A Diagnostic of the Strategy Employed for Communicating Nuclear Related Information to Brazilian Communities around Uranium Mining Areas

摘要

This paper presents a diagnostic of the strategy used by the Brazilian uranium mining industry to communicatenuclear related information to communities around a mining area. The uranium mining industry in Brazil, which is run by thegovernment, has been concerned with communication issues for quite some time. The need to communicate became moreapparent after new mining operations started in the Northern region of Brazil. The fact that the government does not have aclear communication guideline made the operators of the uranium mining industry aware of the increasing demand forestablishment of a good relationship with several types of Stakeholders as well as employment of personnel with experience indealing with them. A diagnostic of the current communication situation in Brazil and an analysis of the approaches over thepast years was done through interviews with employees of the mining industry and review of institutional communicationmaterials. The results were discussed during a Consultant′s Meeting organized by the IAEA’s Seibersdorf Laboratory inOctober 2007 [1]. The output of the meeting included an overview of modern communication strategies used by differentcountries and a suggestion for new uranium mining operations in developing or under developed countries. The strategy forcommunicating nuclear related information to Brazilian communities varied according to the influence of different Stakeholdergroups. One initiative worth mentioning was the creation of a “Mobile Nuclear Information Thematic Room”, which wasinstalled in several locations. This project was seen as one of the main tools to relate to community. Many Stakeholders wereidentified during the diagnostic phase in preparation for the IAEA′s meeting on communication strategy: children, NGOs (NonGovernment Organizations), local churches, media, and internal Stakeholders, among others. An initial evaluation showed thatthe perception of a neighbouring community regarding an uranium mining industry is heavily dependent on the efforts of theindustry in interacting with this community.