‘Destruction by a thousand cuts’: the relentless threat mining poses to the Pilbara cultural landscape

1. Sarah Holcombe

   Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

2. Bronwyn Fredericks

   Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement), The University of Queensland

3. 
   

 Just as the parliamentary inquiry into Rio Tinto’s destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters was reconvening in Canberra, another culturally significant site was damaged at one of BHP’s iron ore mines 

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Land access protocols, locked gates and PPE

The ability of traditional owners to access Country to care for it, maintain their obligations to it, monitor the effects of mining operations and ensure inter-generational knowledge transfer is another sensitive issue.

Many groups in the Pilbara have “land access protocols” with the companies operating on their land. A publicly available protocol between the Yinhawangka and Rio Tinto gives insight into the strict visitation parameters for the company’s mining leases and tenements.

For instance, the “general conditions” require visitors to have vehicles fitted with a suitable UHF radio set to the sign-posted channels.

The requirements also include

providing information of all the areas that you plan to visit within the … mining lease area, the number of people/vehicles in your group, the date and time that access is required and the duration of your trip.

Each person entering a mining lease must also “meet the minimum PPE requirements”.

Iron ore piles at Rio Tinto’s Marandoo Mine in the Pilbara. Christian Sprogoe/Handout/EPA

Though we recognise the need to manage for occupational health and safety, such intensive requirements would make access extremely difficult and unrealistic for many people, especially the elderly and children.

Land access protocols do not just apply to mining leases, but also to pastoral leases, which are owned by the companies to facilitate the development of mining operations and ensure land access. Rio Tinto owns six such leases in the Pilbara.

The visitation rights for these pastoral leases are similarly strict. The protocols for Rocklea station, for instance, allow native title holders to camp for no more than three nights.

The importance of conservation agreements

WA’s draft new heritage laws contain the phrase “cultural landscapes”, which is a step in the right direction.

However, to truly protect cultural heritage and accommodate Aboriginal rights and interests requires conservation agreements, similar to the Murujuga agreements made between the Commonwealth and both Rio Tinto and Woodside in the Pilbara.

The state government would have to forgo some mining royalties and, in line with recommendations by the parliamentary inquiry, native title holders would have the right to protect sites and declare areas “no-go zones”.

This has been the successful model under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in the NT for more than 40 years. Such a model recognises

the interdependence of all life within Country constitutes a hard but essential lesson – those who destroy their Country ultimately destroy themselves.

The risk is that if decisive and strong measures aren’t taken, large swathes of the Pilbara will become desecration zones, or “sterilisation” zones, as some Aboriginal groups have termed the industrial mining landscape.

This will be the legacy, not only for the mining companies, but for Australia and most painfully, for the traditional owners who remain long after the miners have gone.

https://theconversation.com/destruction-by-a-thousand-cuts-the-relentless-threat-mining-poses-to-the-pilbara-cultural-landscape-155941

• Indigenous
• Mining
• Iron ore
• Rio Tinto
• BHP
• Pilbara
• Cultural heritage
• Country
• Traditional owners