Mining Monitorapril 2015 / vol 3

Entropy 1 | MonEy, land and autonoMy | nEwcrEst and transparEncy

IncrEasIng transparEncy & accountabIlIty for woodlark Island

thE IMpacts of MInIng In MIlnE bay

IN THIS ISSUE

MINING MONITOR, APRIL 2015

Editors: charles roche & Jessie boylan design and layout: Elbo graphicsall images (c) MpI unless attributedcover image: skirt - James leach

a publication by the Mineral policy Institute www.mpi.org.au | mpi@mpi.org.au

From THE EDITORS

If you’ve gotten this far, then you’re reading the april edition of the Mining Monitor!

This edition of the MM takes us around the globe again; with the first stop being Tasmania. MPI chair Dr. Gavin Mudd attended and opened the mining legacies exhibition Entropy 1, which we featured in February’s edition of the MM. Dr. Mudd gives us an insight in to the impacts and resonances of the work that Isla Macgregor presented to a state in the midst of a mining conundrum, whether to boom or bust, ignoring the legacies of previous mines that still tarnish the landscape.

MpI’s director, charles roche takes a detailed look into two articles on the impacts of mining on culture and life for the Reite Communities in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The articles, written by professor James leach discuss the implications for enforced development such as mining on remote and traditional communities, enabling outsiders to gain an insight into how complex the issues. Charles then has a quick look at Newcrest’s latest Sustainability Report.

In our video this month, dr brian brunton widens our focus to another community impacted by mining developments in png, and looks at the Milne Bay province that has seen mining on Misima Island, which ended in 2001, and future projects underway such as the woodlark Island project, and a potential Deep Sea Mining project. Mining in PNG is one of MPI’s main focuses, and we will continue to bring readers of the MM in depth articles about developments there, but we are also looking for more contributions from those who also have interest and knowledge in this area.

In this day and age, information is disseminated at lightening speed, making it difficult to digest much of what is going around, but luckily for us, in this edition, simon Judd reports on two different websites that expose and make transparent mining companies activities, economically and socially all around the world. Judd takes us through the functionality and purpose of websites Bank Track and EJ Atlas with a particular focus on how both websites are increasing transparency and accountability for Woodlark Island.

happy reading,

charles roche & Jessie boylan

Jessie Boylan

A sincere thankyou to the donors who made a donation after February’s Mining Monitor. It takes time to produce well researched, relevant and original articles - your donations will help us keep the Mining Monitor strong. Thank you.

Entropy 1 captures a range of images of impact from mining legacies, from acid mine drainage to the rusting hulks of abandoned mine infrastructure. readers may recall the front page of february’s Mining Monitor which portrayed a sense of impact and captured MpI’s motto of ‘keeping an eye on mining”. In Isla’s own words “The concept of entropy began life in the world of thermodynamics, as a measure of randomness, or disorder. Like many esoteric scientific terms, entropy has been adopted by several other disciplines, and now represents the tendency of a system – be it man-made or natural - to deteriorate inevitably toward an inert, disordered, essentially non-functional state. A condition that is a pale shadow of what was once an inherently functional, ordered, productive scheme. Mining and other human activities have exacerbated the disorder in our earth’s systems.”

The exhibition builds on and adds to the work of Isla and gavin’s 2014 tasmanian mining legacies

tour which itself provided part of the inspiration for the exhibition.

The impact of the exhibition was well captured by reviewer bronwyn williams, who described “Ms MacGregor’s images – as was her intention – are a telling contrast to the picture postcard Tasmanian eye candy we are accustomed to seeing on public display. They are equally captivating, with gorgeous colours and textures, but closer inspection reveals the inexorable ruination of the environment that began many decades ago in our state’s far flung mines.”

MpI was pleased to be able to support Isla’s exhibition, if you were or are not in Hobart then the entire exhibition is available online!

The exhibition, originally held at the Hawker Centre in hobart from 19-29 March, is now on show Mount wellington restaurant, in the fern tree tavern, Hobart until 2016.

