Rio Tinto’s Brockman 4 iron ore mine in Pilbara, Western Australia.
The Juukan Gorge before and after the explosion
RMF: RIO TINTO’S DESTRUCTION OF HERITAGE SITE IS “LOSS FOR HUMANITY” The Responsible Mining Foundation (RMF) has described the destruction last May by Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto of a 46,000-year-old site in Australia’s Juukan Gorge as “a loss for humanity as a whole”, and “another wake-up call” for mining companies to show respect for cultural heritage.
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he RMF’s Responsible Mining Index 2020 found that many mining companies had failed to commit to leave World Heritage Sites unmined and to respect other protected areas. The report also called on the governments of countries with large mining sectors, such as Australia, to do more for the protection of the historical patrimony of its indigenous peoples. While the site was not a UNESCO-designated World Heritage site, the RMF said that Rio Tinto’s actions were part of a much larger problem within the mining industry. Hélène Piaget, CEO of the Responsible Mining Foundation said: “Mining companies will gain respect where they broaden their approach to responsible mining beyond a narrow view of risk to the business and beyond what is ‘legal compliance’ in a particular context. As a member of society, companies share our collective responsibility to future generations to protect all environmental and cultural heritage, as ‘our’ heritage.”
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While the RMF described the subsequent commitment by Rio Tinto to undertake a comprehensive review of its approach to heritage as “welcome”, it called on the company to make a full commitment to not explore or mine in World Heritage Sites, and to respect designated areas of cultural or natural heritage. The report produced by RMF found that, so far, only ten out of the 38 mining companies have made such full, public commitments. The RMF said that the destruction of Juukan Gorge, as well as several other recent cases, had highlighted the weaknesses in heritage legislation in countries across the world. These weaknesses were giving the green light to mining firms to destroy heritage sites, and often prevented indigenous groups from renegotiating their consent to the destruction. The Juukan Gorge is one of the oldest sites of its kind in the region and the only site in Australia to show signs of continuous human occupation throughout the Ice Age.
The government in the federal state of Western Australia gave its consent under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 for Rio Tinto to damage the site for the purposes of expanding its iron ore mine in 2013. The following year, an archaeological dig discovered that the site was twice as old as previously believed and uncovered more than 7,000 cultural artefacts, including sacred objects. DNA testing carried out on a 4,000-year-old length of plaited human hair found that it was woven from the hair of several different people who were direct ancestors of today’s Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people. However, the Act under which the state government had given its consent does not contain provisions for mining consent to be withdrawn or renegotiated on the basis of new information. The cave in the Juukan Gorge, along with another Aboriginal sacred site, was blasted on 24 May.
