Rosewel Gold Mines

ROSEBEL GOLD MINES

COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: ROSEBEL GOLD MINES

COMMUNITY COLLABORATION Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Jerry Finisie, Sustainability Manager at Rosebel Gold Mines, about the new mine at Saramacca, partnerships with local communities, and an innovative approach to studying environmental impacts.

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Since the 19th century, small-scale mining operations have intermittently been undertaken in the Rosebel gold district in north-eastern Suriname. Situated around fifty miles south of Paramaribo, on a Paleoproterozoic greenstone belt of the Guiana Shield, the 170km2 Rosebel property passed between private and state hands several times over the years before concerted commercial operations began in February 2004 under Canadian gold producer Cambior Inc. In 2006, Cambior merged with IAMGOLD Corporation, and since then gold production at Rosebel has taken place under the joint ownership of IAMGOLD (95%) and the government of Surname (5%), producing 4.8 million ounces by the end of 2017.

When Sustainable Business Magazine last spoke to Rosebel Gold Mines in early 2018, Rosebel had recently acquired additional exploration land, increasing their projected life-of-mine (LOM) to 2033. Jerry Finisie, Rosebel’s Sustainability Manager overseeing Community, Social Relations, and Environment, told us about their local

employment record, local development programs, community outreach, and investments in environmental best practices.

Rosebel had also recently installed a 5MW solar farm – the first of its size in Suriname – to help reduce energy costs and improve Rosebel’s impact on the environment. (See Sustainable Business Magazine issue 06/18 for the full feature.) We recently caught up with Mr. Finisie to hear about changes at Rosebel over the last eighteen months.

NEW FRONTIERS At the end of 2018, Rosebel had estimated reserves of 4.7 million ounces remaining – approximately a 300% increase upon the initial projection of Rosebel’s gold reserves.

The estimated value of Rosebel to Suriname over its lifespan was valued at Sr$3.4 billion, between revenues paid to the government, investment in local suppliers, cost of labor, and CSR expenditure.

Much of this increase has been driven by the new mining concession at Saramacca, 25km from the main Rosebel site. The Saramacca property was first explored in 1990s by Golden Star, and subsequently by a joint venture between Golden Star and Newmont, exploring an area which at the time was referred to as Anomaly M. Until Rosebel acquired the concession in 2016, however, no attempt had been made to establish a mine.

After Rosebel’s acquisition of Saramacca, a series of successful drilling programs were undertaken on the site. Results were positive, and, before long, Rosebel were ready to approach the Surinamese government about setting up a new mine. “When you start a SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: ROSEBEL GOLD MINES

“THE LOCAL COMMUNITY BENEFITS FROM THE JOBS CREATED, WITH PEOPLE GOING TO WORK AT THE MINE EVERY DAY, SAFELY.”

mining operation in Suriname, you have to conduct a social impact assessment, or a social and environment study,” explains Mr. Finisie. “You do this to confirm the existing conditions in the area, to establish a baseline. Then you structure any activities you intend to undertake which will impact the environment using that baseline. To ensure your impact is manageable, you present a management system to avoid large impacts in the local area. When we made the decision to actually start a new mine at Saramacca, in 2017, we started carrying out this social impact assessment in compliance with the legal requirements.”

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BREAKING GROUND Rosebel submitted their social impact study to the government of Suriname at the end of 2018, and they received approval to begin the Saramacca project in January 2019, with the mine to be operated as a 70:30 joint venture between Rosebel and the Government of Suriname. Because the distance between the main Rosebel site and the new Saramacca pit is substantial, the first step was to invest in the necessary infrastructure to move the ore back to Rosebel, where it will be processed.

“We have begun building the route to that site, which is about 25km away from

the current Rosebel mine,” says Mr. Finisie.

“We are constructing a haul road, which we will use to transport the ore from the new mine site to our existing one.” Mined ore will be stockpiled at Saramacca and loaded by a CAT 993 loader onto a fleet of ten Haulmax 3900s, which will use the haul road to move the ore to the mill at Rosebel, with an estimated return cycle of 94 minutes. The haul road is estimated for completion in the first quarter 2020.