Dr Gavin Mudd Reports: Seeing is believing ... this has been a mantra of MpI since it was founded, let alone the common saying that a picture tells a thousand words. Recently, as Chair of MPI, I had the pleasure of helping to launch the photographic exhibition of Isla Macgregor in Hobart, Tasmania, on the long-term mining legacies in Tasmania.

unfortunately, there is a rich heritage in tasmania of long-term environmental impacts from mining - especially the west coast. Projects such as Mt Lyell and mining in the Zeehan area, amongst many others, have lead to ongoing impacts to waterways and communities - yet this story remains hidden in contemporary understandings of tasmania’s environment.

Isla Macgregor’s exhibition, showing photographs of the ongoing pollution and lack of rehabilitation at former mine sites, is a critically important step in helping people to recognise the ongoing environmental problems in the mining industry

in tasmania - which represent an important test case for the rest of Australia.

Visual evidence can often be as powerful for people as ‘hard’ scientific evidence such as water chemistry - and indeed, it was this very approach which was the foundation for MpI’s Mining Legacies work: show people examples of the pollution caused by mining in many places and they will believe.

as such, MpI was very proud to be a sponsor and supporter of Isla Macgregor’s exhibition showing the ongoing impacts of mining legacies in tasmania - and we look forward to sharing more of Isla’s work in the future.

Entropy 1

Gavin on the Queen River, Queenstown Image: Isla McGregorIn March, the Mineral Policy Institute’s Chair, Dr Gavin Mudd along with the Tasmanian

Times editor, Lindsay Tuffin, opened Isla McGregor’s Entropy 1 photography exhibition.

Image: Isla McGregor

The impact of mining is often obvious. Examples of positive benefits and the negative impacts are repeatedly demonstrated. In Western Australia we have see the rapid bust following the spectacular boom of the mining industry, and in papua new Guinea (PNG) the expatriation of profits and associated impact from riverine tailings disposal at the Porgera and Ok Tedi mines.

there are also less obvious impacts from what the west calls development, such as increases in domestic violence and hIV aids often associated with mining in PNG. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fundamental way that development, the assumptions it’s based on, and the values that underpin in it undermine the relationships and connectivity between communities and land. where development is accompanied by, or perhaps built on, a loss of agency (capacity for free thought and action) and autonomy from the very communities it purports to assist.

In two companion articles, professor James leach, director of research for the centre de recherche et de documentation sur l’océanie and an arc future fellow at the university of Western Australia, explores the indirect impact of mining-led development on the reite Village in the Madang Province of PNG. In an engaging narrative that presents the lived reality of the communities to the reader, the articles challenge basic assumptions about customary land, property and development.

this article is part summary, part review and part discussion. It’s impossible in a short article to understand the reite community or do justice to leach’s three years of participant-based observation there. Rather, the aim is to understand mining-development in png; seeking a path than contributes to healthy and just societies supported by ecological well-being.

the reite village is twenty kilometers from the basamuk bay processing plant that is connected to the kurumbukari nickel mine by a 130 kilometre pipeline. The ore is processed at Basamuk Bay and shipped overseas with the mine waste disposed of via a 150 meter deep pipe into the 1500 meter deep Basamuk Bay canyons.

the values and belief systems of the reite communities are illustrated by their bark-fibre skirts which have named patterns in the skirts and are owned by, and deeply connected with, particular kin groups and places. The skirt pictured below, carries the design Tupon sarrung, which means ‘waterfall,’ and brings together the movement of the waterfall and the person as one, enhanced by the swish and flow of the dance. Even in this basic description, the interconnectedness between land and people is apparent.

leach writes of the reproductive power of community, experiencing people who”…are, in a very real sense land made mobile, containing as they do the power, substance, knowledge and history of specific lands.” (leach, 2011, 312) here, land is not institutionalised through ownership or state sanction but is collectively held and nourished through interconnected life and ritual. the design on your skirt tells others where you are from - a place of shared land and exchange as the basis of cultural life and kinship, a place where the relationship between land and people is complex, multifaceted and interwoven across time.

