Heritage Management and Communities

Operating extensively in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, a large miner had agreements in place with several different local communities.

Responsibility for managing local community relationships sat with the Heritage team. Other teams, including Exploration, Tenements Management and Land Access were also impacted by heritage requirements and agreements.

However, team activities were siloed, creating a lack of visibility. This made co-ordination and information sharing difficult, resulting in cross-team tension.

For example, the Exploration and Mining teams, motivated to quickly progress projects, were frustrated by opaque heritage requirements. And although the Exploration team often discovered new and useful information, it was difficult to share this with other teams.

Workflow was also an issue. The Heritage team relied on MS Outlook to track sensitive and important deadlines, an inefficient way to keep on top of compliance and obligations.