Aim-listed Savannah Resources has signed three benefit-sharing agreements with local communities that hold and manage communal lands around the company's Barroso lithium project, in Portugal.

Savannah now has land access agreements with two of the three baldios which manage land on the Barroso project's mining concessions.

The agreements include a land access and benefit-sharing agreement with the Baldio of the villages of Alijó, Canedo and Penalonga relating to Blocks A and C of the Aldeia mining concession, which, importantly, host a 3.5-million tonne resource and 1.6-million tonne reserve.

Another agreement, a memorandum of understanding with the Secretariat of the Baldios of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro establishes a technical and strategic partnership for the integrated planning, management and enhancement of an agroforestry area of about 100 ha owned by Savannah.

The agreements share three common principles: community participation in the project's oversight bodies, local reinvestment of the benefits generated and fair rent-based compensation indexed to inflation.

These agreements are complemented by Savannah's ongoing scheme of land acquisition from private owners and preparations for the compulsory purchase of land it is unable to buy or access through commercial agreements in a timely manner to maintain the project's development schedule.

Savannah CEO Emanuel Proença says these agreements are testament to how the company wants to develop the Barroso project.

"This is not simply about securing access to land - it is about recognising that the baldios belong to the communities that have managed them for generations, and that those communities have a voice in decisions and access a fair share of the benefits. That is what we are doing by giving them a seat on the project's Local Consultative and Monitoring Committee and within the foundation's governing bodies, ensuring that it is they who decide how the funds received from the project are applied," he concludes.