How Newmont and Niiwin Partner to Drive Sustainable Economic Development
The Niiwin General Partnership was founded in 2014 to create economic and business development opportunities for, and is owned in equal parts by, four signatory communities - Flying Post, Matachewan, Mattagami and Apitipi Anicinapek First Nation. Working through the Resource Development Agreement with Porcupine has allowed Niiwin to provide full-time employment to community and non-community members while providing training opportunities that increase employability for all. In less than a decade, Niiwin has become third largest contractor at Porcupine and experienced tremendous growth. Today, Niiwin services a variety of mining and heavy industry businesses in the Timmins area, providing reclamation, general contracting, project management, material movement services and more.
Working together, Newmont and Niiwin have consistently demonstrated how economic and environmental interests can be aligned on reclamation projects like the Broulan tailings facility at Porcupine. This project, which involved stablizing the tailings and improving water filtration, employed an average of 30 truck drivers and equipment operators for several months. Another example is Aunor A, which saw Newmont reclaim a historic mine property within the Porcupine operations. The overall remediation budget of $11 million was spent locally, with Niiwin completing the work. Throughout the course of the project, 2.8 million tonnes of tailings were addressed over 60,000 working hours with zero safety or operational incidents. The caliber of work carried out, on a project that ensures zero impacts to key biodiversity values, speaks to the value that Newmont and local vendors can provide - to communities and the environment - when we work together.