkpoints, we improved the relationship with surrounding communities because people felt more at ease in approaching the mine with questions and concerns.

A $1.1 million community water and sanitation facility is among the projects Newmont is funding to help rebuild the northwest coast of Sumatra, hit by two separate earthquakes and a devastating tsunami in late 2004. Estimates reported at least 131,000 people killed, 37,000 people missing and 550,000 left homeless in northwest Sumatra alone.

To date, Newmont's $5 million relief package has financed the following projects:

• A new library for Syiah Kuala University and a new school complex complete with classrooms, library and laboratory.
• Community water and sanitation facilities for Calang, which provide approximately 18,000 people from 22 villages easy access to "clean water" for their daily needs.
• A Women's Empowerment Training Center that provides classes in sewing skills to make products sold throughout Sumatra. To date, 180 women from 10 villages have benefited from this training.
• An Integrated Livelihood Program and Environmental Information Center that provides useful ecological and environmental information to the community.
• A flora and fauna rehabilitation program designed to restore the coral reef off Sabang Island.
• Rehabilitation of the coastal ecosystem, and mangrove reclamation and reforestation through the planting of 33,000 mangrove seedlings.
• Construction of fishery ponds in two villages.
• An agricultural rehabilitation project involving irrigation, farming and coconut oil production, which is expected to benefit about 300 people from two villages.

The Batu Hijau mine is located on what has traditionally been one of the poorest islands in Indonesia. It has been very effective in supporting the development of infrastructure in surrounding communities with consultation with local villagers. Since mining began, much of the infrastructure in the local area has been provided, directly or indirectly, by our mine.

One example of how the PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (PTNNT) operation supports community health is through our collaboration with U.S.-based Project C.U.R.E., an international relief organization. Recently, we donated $1.2 million worth of medical equipment to community health centers in the West Sumbawa regency and a general hospital in Sumbawa Besar.

PTNNT submitted a proposal to Project C.U.R.E. that illustrated the need for quality medical supplies in the region, based on an assessment of locals' health and existing medical facilities. Our study helped identify the quantity and types of supplies needed most - from laboratory and surgical tools, incubators, and EKG and X-ray machines.

"The donation is part of the ongoing community development program that aims to improve the health of locals living around the mine area," said Malik Salim, PTNNT's senior manager of external relations.

According to Salim, the entire donation process took nearly a year. The operation covered the nearly $65,000 expense of moving and distributing the supplies from the U.S. to Indonesia. Local government officials supported the donation by managing administrative import tasks and providing tax exemption for the goods.

"To see the health supplies arrive here was worth everything," he said. "We hope they bring significant improvement to all health centers in the region, and that better health quality will improve people's prosperity."