urg_home.gif (2328 bytes)        West Arnhem Land icon_anti_nuke.gif (2698 bytes)
RELATED
Mining Companies

 

Traditional Owner Perspectives

 

 

 

 

small_arn_map.jpg (9881 bytes)

 

West Arnhem Land is Aboriginal land, located in Australia's Northern Territory.


austmap_sm.jpg (18536 bytes)


The current known situation with respect to uranium exploration is documented below.

A catalogue of exploration leases in Arnhem Land is also available as well as a map of the West Arnhem region (180k) and a map of the whole of Arnhem Land indicating the location of the actual lease sites.

effect_line1.gif (4656 bytes)

 

The Current Situation in West Arnhem Land (Feb 2001)

The incursion of uranium exploration activity onto Aboriginal-owned West Arnhem Land has dramatically picked up in pace in the 1990s. In 1990 there were only four granted exploration licences (ELs) in the whole of Arnhem Land (see map of 1990 ELs), although another 60 or so were in various stages of negotiation with traditional owners. This situation had barely changed by early 1995. Within two years twelve new licences in West Arnhem Land, in and around the Alligator Rivers uranium belt, had been granted by the Northern Territory Department of Mines and Energy, taking the total area under exploration to 16000 square kilometres (Supervising Scientist 1997).

Between June and November 1999 an additional 11 ELs in West Arnhem Land moved into the consent to negotiate stage. By February 2001 four of these ELs had been granted, three of them in the north of the region - ELs 5892 & 2858 to PNC (Japan) and EL 3346 to an Ernest Henry/Savage joint venture - and the fourth further south to PNC (EL2855). Most of the granted licences are held by transnational uranium companies Cameco (Canada) and Cogema (France), often in joint venture arrangements (Scott 1999). PNC's licence areas are now managed by Cameco (Supervising Scientist 2000). All told, well over three-quarters of West Arnhem Land is either currently being explored for minerals or is subject to negotiation.

Cameco has been extremely active in recent years on Jawoyn country in the Mann River area (on ELs 5061 & 5062), and in the last year in the vicinity of King River (ELs 734, 5890 & 5891). Also, Afmeco (a subsidiary of Cogema) has been exploring in the Tin Camp Creek area (ELs 3419, 3589 & 3347) (Supervising Scientist 2000). The latter area contains the potentially mineable Caramal uranium deposit – also formerly known as Nabarlek 2 – on an EL held by Cameco (EL 2505). All three current dry season exploration operations involve drilling, with ‘significant new road development’ occurring in the Mann River area (Supervising Scientist 2000).

The various traditional owners have vetoed an additional 16 applications, as is their right under the provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976. However, each veto period lasts for only five years after which mining companies can reapply. The traditional owners are legally required to consider any new exploration proposal within a year. Failure to do so is deemed to be consent, unless the Commonwealth Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs grants an extension. To make the situation even more disempowering for Aboriginal people, a 1987 amendment to the Land Rights Act stipulated that consent to exploration automatically inferred consent to mining development.

Initial research in 1998-99 revealed an alarming feature about this increase in exploration activity. According to an Aboriginal agency source, insufficient information on the environmental implications of uranium exploration and mining is getting through to traditional owners. Environmental organisations are entirely excluded from the EL negotiation process, leaving only the companies themselves and the cash and staff-strapped Northern Land Council as major informants on ecological issues. In fact, the terms and parameters of any future mining activities are agreed to in contracts negotiated outside of the Land Rights Act itself in joint venture arrangements between the company and traditional owner corporate bodies. This raises important issues of overall corporate accountability, particularly in the area of environmental management.

It is noted that the 2nd Top End Indigenous Rangers Conference for Indigenous Land Management held at Wuyagiba Outstation in SE Arnhem Land last August made a number of recommendations with respect to the risks of mining in Arnhem Land. Yirritja and Duwa people voiced concern about pollution of water courses, poisoning of the land, air and bushtucker, and damage to sacred sites, communities and health. The recommendations pointed out the need to get further help to understand what mining involves (Land Rights News, December 2000: p10).

The problem for traditional owners then, simply stated, is that there is limited time and resources to access quality information on the social and ecological impacts of potential mining development. They are being pressured into making decisions, which will affect their land and communities for countless generations to come, on the basis of mining company exploration proposals. Traditional owners regularly complain about being subjected to too much humbug, and about not having enough negotiating power to exercise self-determination.

The Northern Land Council (NLC), acting on the behalf of traditional owners in negotiations with mining companies, is in a bind. On the one hand it intends to represent the best interests of the landowners. Yet on the other hand the NLC is heavily reliant on mining royalties to run its activities. Moreover, there is a prevailing culture within its upper echelons that favours mineral exploration on Aboriginal land. There is a not unrealistic fear that the organisation may be disbanded if it is perceived to be 'anti-development' by the mining industry and government. Indeed the August 1998 Review of the Land Rights Act recommends such a course, along with the formation of much smaller Regional Land Councils.

In addition, the NLC appears to rely almost solely on the highly questionable Nabarlek mining and rehabilitation process as its model of best-practice when representing the interests of traditional owners in negotiations. It specifically attributes the increase in exploration licences in West Arnhem Land over recent years to ‘traditional owners’ positive first hand experience of the Nabarlek rehabilitation’ (NLC 1998). Yet the Supervising Scientist, in its December 2000 report to the Alligator Rivers Region Advisory Committee, was of the view that ‘the rehabilitation of Nabarlek had not yet reached the stage where the mining company (QML) could be discharged of its responsibilities’ (Supervising Scientist 2000: p7). A consultant’s report prepared at the behest of the company was seen to be lacking in the necessary data to support the conclusions made concerning the success of revegetation at the mine site. A workshop was subsequently called by the Supervising Scientist, which the company and consultants declined to attend.

The NT Government has, of course, avidly supported this increased exploration activity. It is pumping in $16 million of funding to the five year NT Exploration Initiative, which aims to improve the geoscientific data available to the mining industry, particularly for what is known as ‘greenfields’ exploration on previously unexplored land. There is reason for some optimism though. Whilst exploration may be the ‘lifeblood’ of the mining industry, as Minister of Resource Development, Daryl Manzie, argued in Parliament earlier this year, it is also subject to the ups and downs of global commodity markets. Companies such as Cameco are currently being hammered by the low price of uranium. Not only is it looking to sell its 6% share in ERA, but it is becoming harder and harder for exploration managers to justify programs to head office on financial grounds. 

Last year Black Range Minerals, which was in a number of joint ventures with Cameco and Afmeco through its subsidiary UAL, decided to disinvest from Arnhem Land uranium exploration. It cited the languishing uranium market as the primary reason for doing so, but also mentioned that financing of its Syerston project in NSW was being made difficult through its uranium involvement. All of its interests were bought out by Cameco for a mere $100,000.

The recent upsurge in exploration in West Arnhem Land has largely come about due to the relaxation of political constraints on uranium mining under the Howard Government. Economic constraints, however, may see the companies pack their bags and leave once again, this time hopefully for good.

 

References

Northern Land Council 1998. Submission to the Review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976, NLC, Darwin.

Scott, G. 1999. Uranium exploration in West Arnhem Land - plus other papers on uranium mining and Aboriginal land rights in the Alligator Rivers Region. Unpublished report for the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory, February 1999.

Supervising Scientist 1997. Annual Report 1996-97. AGPS, Canberra.

Supervising Scientist 2000. Report of the Supervising Scientist to the Alligator Rivers Region Advisory Committee, December 2000, Supervising Scientist, Darwin.