Acknowledgement of Ngarabal People

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country both throughout Australia as a whole and the New England Region of NSW specifically, and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture

We pay our respects to past present & emerging - and thank Mr Clive Scott for his guidance on the importance of the Project lands  to the Ngarabal People 

The work undertaken on this Project has highlighted the importance for all Australians to embrace and dedicate time to learning of the cultural importance of First Nations people to the Australian way of life.  

Detailed Aboriginal Heritage & Cultural Heritage studies have been conducted on the Project site, including a 2 day "walk on country" with senior Traditional Owner representatives and consultation with various stakeholder groups.

Apex Archaeology's engagement & recommendations have been considered by the Developer and certain adjustments to the Project site have been made as a result.  Final engagement with RAPS will take place by Apex to ensure any Archaeological Finds are handled in accordance with Traditional Owner agreement & consent.

Halo Renewable Energy, as the solar farm developer, is now considering various philanthropic initiatives that might be able to be leveraged in order to research and preserve the rich heritage of Traditional Owner people in the New England region in general, and the Ngarabal People in particular.

Dumaresq Solar Farm will conduct a community engagement process commencing in October 2019 that both focuses on consultation with the community and importantly the encouragement of service providers and contractors to themselves engage with community and provide ongoing commercial opportunities

The Community Engagement Process will be in line with the Industry Best Practice Charter for Renewable Energy Developments as outlined by the Australian Clean Energy Council, and will include:

• Providing information that is both balanced and objective on an ongoing basis.  This will be done via both direct meetings with key stakeholders, consultation with the wider community and periodic newsletters outlining the progress of the Project
• Community meetings to both outline the scope of the Project and hear first hand feedback that Community members would like to provide
• Advertisements and media activity to ensure clear and consistent profiling of the Project in the local community takes place
• The development and publication of an ongoing Frequent Asked Questions document
• The use of social media applications including Twitter and Instagram to provide the latest information to interested parties - all news on new developments is being posted

Our detailed Community Engagement Policy will be published shortly, and our thinking has been contributed to by achieving a number of things in October / November including :

1. Meeting with Leadership of Inverell Local Council to understand their ambitions, pressing needs of community, etc.
2. An initial contribution of support to the "Fierce Female Farmer" movement based out of Inverell
3. Discussions with landowners and other local stakeholders on potential commercial opportunities that would suit local skill and commercial supply

IDENTIFYING & PRIORITISING COMMUNITY ISSUES

The consultation with various members of the community over the journey of this project has been extremely helpful in understanding grass roots issues and planning for initiatives that are intended to optimise community opportunity.  Across 2023 / 2024 this has included extensive discussions on the location of Accommodation infrastructure and issues that are important to local community including the importance of Water Resources as a multi faceted issue.

Since 2020 the Developer has engaged with various stakeholders on a continual basis to understand key issues at a grass roots level.  This has in turn led to presentations to Inverell Shire Council and over a period of time of negotiation the agreement of a Binding Heads of Agreement in relation to community support

In addition to that signed commitment the Developer continues to consider other issues and opportunities for engagement as they are presented - which includes importantly the issue of Water for this remote area that was historically materially impacted by drought