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After the Mine

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After the Mine After the mine Living with Rio Tinto’s deadly legacy Contact Acknowledgements Keren Adams or Hollie Kerwin We would like to express our profound Finally, thank you to Taloi Havini, Human Rights Law Centre thanks to the Panguna mine-affected Nathan Matbob, Dina Hopstad Rui, Level 17, 461 Bourke Street communities, whose experiences and Eduardo Soteras Jalil and MISEREOR Melbourne VIC 3000 demands for justice are the basis for for the generous contribution of images this report and in particular to the for the report and to Axel Müller for T: + 61 3 8636 4433 community members who participated the map. E: [email protected] in interviews. [email protected] This report was made possible by the W: www.hrlc.org.au Thank you also to the Catholic Diocese of generous support of SAGE Fund, Sigrid Bougainville and in particular, all those Rausing Trust and Oak Foundation. Human Rights Law Centre involved in the Panguna Listening Project (PLP) initiated by the late Bishop Bernard The Human Rights Law Centre protects Cover Image: Unabali, on whose work this report and promotes human rights in Australia 23-year old Geraldine Damana and her builds. Special thanks to Fr. Polycarp and beyond through strategic legal baby Joylin, outside their home inside Kaviak for giving us permission to use action, research and advocacy. the Panguna mine pit. parts of the data and stories collected by that project in this report. We are an independent and not-for-profit organisation and Thank you to the Autonomous donations are tax-deductible. Bougainville Government (ABG), in particular the ABG Minister of Health, Follow us: @rightsagenda the Hon. Dennis Lokonai, and ABG Minister for Community Development, Join us: www.facebook.com/ the Hon. Marcelline Kokiai, as well HumanRightsLawCentreHRLC as to former ABG President James Tanis and former Acting Secretary of About this Report the Department of Peace Agreement This report was written by Keren Implementation Dennis Kuiai for Adams and Hollie Kerwin with research background information and feedback assistance from Theonila Roka Matbob, on various aspects of the report. Nathan Matbob, Dina Hopstad Rui, Luke Fletcher, Christina Hill, Freya Thank you to Professor Ciaran Dinshaw and Tess McGuire and editorial O’Faircheallaigh, Professor John assistance from Michelle Bennett. Braithwaite, Professor Kristian Lasslett, Erica Rose Jeffrey, Alan Tingay, Axel All information correct as at Müller and Jubilee Australia Research 1 March 2020. Centre for background information, advice or feedback on drafts. Special thanks to Dr Volker Boege for all the advice and feedback throughout this research. Contents Summary Landslides and collapsing 02 32 levees Recommendations Food shortages 06 35 Methodology Disease and illness 08 37 Background Human rights violations 10 46 Polluted rivers Rio Tinto and BCL’s 16 50 obligations Lack of access to clean water Priority needs identified 20 54 by communities Flooding and land destruction Endnotes 23 56 Treacherous river crossings 30 After the Mine: Living with Rio Tinto’s deadly legacy 1 PAPUA NEW GUINEA PANGUNA Summary People from In December 2019, the people of the The report is based on site visits to 38 villages “ small Pacific island of Bougainville voted and 60 in-depth interviews undertaken by the other parts of overwhelmingly to become the world’s newest Human Rights Law Centre and local research Bougainville call nation.1 The referendum on the island’s partners from the Panguna area between independence from Papua New Guinea was a September 2019 and February 2020. It also us ‘bibirua’, the peaceful, joyous affair, accompanied in many draws on the research and findings of over doomed ones. places by singing and dancing in the streets. 300 interviews of mine-affected residents ” conducted under a research project initiated by Alphonse Mirina, 42, ‘Bougainville is on the verge of freedom!’ declared the Catholic Diocese of Bougainville between Barako village the President of the region’s autonomous 2017 and 2019, and an extensive desktop review government, Dr John Momis. ‘We are on a of primary and secondary sources. mission, and our mission is to liberate Bougainville and enable the people to be free to decide and Our research concludes that the impacts of the manage their own affairs’.2 mine and Rio Tinto’s failure to address them have devastated communities and left them Bougainville’s future, however, remains in a deteriorating, increasingly dangerous overshadowed by the disastrous legacy of an situation. Australian mining project. The contamination of the Kawerong and Between 1972 and 1989, the Panguna mine, Jaba rivers by mine waste has severely developed and majority-owned by Anglo- limited peoples’ access to clean