the change in communities is captured by leach’s description of a ‘time of taro and yam’ and a ‘time of money’. Like many communities in png, reite people rely on starchy crops (like taro, banana, sweet potato, sago and yams) as their staple food, and in their case it’s taro. But as the skirts are more than clothes, taro is much more than food. Professor Leach describes a centrality of taro, with the subsistence role of taro indistinguishable from taro as form and structure in social life. There are specific ways of growing taro, which is passed down in initiation rights by maternal kinsman, tracing the history of how they came to grow taro. The history of taro and people is connected to land and ancestral entities in a myth of taro called Samat Matakaring Patuki.

now though is the ‘time of money’, with communities wanting to capitalise on the opportunities brought by development to make money, to counter the fact that twenty toea has no power — that is twenty toea does not buy much. Indeed, this is seen as the right, moral way, of realising value from the land. Which, without direct development from the mine, is sought through resource intensification. Effectively resulting in a marked increase in the commodification of agriculture as communities seek to sell more produce to those in and around the processing plant as they pursue the opportunity or ‘time of money’.

unfortunately the ‘time of money’ is both dependent on, and at the same erodes, the ‘time of taro and yam’. While communities seek opportunities to earn additional income, the communities remain subsistence-based. A life where people still use shifting cultivation for gardening and the raising of domestic animals, supplemented by hunting in the forest. Leach writes that the “…Reite could not be sustained without the foundation of the subsistence regime; the social organization, mutual support, and kind based exchange (including labour) that are integral to taro and yam cultivation.” (2014, p.58).

far from being an abstract notion, leach writes that the system is on the edge of collapse with

Money, land and autonomy development on the fringes of mining

the forest being cut far too rapidly to maintain fertility and allow regeneration to occur. So rather than gaining from this ‘time of money’ it “…is unsustainable in a very immediate sense, and worse it is destroying the foundation for an existence based on the cultivation of tubers.” (2014, p.58).

this is not written as a criticism of a community for seeking development, but in recognition of the unintended consequences of industrial development. Startlingly, this time it’s not a community resettled, or living on a river filled with mine waste, but a community on the fringes, just seeking a better life.

while the impacts on the future of subsistence agriculture are easily seen in increased land-clearing, less apparent is the flow-on effects on social and cultural life and the strong food/land ties that bind them together. Both the skirt and taro examples relate to the strong, indistinguishable connections that subsistence

and clothing have with the culture, history and the land. So by this point, hopefully we can see that ‘land is life’ (a much heard png saying) in a far deeper multifaceted sense than development based on western liberal traditions would have us believe.

Leach refers the reader to J.G.A Pockock (1992) in both articles as he explains how western ideas of property reduces land from a vital relationship, to a simple ‘right to use and dispose of’. Essentially saying that the reite relationship to land and the western tenured system are different, perhaps, I would say, incommensurable. Again, rather than an abstraction, this understanding is crucial to the debate, as the png legislative process for deciding who is, or are, the customary owners, is grounded in a reductive system that favours clean lines and outright tenure of instead of complex interactions and shared ownership. Or, as Leach writes, where the fundamental relationship with land is changed as economic value takes precedence over other values.

The proximity and possibility of development brings a range of stresses alongside opportunities, including the fear of losing their land to external development, or of missing what seems like the only chance for development. The fear that Palota expressed of losing his relationship with the land he was named from without his knowledge (2011, p.296). leach describes a “…shift in assumptions from when customary ownership tenure was a mode of autonomy to one in which customary ownership is a kind of property ownership.” (2014, p.58)

separated by time and space, it seems unbelievable that post-Enlightenment western liberal views on the centrality of property ownership, could now impact on the reite and customary land ownership in PNG. A history with shared land interwoven with social activity and cultural values; exchanged for a single alienable asset that must be capitalised on to be of value. A change where complex interactions with the land are compressed into a singular notion of land as property in a process perhaps best described as legal colonialism.

