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Shifting Ecological Imaginaries in the Ok Tedi Mining Crisis in Papua New Guinea

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Shifting Ecological Imaginaries in the Ok Tedi Mining Crisis in Papua New Guinea View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenEdition Journal de la Société des Océanistes 120-121 | Année 2005 Ethnoécologie en Océanie Shifting Ecological Imaginaries in the Ok Tedi Mining Crisis in Papua New Guinea David Hyndman Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/396 DOI: 10.4000/jso.396 ISSN: 1760-7256 Publisher Société des océanistes Printed version Date of publication: 1 December 2005 Number of pages: 76-93 ISSN: 0300-953x Electronic reference David Hyndman, « Shifting Ecological Imaginaries in the Ok Tedi Mining Crisis in Papua New Guinea », Journal de la Société des Océanistes [Online], 120-121 | Année 2005, Online since 27 November 2008, connection on 22 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/jso/396 ; DOI : 10.4000/jso.396 © Tous droits réservés Shifting Ecological Imaginaries in the Ok Tedi Mining Crisis in Papua New Guinea par David HYNDMAN* RÉSUMÉ ABSTRACT Jusqu’à la fin des années soixante-dix, les systèmes de Until the end of the 1970s, landowner systems of gestion de l’environnement par les propriétaires terriens environmental management in the upper Ok Tedi River de la haute rivière Ok Tedi en Papouasie Nouvelle- in Papua New Guinea were based on local access to and Guinée reposaient sur les possibilités d’accès et le control over land, water and resources. Subsistence eco- contrôle des terres, des ressources et de l’eau. L’écologie logy in the 1970s informed the analysis of customary de subsistance des années soixante-dix a fourni les élé- ecological knowledge and resource use and rights. The ments d’analyse des savoirs traditionnels concernant Ok Tedi mining project started in the early 1980s. The l’environnement et les droits et usages des ressources. Le mine is global in scope and its harsh treatment of the projet minier d’Ok Tedi a vu le jour au début des années river systems set aside for production is common to quatre-vingt. La mine est un projet à visée globale et les capitalist industrial environmental management. For voies d’eau ont été soumises à rude épreuve au profit local subsistence-oriented landowners at the periphery d’une gestion de l’environnement capitaliste et indus- of global space, being in the throes of complex capitalist trielle. Les propriétaires terriens de la région, vivant en transition and destroyed industrial landscape was an économie d’autosubsistance à la périphérie de l’espace alien experience. Political ecology in the 1980s informed global, ont subi les affres de la transition complexe au analysis of resource appropriation and commoditisation capitalisme, face à des paysages ravagés par l’industria- into capitalist relations of production. The immoral lisation ; pour eux, ce fut une expérience tout à fait ecology of the mine threatened the moral ecology of nouvelle. L’écologie politique des années quatre-vingt a subsistence and was played out in global-local articula- permis l’analyse de l’appropriation des ressources et de tions between environmental imaginaries armed with leur utilisation dans un système de production capita- different powers and technologies. Liberation ecology in liste. L’écologie immorale de la mine a menacé l’écolo- the 1990s informed the analysis of the libratory poten- gie morale de subsistance et s’est jouée entre une vision tial of a popular ecological resistance movement that globale versus locale des imaginaires de l’environnement emerged in response to severe environmental degrada- équipés de différents pouvoirs et technologies. L’écolo- tion from the mine that threatened the livelihood of over gie de libération des années quatre-vingt-dix nous ren- 30,000 people along the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers. Repre- seigne sur les analyses du potentiel libératoire d’un mou- sentations of the Ok Tedi mining crisis continue to be vement de résistance écologique populaire apparu en characterised by conflicting environmental imaginaries réponse aux sévères dégradations de l’environnement between miners, landowners and social scientists. dues à la mine et qui menacent les moyens d’existence de plus de 30 000 personnes vivant le long des rivières Ok K: Papua New Guinea, Ok Tedi mine, Tedi et Fly. Aujourd’hui encore, cette crise minière, est landowners and researchers, subsistence ecology, caractérisée par des représentations conflictuelles de political ecology, liberation ecology l’environnement entre mineurs, propriétaires terriens et chercheurs en sciences sociales. M- : Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée, mine Ok Tedi, propriétaires terriens et chercheurs, écolo- gie de subsistence, écologie politique, écologie de libération * Social Science Program, Bureau of Rural Sciences (Canberra), David.Hyndman@affa.gov.au Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 120-121, année 2005-1/2 76 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES Subsistence Ecology crops are everywhere the same: sweet potato, taro (Colocasia), Xanthosoma, sugar cane, Saccharum «Cultural systems and ecosystems can be thought edule, bananas, yams, Pandanus conoideus, and a wide of as organised patterns for the processing of informa- variety of vegetables. Gathering of wild foods, espe- tion, energy, and materials. The transfer of energy and cially leaves, is significant. Animal protein is obtained materials from the ecosystem to the human system is by hunting and fishing and by raising tame cassowa- primarily through culturally guided patterns of ries and the ubiquitous domestic pig.» (Clarke, 1971: resource evaluation and exploitation. A subsistence 7) system, then, is the assemblage of technologies and strategies with which humans modify and exploit I found Clarke’s theoretical approach to energy relationships in order to tap and control biotic understanding subsistence ecology to be particu- systems in the supply of energy and materials for larly relevant and resonate well with my own human sustenance and maintenance.» (Nietschmann, research. In human ecosystems according to 1973: 5) Clarke (1971: 18) «structure related both to the actual spatial arrangements of organisms and I started environmental anthropology environmental elements and to the abstract research with the Wopkaimin people of the connective organisation by means of which inte- upper Ok Tedi River in Papua New Guinea ractions take place. Function means the way that () in 1973. My concern was the ethnographic the parts of the system operate together and analysis of subsistence ecology, which compre- affect each other ¢ that is, what is happening in hends people and environment as parts of a the system». Moreover, I concurred with the single system. The subsistence ecology study of stress Clarke placed on resilience over negative Miskito Indians on the Caribbean coast of Nica- feedback functionalism: ragua by Nietschmann provided general theore- tical orientation to my research, and I followed «the idea of the ecosystem, which stresses the his comprehensive definition of a subsistence circularity of the relationship between organism and system as: environment, make it easy to consider that envi- ronment as both a result of and an influence on human «the organisation of production, distribution, and behaviour [...] Considered thus as components of consumption of foods and other needed materials. an ecosystem, both man and the environment are The economy is characterised by reciprocal exchange seen as parts of a single unit, the whole of which is patterns and kinship obligations, involving goods, worthy of study. Concern shifts from which part favors and generosity.Production activities are formed most influences the other to the structure of the around domestic units for family needs within a whole system and how it operates and changes... it society structured by kinship. Reciprocity of goods removes the rear of the heresy of determinism in and services is carried out between kinsmen and fellow considering some human behaviour as adaptations to villagers to the extent that what is ‘‘economic’’ is not environmental conditions.» (Clarke, 1971: 200-201) easily distinguishable from the ‘‘social’’. Family poo- ling, reciprocity, and a[n] [...] ethic that to be a good I carried out a collaborative ecological analy- kinsman is to be unselfish, generous, and thoughtful sis (Hyndman and Menzies, 1980, 1990) that toward others, all interrelate to provide a continuous established the biotic resources endemic to the circulation of labor, food, and materials within a unique Ok Tedi ecosystem. Environmental ima- village, the rate of which is geared by need and ginaries are experienced through a history of social relationship, not by Western economic cost social relations particular to a natural environ- accounting.» (Nietschmann, 1973: 61) ment, and they are mystically and spiritually Clarke’s (1971) classic subsistence ecology expressed (Peet and Watts, 1998: 263). Having studyof anisolatedruralMelanesiancommunity established a biotic resource reference point to was very evocative of the locale and the features the natural habitat, I examined how the Wop- of Wopkaimin subsistence I encountered in my kaimin ethnoecological imaginary was embed- own research: ded in the subsistence ecology of foraging, sago and taro swiddens (see Hyndman, 1979, 1982a, «An aesthetic attraction of the basin was the extra- 1986; Hyndman and Morren 1990; Morren and ordinary steepness of the slopes that form the highest Hyndman, 1987). Wopkaimin local histories of part of the rim; in places they rise almost vertically, so natural resource management were mapped that the streams become water falls and the forested onto a cultural
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