resources and environment of the South Pacific Region Article 13 MINING AND COASTAL EROSION “The Parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent, reduce and control environmental damage in the Convention Area, in particular coastal erosion caused by coastal engineering, mining activities, sand removal, … A group of Bougainville residents have filed a human rights complaint against Rio Tinto, alleging ongoing environmental, health and economic impacts from mining … One of the worst environmental disasters caused by humans, it is … There is growing pressure on mining companies to clean up their toxic tailings. The global economic and environmental climate has progressively changed in recent years. In 1989, amid rising fury at the environmental damage and the inequitable division of the mine’s profits, customary landowners forced the mine closed, blowing up Panguna’s power lines and sabotaging operations. The lives of 50,000 people have been disrupted. The Panguna copper mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, was discovered in the 1960s by one of our founding companies, with first production commencing in 1972. Rio Tinto is abandoning its obligation to do three things: 1. compensate for environmental damages 2. clean up the damage 3. rehabilitate the environment. MEDIA RELEASE – For Immediate Release 30 September 2020 Rio Tinto’s readiness to enter talks with key stakeholders about social and environmental issues arising from its prior operation of the Panguna mine, has been welcomed by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL). It was in operation from 1972 to 1989. The mine at Panguna was opened in 1972 and majority-owned by Rio Tinto.It was important to the economy of Papua New Guinea, but the people of Bougainville were seeing little benefit from it.The first Bougainville independence movement arose in the late 1960s, as people aired their grievances against the Australian colonial government over the handling of the Panguna mine. After evaluation, the precautionary principle should be invoked to prevent the mine from being constructed until current mining technology can advance to a point in which any environmental … any obligation to address the impacts of the Panguna mine - environmental, social, health and spiritual. With the threat of such large, irreversible environmental damage, the pebble mine is an experiment that the communities of Alaska cannot afford to gamble on. The Lihir Gold Mine is an example of a multinational mining operation that presents its own social, economic and physical environmental impacts. The Ok Tedi environmental disaster caused severe harm to the environment along 1,000 km (620 mi) of the Ok Tedi River and the Fly River in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea between around 1984 and 2013. Panguna, which was once the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, alone accounted for up to 40% of Papua's exports. Rio Tinto was responding to a … The environmental damage caused by the mining activity and the lack of financial benefits was the cause of strong protests among the population. BCL, a former Rio Tinto subsidiary and a publicly listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange, managed operations at the mine. Credit: Friedrich Stark / Alamy Stock Photo But the mine pit remains a huge scar in the landscape in the centre of Bougainville island and has left a deadly legacy for residents. Mining ended at Panguna 31 years ago, after disputes over the mine’s profits and its environmental damage led to a decade-long civil war in Bougainville that killed up to 20,000 people. The ensuing civil war, primarily between local rebel groups and the PNG Defence Force, decimated … The mine has had a massive impact Рsocial, spiritual, and environmental. The abandoned Panguna copper mine in Bougainville – once a rich source of profits – sparked a costly environmental and social crisis. But the feat came at a huge cost. In 1989, the Nasioi on Bougainville were the world’s first indigenous people, angered by inequity and environmental damage, to shut down a multinational mining venture.