When mining company Rio Tinto destroyed a rocky site sacred to Aboriginal people in the Juukan Gorge in Australia, hardly anyone paid attention. It took months before Aboriginal communities secured a federal inquiry. The site was of the utmost archaeological importance, bearing traces of human presence dating back 46,000 years. It is likely that one of the oldest sites ever discovered by humankind had been devastated, to make way for yet another iron ore mine. The episode triggered a wave of global outrage that cost Rio Tinto a shareholder revolt resulting in a loss of 7 million Australian dollars (over 4 million euros) and the resignation of the chief executive and two senior executives.

In the wake of the scandal, several mining companies operating in the area — including BHP and Fortescue, as well as Rio Tinto itself — stated that they would stop excavating in the historic Juukan Gorge area. But according to Professor Marcia Langton, one of the most influential Indigenous academic figures in Australia, mining companies are simply waiting for public outrage to die down, and as soon as attention shifts to something else, excavations will resume, as will the destruction of ancient historic sites.

Laura Murphy-Oates @lauramoates

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Rio Tinto continues to face considerable backlash after destroying a 46k yr old Indigenous heritage site. In this excellent Full Story, Lorena Allam, @callapilla and @gabriellecj look at the shockwaves across the mining industry
theguardian.com/australia-news…

♥ 82💬 2 24 set 2020 · Apri su X →

Over 400 Aboriginal sites in 10 years

Mining companies have damaged more than 400 sites over the last 10 years. The target is the Hamersley Range, in the Pilbara region — an area rich in iron ore but equally rich in artefacts, some dating back to before the last ice age. And yet Rio Tinto's mining leases include 13,300 ethnographic and cultural sites in the Pilbara area, one of the nine regions of Western Australia; most are ignored because no one has ever fought to assert their importance. Fortescue manages more than 5,900 sites within the Aboriginal heritage area, while BHP manages around 8,000.

According to Aboriginal heritage experts, very few sites are studied in detail before authorisation is granted for their destruction. "Every group of Indigenous people has culturally valuable places that are now inaccessible or gone or perched on the edge of a mining site," says Dr Kathryn Przywolnik, heritage manager for the Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal corporation. "If there is a lesson to be drawn from the destruction of Juukan Gorge, it is that it shone a spotlight on something that would otherwise have been ignored."

Superficial permits

The Australian government's response has been far from effective. Western Australia's Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ben Wyatt, stated that he had no intention of reviewing all the approvals granted to date. Wyatt complained that doing so would produce "a lot of work" and that in any case "there is nothing I can legally do to intervene on them and their use."

"Surveys are carried out superficially and do not provide a complete picture of a site's significance," adds Przywolnik. "At Ngajanha Marnta or Spear Hill, the minister signed off on Fortescue's request to destroy a dozen rock shelters without knowing the contents of any of them." According to the researcher, all companies are expanding considerably, and it is not only a matter of the destruction of sites that lie directly in the path of operations, "but also places adjacent to roads or mines that are damaged or compromised because of their proximity to mining activity," the expert concludes.

Sites without protection

According to the Western Australian Chamber of Minerals and Energy, more than 100,000 hectares of the Pilbara have been subject to preliminary surveys, making the Australian region one of the most thoroughly examined. Yet this amounts to less than 20 per cent of its total surface area. As a result, the significance of a site is often discovered only once excavation has already begun, as happened at Juukan Gorge, where 7,000 prehistoric artefacts came to light six months after Rio Tinto had been granted approval to destroy the site.

But because this information came to light after approval had been granted, the mining company was not required to change its plans and proceeded with excavations, provoking the outrage of the international community. This demonstrates how these natural sites are, in practice, entirely without any protection.