Managing Cultural Heritage

Challenge the practice is addressing: The purpose of this section is to provide guidance on the management of cultural heritage – it identifies potential risks and impacts extractives operations might pose on cultural heritage, gives detailed requirements for a Cultural Heritage Management Plan and provides guidance on the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the agreed management measures.

Concrete practice to achieve the expected goal: The guidance section is based on the Anglo American Plan Do Check Act management process. After collecting background knowledge on the context and conducting stakeholder engagement, a company should develop a Cultural Heritage Management Plan and other necessary, context-dependent plans, which are followed by monitoring, evaluation and if necessary, adjustments to the plan and implementation. This section also provides some specific tools for the development of the Cultural Heritage Management Plan: 4H Tool 1 – Conditions for the removal and/or treatment of tangible cultural heritage, 4H Tool 2 – Sample Table of Contents for a Cultural Heritage Management Plan, and 4H Tool 3 – Sample Chance Find Procedure.

Expected impact/goal of the practice: Cultural heritage management, and in general, understanding and respecting the local culture, are central to fostering good community-company relations. Preventing and minimising negative impacts on cultural heritage therefore decreases the risks for conflict between companies and communities.

Who is the target user group of the practice/intervention or implementing the practice/intervention? The target group of the practice is are social performance management teams as well as personnel working with environment, management and operational matters. The guidance is also relevant for sub-contractors.