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Media Briefing by Independent Advisory Panel

An independent advisory panel, consisting of 7 members, has been formed by Lydian International Company to monitor Amulsar Project located in Armenia.

The group comprises prominent Armenian and international environmental and social performance experts and will be chaired by internationally-respected responsible mining and conflict resolution expert Dr John Harker.

The Panel members will convene regularly to monitor progress and to provide unbiased and authoritative advice on a range of sustainable development issues.

Six Panel members out of seven paid the first visit to the Amulsar and adjacent communities on May 2-4. At media briefing, held on May 5, the Panel Chairman Dr. John Harker told about the visit and the activities of the Panel.

“The Panel plans to consider all the concerns and omissions by focusing on the concerns raised by local residents and society of the affected communities. We are going to do so by interacting with all the stakeholders and by regularly producing transparent and open reports”, he said. 

When answering the question on his first impression from the Project and the meetings that he had with residents of the impacted communities, Dr. John Harker said, “There is an interesting fact I should like to share with you. A woman from one of the affected communities said as follows, “I am very happy for Lydian Armenia’s presence in this area as we have had an rise in births in our community.” That means that Lydian has created jobs and the local population does not have to leave the country for seasonal work. People are staying in their home communities and having children.

We have promised to visit the communities again and to consider all the opinions and concerns. We are looking forward to the next meetings. The only viewpoint we are having at this moment is that the mining initiative like Amulsar will play a very significant role in the economic development of the country.” 

The community meetings were attended by other members of the Advisory panel, as well as Robert Carreau, Lydian’s Vice-President for Sustainable Development, who said, “The establishment of the Independent Advisory Panel is not among the commitments made by our Company. It is a voluntary initiative to prove that we indeed are for responsible and transparent mining. The Panel will work independently from Lydian by interacting with civil society and mass media and by monitoring Amulsar operations and the impact caused by the operations on the communities.”  

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