Exploring the community’s ‘Right to Know’

This report presents the findings of a brief field engagement with the Ramu Nickel project operating on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG) in Madang Province. The research team engaged with the Ramu project on the right of project-affected communities to access information about mining activities. Community access to information is essential to its ability to understand change and negotiate with companies over matters such as access to land, compensation entitlements, development opportunities, management of impacts and for the resolution of grievances. Access to information is also a fundamental element in contemporary debates about social responsibility in mining. These debates include Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), agreement making and community engagement. The study focussed on the flow of information about project lifecycle, mining impacts and development opportunities, and research data was generated through semi-structured interviews, group discussions and informal conversations with key informants.