On November 4th, 2019, IAMGOLD announced the first ore had been successfully delivered from Saramacca to the mill at Rosebel, using an alternate road while the haul road is completed. Saramacca is scheduled to begin full production in 2020, with an estimated operation time of 14.5 years. In a statement, Minister of Natural Resources Sergio Akiemboto said: “With over 15 years in partnership with IAMGOLD, it is exciting to see the contribution of the new Saramacca mine to the local economy, and we hope there will be many more such findings to come. We are impressed with IAMGOLD’s commitment to safe and responsible mining in the country

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INTERVIEW: ROSEBEL GOLD MINES we are also looking at other stuff, like local procurement and small local businesses, as well as community investments.”

Rosebel’s community investments are based on a process of consultation with local people. “We have identified some issues in the community, which we are discussing with them,” says Mr. Finisie. “They have issues with water and education, and these are areas we are currently investing in, as part of our main drive towards income generation, health, and education. We think that after further consultation with the communities we will be able to invest in these priorities within the new project area.” of Suriname, values which the government and our people share. The local community benefits from the jobs created, with people going to work at the mine every day, safely. We are also pleased to see the further commitment of IAMGOLD to local economic development through the newly established Rosebel Community Fund.”

LOCAL CONSULTATION Last time Sustainable Business Magazine spoke to Rosebel, we learned about the importance of community outreach to the

pre-existing mining operation. Today, that outreach is being expanded to the new communities around the Saramacca mine.

“We already have seven communities around the Rosebel site,” says Mr. Finisie.

“Now that we are in Saramacca, there are four new communities which we are including in our outreach program. We first engaged with these communities during the social impact assessment, and we now have regular interactions. Of course, a major benefit of the new mine includes employment in these communities, but

FRESH KNOWLEDGE Rosebel have also been closely collaborating with the local communities around the Saramacca mine in a unique environmental study. “When we first did the social impact assessment, we gathered a lot of information about the environment around Saramacca, the flora and fauna, because we had to understand what was there,” explains Mr. Finisie. “When we were doing this, local people were coming up to us and asking what we had found in their area. Our social and environmental team came up with the

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“WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE LOCAL ANIMALS, AND WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CUT TREES UNNECESSARILY OR DESTROY BIODIVERSITY AREAS.”

brilliant idea of training the local community up so that they could collect this data with us. We understood that the knowledge was there in a traditional way, but that they wanted to expand it.”

Working together, Rosebel’s social and environmental team and the local communities set up a project where Rosebel would finance equipment and train the communities to operate it, in order that local people could carry out studies in their own areas.

“We have trained them to use equipment like camera traps to identify animals and birds,” says Mr. Finisie. “With knowledge like this, we believe that the community will be in a better position to protect the local environment. They are still a hunting and fishing community, and if they know what animals there are, from year after year of repeating the study, they will be able to monitor animal populations carefully and manage these populations so no single species is depleted. Training has already been carried out, and currently they are in the first phase of the initial data collection.”

ISO 14001-certified, with commitments to efficiently use natural resources, manage environmental risk, implement reforestation and mine closure activities, and prevent pollution. “As a mining operation we have the same requirements as the community,” says Mr. Finisie. “We have to protect the local animals, and we are not allowed to cut trees unnecessarily or destroy biodiversity areas. We have to show all of this in our plans and make sure that there is not a distinct species or unique habitat that will be negatively impacted. All of our activities are based on the law and best practices, and we have an environmental management project going forward.”

“For example, while doing this last social impact survey, we identified some species of frog that are not new to science but

are rare,” says Mr. Finisie. “We then carried out additional studies to understand where they exist elsewhere in that particular area so that we know, as a company, we are not impacting a local species. The design of the project was also changed based on information from the impact survey in order to accommodate environmental protections, to avoid impacting pristine areas, in keeping with our CSR.” “What we want to do eventually is explore opportunities for tourism,” explains Mr. Finisie. “The villages there have the potential for tourism. So what we want to see in the future is how we can work together with them and support them to use their knowledge and training to attract tourism. This could help generate income for the local community.” c

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION As a part of IAMGOLD, Rosebel uses international metrics to ensure sustainable, responsible operations. Rosebel is SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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Rosebel Gold Mines www.iamgold.com

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