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Dec 19, 2024

“We never chose this mine, but we live with its consequences every day, trying to find ways to survive in the wasteland that has been left behind. The Legacy Impact Assessment has for the first time given us data and laid a foundation for solutions. What the communities are demanding to know now is what the next step is. A commitment to remediation is where the data is pointing us to, and that’s what the people are waiting for.” 

Theonila Roka Matbob, lead complainant for Panguna human rights complaint and member of parliament for Ioro constituency, Autonomous Bougainville Goverment 

Summary: Betweeen 1972 and 1989, the Panguna gold and copper mine, then majority owned by Rio Tinto, dumped a billion tonnes of mine waste into the Jaba-Kawerong River in Boungainville in Papua New Guinea. Frustrations over the decision to mine, the environmental impact and the lack of benefits to Boungainvillean's saw a local opposition movement develop, which eventually forced abandonment of the mine and the region’s worst civil war. A peace agreement process began in 1997 and was concluded many years later, which saw Bougainville step down the road to autonomy and likely to full independence in the future, but the environmental legacy of the mine remained. Earlier this month, after a two-year investigation funded by Rio Tinto, and 35 years after the mine shut down, the assessment of the environmental and social impacts of the mine was finally made public. The impact assessment was the result of tireless advocacy on the part of the Human Rights Law Centre and Panguna landowners, but as the following post explains, Jubilee also played a significant role. Luke Fletcher discusses the history of this issue and examines what happens next for Panguna when it comes to redress for the harms caused. 

The Panguna mine is the weeping environmental sore of destructive resource extraction in the Pacific, and yet, with the recent release of a major assessment on the mine legacy impact, there is now reason to hope that there will be some restitution for affected communities on Bougainville.  

Jubilee Australia’s involvement in this story starts eleven years ago, in 2013.  We were aware, thanks to the work of Kristian Lasslett, an Australian academic, that there was a push by the Autonomous Bougainville  Government (ABG) and by Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL)—still at that point majority owned by Rio Tinto—to reopen the Panguna mine.  

Kristian was concerned, as were we, that an attempt to re-open Panguna before the wounds of the conflict were healed and before environmental remediation had taken place could have disastrous consequences. The mine site was not even under government control—remnants of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) still patrolled the site, and anecdotal evidence suggested that, although some individuals were in favour of restarting mining, at the very least there was not majority support to reopen the mine. Kristian had contacts with the Bismark Ramu Group (BRG), an organisation with a long history working on community rights and resource extraction issues in PNG. BRG had on staff two young researchers, Theonila Roka and her partner Nathan Matbob; Theonila was from the Panguna area and had lost relatives in the war and because of this she could access the mine area. Armed with a survey and some further research training, Theonila and Nathan went village to village consulting people about their views of the conflict and their desire or otherwise for mining to restart.  

The subsequent report, Voices of Bougainville: Nikana Kangsi, Nikana Dong Damana (Our Land Our Future), when it was released in 2014, caused quite a stir; including strong criticism by the then president of the ABG, John Momis. There were calls to pull the report which we resisted. The research design might not have been perfect but on balance we decided that it was important to have something on the public record that was questioning the overwhelming media narrative at the time which was that for Panguna’s reopening was a fait accompli with general support from the landowners; our report, if nothing else, raised some doubt about this perspective. 

Over the rest of the 2010s, Jubilee continued to work with Nathan and Theonila and with another Boungainvillean activist, Ruth Saovana. First, we published an analysis of the Boungainvillean Mining Law, The Devil in the Detail, in 2015, pointing out the way in which it favoured the government and resource developers over communities. Together with Ruth we developed resources and won funding for Ruth to tour Boungainville sharing our concerns about the law with local communities. 

In the meantime, the push for the reopening of mining continued. One of the main arguments for mining was that an independent Bougainville would need the revenues from the mine to be able to support its development. In 2018, we developed an edited collection of essays called Growing Bougainville’s Future exploring this question of whether mining was the silver bullet for Boungainville’s economic independence that was being claimed, and exploring alternative options including Bougainville’s incredible agricultural potential. We also published an accompanying short film called Long Han Blom Yumi. 

There were several reasons to be sceptical about the prospect of the Panguna mine reopening; one was connection that the mine had to the trauma of the civil war; a second was the ongoing environmental damage; a third was the fact that the landowner factions did not seem to be able to decide which of the several mining companies vying for the rights to redevelop Panguna should be allowed to do so. Rio Tinto had given away its shares in BCL back in 2016 to be the ABG and the PNG national government. Without the financial might of Rio Tinto behind it, several other mining ventures saw BCL’s claim to be the company of choice for redevelopment of the site weakening. Nevertheless, the overwhelming mood of opposition to the mine that we detected in 2013 seemed to be shifting, in that at least some landowner groups were entertaining reopening the mine. 

In the years leading up to and immediately after the independence referendum of 2019, which saw an overwhelming number of Bougainvillean's voting for independence, several (mostly Australian) mining companies wrestled for control, a struggle which found its way into Australian courts as the competing interests litigated each other. Jubilee examined this  with a report on Bougainville, Scramble for Resources.  

With direct memories of the conflict starting to fade with the passage of time, it was the damaging environmental legacy that had been left upon the landscape that was a source of distress for the local people who were trying to make a living in a polluted landscape. In 2019, our partners at the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) conducted a study of the human rights and environmental impacts of the mine and the Jaba and Kawerong Rivers into which the mine tailings flowed. Given our history and connections with the issue and and the people, a Jubilee staff member accompanied HRLC on a research visit in late 2019. The report, After the Mine: Living with Rio Tinto’s Deadly Legacy, was published in early 2020.  

