BANTEAY, Cambodia: Accessing this village eight hours north of Phnom Penh is daunting on the best of days, not least during the rainy season. On the main artery from the capital, buses, cars and tractor-trailers alike can be seen moored in the mud, all resembling helplessly grounded ships. Another 30-minute ride can foil the hardiest off-road vehicle at the gruelling final stretch.
Visitors are greeted by barefoot children supervised by adults and elderly, listless and weathered far beyond their years amid thatched huts and stray, emaciated oxen. But beneath the surface, something remarkable is unfolding nearby a mid-sized copper-gold deposit: Canadian junior Angkor Gold Corp is fulfilling a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mandate – one unprecedented for a miner its size in the region. Stakeholder engagement through Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) blooms here near a rainforest clearing of peppercorn, cassava and cashew patches, and classrooms full of students.
A clean slate
History hasn’t been kind to Cambodia. Over the half decade ending in 1979, the Khmer Rouge purged the intellectual class while bringing the country to ‘zero’ for an agrarian-based communist society after a brutal US bombing campaign. In all, two million lives were lost as the world stood by in silence; memories of forced starvation, mass graves and unspeakable atrocities continue to elicit tears to this day.
But Cambodia has turned the page, with its emerging market economy and small-scale mining industry an open book. Early next year, Angkor and Mesco Gold Cambodia will begin operating one of the country’s newest commercial mines while establishing Phnom Penh’s first continuing royalty revenue stream from mining. “Geochemistry is compelling,” said Angkor’s CEO Mike Weeks. “There are unequivocal gold, copper and molybdenum anomalies.”
The ASEAN nation’s mineral prospects have across-the-board potential: Neighboring Laos enjoys 30% of foreign investment in mining while other small firms including Western Australia’s Renaissance Minerals, Geopacific Resources and Mekong Minerals of Queensland scour the countryside. Phnom Penh, meanwhile, is courting outside business while Angkor and its fellow Cambodia Association for Mining and Exploration Companies (CAMEC) members are helping the government re-draft its mining code.
“If we can help Cambodia make the industry attractive, it sends a message worldwide,” said Angkor’s vice president for CSR Delayne Weeks. “All stakeholders benefit – government, industry, communities and the environment.”
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