water. Most Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, was one communities have to pipe drinking water of the world’s largest copper and gold mines. over long distances or rely on rainwater During this period, the company’s subsidiary, water tanks or creeks which frequently dry Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) discharged up during the dry season. Many families have over a billion tonnes of mine waste into local no option but to continue to use the polluted river systems, devastating the environment and rivers for bathing and washing, or to cross the health and livelihoods of local communities. them to tend crops or go to school. Those interviewed reported serious health impacts Anger over these practices and the unequal as a consequence, including sores and skin distribution of the mine’s profits ultimately diseases, diarrhoea, respiratory problems and led to an insurrection by local people in 1989 pregnancy complications. which forced the mine’s closure and triggered a brutal, decade-long civil war which cost the The chemical contamination of the rivers is lives of up to 15,000 people. compounded by ongoing erosion from the vast mounds of tailings waste dumped by In 2016, Rio Tinto divested from the mine and the company in the Jaba river valley. With walked away without having contributed to each heavy rainfall, huge volumes of tailings clean-up or rehabilitation. sand is washed into the rivers, flooding large As a result, Panguna continues to gape like tracts of land downstream with polluted mud an open wound in the centre of the island. – displacing villages, contaminating water Polluted water from the mine pit flows sources and destroying new areas of forest unabated into local rivers, turning the riverbed and agricultural land essential to peoples’ and surrounding rocks an unnatural blue. The livelihoods. Jaba-Kawerong river valley downstream of the At such times, river crossings become perilous, mine resembles a moonscape, with vast mounds with constantly shifting channels and large of grey tailings waste and rock stretching almost areas of quicksand. Human Rights Law Centre 40km downstream to the coast. researchers were told of multiple incidents An estimated 12-14,000 people live in which community members, including downstream of the mine along the children, had drowned or sustained serious Jaba-Kawerong river valley.3 injuries while attempting to cross the rivers due to the treacherous conditions. This report examines the ongoing impacts of the mine on the human rights of these communities that Rio Tinto has left behind. 2 After the Mine: Living with Rio Tinto’s deadly legacy The massive problems left by the mine’s In a bitter twist of irony, the impoverishment operation are now being exacerbated by its caused by the mine’s impacts is driving many crumbling infrastructure. Levees constructed residents back into the polluted rivers to pan for in the 1980s to contain the tailings and divert gold to support themselves and their families, the rivers are crumbling, hastening erosion further heightening the risks to their health. into the rivers and raising the prospect of catastrophic collapse. In one area visited, Communities interviewed stressed the need the levee was being undermined by the river, for urgent assistance to help them deal with posing a serious risk to nearby villages. these overwhelming problems, but neither the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) The impacts of the mine continue to infringe nor the Government of Papua New Guinea nearly all the economic, social and cultural (PNG) alone have the resources or technology rights of local communities, including their to manage the impacts of the mine’s tailings fundamental rights to food, water, health, or clean up the site. Indeed, post referendum, housing and an adequate standard of living. the ABG and at least some landowner groups see re-opening the mine as one of the only Loss of arable and forested land through options for funding their future independence flooding and tailings deposits has created from Papua New Guinea. food shortages and deprived communities of traditional building materials for their homes. Rio Tinto holds itself out as a global corporate leader on human rights and the environment Sacred sites fundamental to communities’ and claims to pay particular attention to connections with the spirits of their ancestors communities’ rights to land, water and have been destroyed. cultural heritage. Unless it addresses its legacy at Panguna, however, and contributes Some communities have been displaced to remedying the massive problems it entirely and are now living in overcrowded has created, the company will remain in conditions on land belonging to others. serious violation of its human rights and environmental obligations. The mine pit. After the Mine: Living
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