Antinuclear

Aborigines challenge mining registrar for equal treatment

Indigenous people power challenges mining might
Eureka Street Moira Rayner September 22, 2009

A mining registrar in Western Australia has a hard decision to make. The Martu Idja Banjima Native Title claimants — the Martidja Manyjima people of the Pilbara — want him to hear their challenge to BHP Billiton’s claim for more mining leases on 200 square kilometres of their traditional land. BHP Billiton doesn’t.

The Martidja Manyjima people have decided the damage to their responsibilities to the land of water degradation and destruction of sacred sites by the owners of the nearby massive Hope Downs mine is just too great.

They don’t want money, they want to limit the endless expansion of mining on their country…………….. The Martidja Manyjima people are just 200 extended families. They want to tell the registrar that the cumulative impact of mining on their country’s water resources (already pumping billions of gallons from the aquifer to expose the ore), as well as irreversible damage to their culture, has been and will be catastrophic…………

The Martidja Manyjima people are just 200 extended families. They want to tell the registrar that the cumulative impact of mining on their country’s water resources (already pumping billions of gallons from the aquifer to expose the ore), as well as irreversible damage to their culture, has been and will be catastrophic………………….

Indigenous people power challenges mining might – Eureka Street

September 22, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, aboriginal issues, Western Australia | aboriginal, Australia