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Lives swamped by the riches of uranium

By Lindsay Murdoch - Darwin

14 July 2005 - Yvonne Margarula doesn't care that she is blocking development of Jabiluka, one of the world's biggest known deposits of uranium worth an estimated $10.5 billion as world prices soar.

"Uranium mining has completely upturned our lives, bringing . . . greater access to alcohol and many arguments between Aboriginal people, mostly about money," Ms Margarula has told a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's uranium resources.

"Uranium mining has also taken our country away from us and destroyed it - billabongs and creeks gone forever.

"There are hills of poisonous rock and great holes in the ground with poisonous mud."

As mining companies revive efforts to open multimillion-dollar uranium deposits in the Northern Territory, a submission by Ms Margarula's Mirarr people, the traditional owners of a large part of the Kakadu National Park, will influence MPs as they consider whether to approve the expansion of uranium mining.

For the first time since Energy Resources of Australia started gouging uranium out of the Ranger site in the world heritage-listed Kakadu park 25 years ago, Ms Margarula has described royalties she and other traditional owners have received as "poisonous" money. "Our lives are worse since the government decided to allow uranium mining," she told the House of Representatives inquiry set up by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane.

Ms Margarula said that when government overruled Mirarr opposition to uranium mining on their land "we went from four or five families and around 50 Aboriginal people (in Kakadu) in 1975 to over 500 today".

She said there had been a "lot of fighting for many years" between the Mirarr people - the traditional owners of the Ranger and Jabiluka deposits - and other Aborigines. "Mining and the millions of dollars in royalties have not improved our quality of life," she said.

Her attack on uranium mining on the Mirarr's traditional land appears to end any hope that ERA had of developing its deposit at Jabiluka, 22 kilometres north of Ranger.

The company has been lobbying to develop Jabiluka despite the recently re-elected Northern Territory Labor Government reaffirming its policy to oppose further uranium mines.

ERA has argued in its submission to the inquiry that nuclear power generation needs to be expanded to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Under an agreement with ERA signed early this year, the Mirarr people hold a veto over the development of the Jabiluka lease that the company bought in 1991.

ERA, majority-owned by British mining giant Rio Tinto, told the inquiry that Jabiluka was a "world-class" deposit that the company regarded as a "valuable asset".

But Ms Margarula, a shy woman in her mid-40s, told the inquiry that her people were worried about further mining on their land. They also wanted a greater say in how the long-troubled Ranger mine operated and how it was monitored by the Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS), a federal agency.

Ms Margarula said that no scientist "can tell us properly what will happen at the mine site in 100 years when they are all gone and no one cares".

The Northern Land Council, which represents Aboriginal groups, is arranging talks with other traditional owners of Kakadu over an attempt by the French-owned nuclear power company Cogema to mine Koongarra, a uranium deposit in another part of the park.

Source The Age

Aborigines win veto on Kakadu uranium mining

Story from AAP

25 February 2005 - Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia will be allowed to further explore the valuable Jabiluka lease in Kakadu, but traditional Aboriginal landowners have the right to veto any future mining.

A historic deal between ERA and traditional Aboriginal landowners was finally signed off today, three years after it was originally mooted.

Stakeholders today said the deal heralded a new era of "healthy dialogue" between the mining company and Aborigines, after years of bitterness and acrimony.

ERA has pledged not to carry out any mining activity on the controversial Jabiluka Mineral Lease, in the Northern Territory, without the written consent of the traditional owners, the Mirarr people.

The company will have the chance to ask the traditional owners to consider a proposal for the Jabiluka mine every four years, beginning in the middle of next year.

"This is the end of a very long period of acrimony and conflict over the project that's known as Jabiluka," ERA chief executive Harry Kenyon-Slaney said.

"We will not bulldoze through mining projects on other people's land."

Thousands of protesters rallied around Australia against the mine in the 1990s, with hundreds arrested during protracted demonstrations.

Uranium ore extracted has never been processed and sat in a stockpile at the site until late 2003 when it was returned inside the mine as part of this deal.

The Jabiluka mine decline was backfilled and the site cleaned up, and ERA's financial obligations to traditional owners were waived under the agreement.

However, with skyrocketing world uranium prices ERA remains hopeful the new friendlier communication between the two parties will eventually lead to the realisation of the Jabiluka resource.

Under the deal it will be allowed to explore the lease after giving traditional owners notice.

"We have the opportunity to explore elsewhere on the lease subject to granting the traditional owners notice," Mr Kenyon-Slaney said.

"At some point in the future we would like to do that, (but) we have no immediate plans."

There has been no further exploration of the prospective lease since 1982.
He remained hopeful the Mirarr would be more open to allowing mining at Jabiluka in the future, perhaps when ERA's 25-year-old nearby Ranger mine and mill cease operation in 2011.

ERA has paid more than $207 million in royalties to traditional owners and governments for Aboriginal projects in Ranger's 25-year history.

"I don't know whether Jabiluka will go ahead in the future, it's ultimately up to the traditional owners to decide now," Mr Kenyon-Slaney said.

"But I feel that sometimes you have to take a step backwards before you take a couple of steps forward."

The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the Mirarr, said the deal was the "sweetest victory of all" in the long-running Jabiluka dispute.

"This heralds a new era of cooperation between mining companies and traditional owners right around the world in the way they do business on people's country," Gundjeihmi chief executive Andy Ralph said.

"The current view is that Jabiluka will not happen.

"There are a range of cultural and environmental concerns that have been a problem for the Mirarr for a number of years."

He said the Mirarr had been working on business development ahead of the anticipated wind-up of the Ranger mine in 2011.

Source Sydney Morning Herald

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