Leach, supported by questions by Palota, (2011, p.296) describes this process as a loss of autonomy. Not a denial of sovereignty by force, but by an ill-balanced and thoughtless process resulting in the drastic and sudden narrowing of the value of land that sees communities sacrifice much in the pursuit of the chimera of development. Where “…(F)far from giving greater sovereignty. ‘The time of money’ and its underlying mechanism of the individual exploitation of property amounts to the ceding of sovereignty to the state, and the interests of the corporations it relies on for its income.” (2011, p.58)

the fact that communities actively seek this development does not lessen the impacts, but should remind us that communities need all the facts and a clear understanding

of the impacts of development in order to make informed decisions. This perhaps is the biggest challenge. Unfortunately, rather than slowing down, mining companies and advisors from australia, continue to promote a system that brings destruction to communities in the pursuit of western development.

leach is not anti-development, nor am I, but we both I believe, seek an honest discussion of what ‘development’ means and how it could be better done in png - for the benefit of the people, rather than the developers or miners. As one who focuses on the direct impacts from mining, leach’s work, detailing off-site or fringe impacts has disturbed me. For while already aware of, and seeking to reduce cultural fragmentation from mining projects, the story of Reite brings that impact to life. It is also a call for help and a stark warning to other communities in png seeking development, the proponents of such ‘development’ and even for those who seek to lesson the impacts.

for those who want to follow up on the reite or professor leach then start here!

Leach, J. (2014). 'The time of money': property and sovereignty as alternative narratives of land and value near the Ramu NiCo mining project (Madang, PNG). Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 138-139.

Leach, J. (2011). "Twenty Toea Has No Power Now": Property, Customary Tenure, and pressure on Land Near the Ramu Nickel Project Area, Madang, Papua New Guinea. Pacific Studies, 34 (2/3 Aug/Dec).

newcrest Mining released their 2014 Sustainability Report earlier in April. As a large australian gold mining company, newcrest operate a number of mining and exploration sites in Australia, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. these include both the hidden Valley mine and Wafi-Golpu exploration/development site in the Morobe province of papua new guinea, which are operated with Harmony Gold.

the Mineral policy Institute (MpI) is a little skeptical of the value of sustainability reports, as they are often a defense of the status quo rather than a tool for improvement. A typical report makes the company sound responsible, but omits any real challenges and uncomfortable truths. Hoping for change, from the company that wants to be seen as the ‘miner of choice’ MPI had a look.

Important background is that in october 2014 at newcrest’s agM, MpI formally presented copies of the Hidden Valley documentary and the accompanying report Mining in Morobe, Papua New Guinea: Impacts from mining along the Watut River to newcrest board chair peter hay and cEo Sandeep Biswas. Hidden Valley contained strong feedback from communities about the need to change the approach to mining development, giving communities the right to ‘choose their own future’. The Mining in Morobe report supported this with an assessment and analysis of Newcrest and Harmony Gold’s reporting. Multiple breaches were found in convention of the IcMM principles, the ocEd guidelines and the Equator Principles with further problems relating to company policies, sustainability reporting and assurance. we are pleased to acknowledge once again that Newcrest became a member of the Extractive Industries transparency Initiative (EItI) and the Voluntary principles on security and human Rights during 2014. Both provide opportunities for newcrest to improve their performance and set a good example for other companies.

we note that newcrest gave their own work a tick of approval in relation to stakeholder engagement and the International council of

Metals and Mining (IcMM) and global reporting Index (GRI) Principles. Unfortunately they never mentioned the watut river, let alone the ongoing impacts on community and environment caused by sedimentation from the Hidden Valley mine.

It is useful to compare that self-assessment with the number of (unacknowledged) sustainability issues at Hidden Valley and Wafi-Golpu. Table 1, from the Mining in Morobe report assesses newcrest and harmony’s (and the Morobe Mining Joint Venture, MMJV) activities against a number of OECD Guidelines finding numerous breaches. MPI is yet to receive a response to these specific findings or a general response to Hidden Valley and Mining in Morobe Report.