Focusing on the environmental impacts was a strategy that, if it were to be successful, would need Rio Tinto to admit to its culpability in causing the environmental damage in the first place, something that Rio Tinto, one  of the largest mining companies in the world, had thus far resolutely resisted doing. It seemed a classic David vs Goliath situation with little chance of success. We saw first hand, in meetings between Rio Tinto and civil society, the Panguna issue being raised and summarily dismissed by Rio Tinto executives on the grounds that the civil war had made proper mine closure impossible and now that Rio Tinto had divested its shares in BCL, the issue was no longer its problem.  

But our HRLC colleagues saw an opportunity to use their report to push for environmental justice at Panguna. Their strategy rested on submitting a complaint based on the report’s findings to the Australian National Contact Point on Responsible Business Conduct (AusNCP). Although the AusNCP had historically been one of the poorest performing NCPs globally, recent changes had seen its powers boosted, and it had recently made a strong ruling against ANZ in a complaint regarding the financing of a problematic sugar project in Cambodia. The HRLC was betting that a reformed AusNCP would take this complaint with the seriousness that it deserved. HRLC had the support of Theonila Roka-Matbob and Nathan Matbob, who agreed to help organise 156 Panguna landowners to sign on as signatories to the complaint. Theonila’s election as the member for Panguna in the 2020 Bougainville elections only increased the legitimacy of the complaint given her now increased standing and visibility. HRLC and the 156 landowners lodged the complaint on 29 September 2020 which made three requests of Rio Tinto: first, engage with the HRLC and mine affected communities; second, fund an independent environmental and human rights assessment; third, contribute to a fund to address the harms caused. 

Normally, a human rights complaint to the relatively obscure AusNCP is not a big news story, but this was different. There was significant coverage including on the ABCTV nightly news and many other media outlets. The reason goes back to an incident that happened several months before: on 24 May 2020, Rio Tinto destroyed a rock shelter in the Pilbara region of WA, destroying 46,000 years of cultural heritage in order to gain access to $135 million of high-grade iron ore. The cultural heritage sites that were destroyed at Juukan Gorge were of untold value to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama Pinikura (PKKP) people. Even several months later, the public anger at Rio Tinto remained. 

After years of disinterest and disavowals, Rio Tinto, whose social and environmental bona fides were under scrutiny like never before, decided to change their approach. By 2021, after several months of negotiations auspiced by the AusNCP, Rio Tinto announced that it would fund the Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment (LIA). The parties agreed to set up a multi-stakeholder oversight committee including community leaders, members of the ABG and PNG government, the HRLC, and BCL and Rio Tinto and selected the environmental consultant Tetratech Coffey to perform the Legacy Impact Assessment. 

The LIA took two years. There were 25 river sediment samples taken, 445 social household surveys completed, and 23 meetings of the oversight committee. A 1,000 page report and a 100 page summary report were finally made public earlier in December. The report confirmed, in more detail that has existed before, the true extent of the damage at Panguna: polluted rivers, collapsing levees, life threatening landslides, chemical hazards being among the more serious implications. The safety of many of the 10,000-14,000 people who live in the region continues to be at risk, as is their food security and access to fresh water. The report states: 

‘Mine structures and buildings have eroded and deteriorated, the tailings continued to migrate downstream and chemicals continue to be released over time from the open pit, waste rock dump and tailings, as well as some industrial chemicals associated with some mine buildings in the Mine, River System and Port & Town domains. Across the study area, this has resulted in a range of environmental, social, human health and human rights issues.  

The publication of the LIA, which now puts on record the undeniable damage that the mine and its aftermath has had, is a vindication of the many years of work that has been done by Panguna community activists and their many supporters in civil society. So, what happens next? 

So far, Rio Tinto has taken steps towards meeting two of the three remedies sought in the original AusNCP complaint: it has engaged with the communities over the social and environmental legacy of the Panguna mine, and it has helped fund a comprehensive impact assessment. It should be noted that many of the recommendations in the LIA are of the form ‘conduct further investigations into …’ and ‘identify and assess options to mitigate …’. In other words, there is still a significant amount to be done to fully understand both the extent of the damage and the steps that will need to be taken to remedy it. 

What of the third remedy sought in the complaint: that Rio contribute to a fund to address the harms that have been caused by the mine? Ahead publication of the LIA Rio Tinto reached out to a number of organisations who have campaigned on the Panguna issue over the years, including Jubilee Australia. In November, Jubilee meet with a team from Rio Tinto and they assured us that Rio Tinto is committed to this third objective. Rio have stated publicly that they have struck an agreement with the BCL and the ABG to ‘address the legacy environmental impacts.’ In the meeting with Jubilee, Rio Tinto stated that they have already addressed the four structural ‘imminent and severe risks’ and are planning to come up with a strategy to address the four geotechnical imminent and severe risks.’  

In short, there is a lot to be hopeful for. This is also an inspirational story that shows that dedicated long-term advocacy by a small number of groups like HRLC, Jubilee, the Peace and Conflict Studies Institute (PaCSIA) and others can achieve important outcomes for human rights and the environment. However, justice for the people of Panguna is still a long way off, and HRLC, Jubilee, and our partners will need to continue to be vigilant to see this through if the outcome is to be truly satisfactory. We will leave the final word to Theonila Roka Matbob: 

‘My people cannot afford to wait years more for solutions. Rio Tinto must take responsibility for its legacy and fund the long-term solutions we need so that we can live on our land in safety again.’ 

_____ 

Further Resources

  

Media coverage of the Legacy Impact Assessment release 

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