Interestingly, despite being employed by newcrest and guided by their criteria, the assurer, Ernst and young made a number of interesting statements (p.52) alongside their limited assurance statement. In brief these included: (1) the benefits from strengthening engagement with ngo’s at a corporate level; (2) additional direct engagement with external stakeholders regarding reporting criteria; (3) additional case studies of interest to specific interest groups to demonstrate newcrest’s response to challenges (ie watut river); (4) improving the timeliness of the report as a means of identifying onsite issues and responding to stakeholder interests.

despite having fundamental concerns about sustainability reporting and largely obscure assurance assessments, MpI supports these observations by Ernst and Young. While not addressing the fundamental power inequality between community and company, or the reducing the impacts on people and place, the recommendations could, if adopted by newcrest, at least result in some improvements in reporting and acknowledgement of stakeholders concerns.

Newcrest and Transparency Table 1. Assessment of MMJV/Newcrest Activities against OCED Guidelines.

Reference No. Guideline text [abbreviated]

Description of impact/ desired outcome

General Policy 1. Contribute to sustainable development.

Given that PNG has a poor record of transforming large scale mining into sustainable development there is a need for companies to ensure development of the non-mining related economy to ensure long-term sustainability of the region post-mining.

General Policy 7. Develop and apply self-regulation and management to build trust with society.

Inadequate/flawed assessment of mining impact both in intensity and geographical spread. Need more effective and transparent process.

General Policy 10, 11. Due diligence, Avoid/mitigate actual and potential adverse impacts.

Newcrest bought into existing project with inadequate/flawed implementation and assessment of negative mining impact. Effective mitigation hampered by lack of publicly available information on sources and impacts of sedimentation.

General Policy 12. Prevent and mitigate impacts where not directly responsible.

Failed to adequately identify or respond to existing and ongoing impacts when buying into the Hidden Valley mine. This also applies to suppliers and financiers.

General Policy 14. Engage with relevant stakeholders in order to provide meaningful opportunities to contribute to decision making.

Original consultations limited in geographic extent, despite previous in-country experience of riverine impacts on downstream communities. ESAP offers partial compliance but hampered by design and lack of representation.

Disclosure 2, 3, 4. Disclose polices and material information, environment and social reporting and performance, relationship information.

Poor disclosure. Inadequate policies by operating entity [MMJV], failure to implement existing policies of JV partners, Newcrest and Harmony Gold. Failure to adequately assess and disclose social and environmental impact.

Human Rights 1.4. Policy commitment and respect for Human Rights.

No MMJV Policy. Do not obtain Free Prior and Informed Consent. Inadequate consultation, lack of assistance for landowners to access independent information about potential impacts and alternatives.

Human Rights 2. Avoid causing or contributing to human rights impacts.

Indirect human rights impacts through environmental impact and economic/cultural change.

Human Rights 5. Carry out human rights due diligence.

Poor assessment despite operating in a country known for in/direct human rights abuses in extractive industries.

Human Rights 6. Seek remediation of impacts.

Lack of transparency regarding recognition and response to impacts. Contentious ‘compensation’ payments requiring forgoing of future legal options.

Environment 1a,b,c. Establish and maintain system of environmental management.

Lack of transparency and access to EMS. Inadequate baseline data. Poor reporting. Inappropriate standards used.

Environment 2a,b. Provide public with timely and adequate information and adequate community consultation.

Restricted consultation, slow response to crisis. Ongoing problems with information dissemination, access to independent information and consultation.

Environment 3. Prepare an adequate environmental impact statement [EIS]

EIS failed to anticipate impacts, no public review or updated assessment. Poor transparency and consultation about un/anticipated impacts.

Environment 5. Timely damage minimisation, maintain contingency plans.

Slow response to impacts, including amelioration strategies. Contingency plans inadequate and/or unavialable, lack of transparency about environmental management and incident response.

Environment 8. Contribute to awareness and improved public policy.

Withholding relevant information from the public and regulatory bodies. More positively, MMJV is a member and contributing to PNG EITI and a number of local projects.

Science 2. Transfer and diffusion of knowledge

Withheld/ failed to make available scientific reports on environmental data and impacts.

In february’s Mining Monitor, MpI outlined a proposed and potentially damaging mine on woodlark Island in papua new guinea, highlighting a number of potential ecological and social impacts. Part of MPI’s work is to make information about such projects available and accessible, recognising that freely available information is critical to engendering both transparency and equity in mining developments. Unfortunately, a paucity of information and a lack of transparency by kula Gold Limited make it difficult for interested parties to access information about the project.

to highlight potential impacts and encourage more, MpI has assisted in publishing two webpages on the proposed mine at woodlark Island, one focusing on environmental and social justice issues and the other concerned with the responsible financing of the project.

The first of these is The Environmental Justice Atlas a database of teaching, networking and advocacy resources. The website is accessed through a geographical interface which directs users to global database of conflicts over resource extraction. The database includes specific details of environmental and social impacts and is an effective teaching, networking and advocacy resource which is particularly useful to strategists, activist organizers, scholars, and teachers as well as citizens wanting to learn more about the often invisible conflicts taking place around the globe. The database is a product of a project called the Environmental Justice organisations, liabilities and trade which will run from 2011-2015 and is supported by the European Commission.

the EJatlas is not only an important communication and information dissemination

Increasing transparency and accountability for Woodlark Island by Dr Simon Judd

tool for woodlark Island, but is also useful resource in the sense that it supports the work of Environmental Justice organisations such as MPI. Central themes of the website are Ecological debts (or Environmental liabilities) and Ecologically Unequal Exchange. These are issues of fundamental importance to MpI’s work in Papua New Guinea. MPI’s work on Woodlark Island has been added to the Environmental Justice atlas and other work will added throughout the year.

the second website is created by BankTrack, an NGO which focuses on the responsible financing of projects, which MpI has been a member of for many years. Kula Gold is seeking funds from to establish their controversial mine so working on the operations and investments of private sector banks is important . BankTrack is a particularly powerful website because it provides a cross-referencing platform for banks, deals, companies and a whole range of projects that impact negatively upon the ecological well-being of the planet and compromise the chances a decent life free of poverty and injustice for all people.

Even after the 2008 global financial crisis, private sector banks still represent a crucial source of finance for companies and governments, exerting great influence on the operations of their clients and on society as a whole. The aim of banktrack is to make private sector banks become fully transparent and accountable for their activities to all their stakeholders and to society at large. The website is an important tool in promoting fundamental changes in the banks

and in the informing them on the expectations of global civil society regarding environmentally sound and socially just business practices. The structure of the website and its capacity to show clear relationships between various companies, banks, projects and financial deals makes it a powerful resource.

by working with, or alternatively, holding these banks to account, projects such as woodlark Island can be assessed for their impact and operations, for example against the Equator Principles.

The question is whether or not the mine can be operated responsibly. Will it contribute to sustaining healthy and just societies and ecological well-being or will it be just another mining legacy? real concerns about the proposed mine include: resettlement of communities, the dumping of mine waste at sea, and enduring social and environmental impacts that will affect the communities long after the mine has gone. The proposed mine’s marginal financial viability multiplies the chance of interrupted or abandoned operations, increasing the risk of poor social, economic and environmental outcomes.

both of the websites strengthen civil society’s capacity to monitor mining activity, and influence private sector banks and the capacity for ngos, to undertake their work and provide direct support for mining affected communities.

FILM CORNER

Is the papua new guinean government regulating the Mining companies in order to really benefit its people? Dr Brian Brunton, A Former National Court Judge, now based in the Milne bay province and co-ordinating the ‘alotau Environment’ ngo group says the Milne bay people are no strangers to the outcomes of Mining.

“We are left with a hole in the ground, and you can imagine where the money goes to.”

Dr Brian Brunton from the Alotau Environment Group on the impacts of Mining in Milne Bay and PNG.

click image to play video in youtube

To all our members, supporters and readers wherever you are.

despite the good work of MpI and many other grassroots and community groups around the world, the impacts from mining continue to grow. And unfortunately, we are unable to assist all the communities that request assistance, though we try our best.

with mining projects often taking 10-20 years to develop, challenging mining, reducing impacts, supporting communities and preventing disasters takes long-term, disciplined and sustained effort. We desperately need you help to continue and expand this work.

If you can make a donation or become a monthly donor then please do at givenow.

thankyou!

CONSIDER DONATING TO MPIWWW.GivENoW.coM.Au/MPi

Mining in Morobe, Papua New Guinea

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