Antinuclear

Wongatha Aboriginal clan condemns uranium mining in Western Australia

“We don’t need uranium mining in this country,” says Wongatha leader and pastor Geoffrey Stokes. “We have sun, we’ve got wind, we’ve got people. Why should we pollute our country for money?”.

Australia’s aboriginal communities clamour against uranium mining‘ We don’t want to bequeath a legacy for future generations of a toxic environment’ say aboriginal clans in opposition to major uranium mining site opening in western Australia  Jessie Boylan,   guardian.co.uk,   9 August 2010.

As a mining giant prepares to open a major uranium mining site in Western Australia next year, the clamour for the state to once more ban mining of the radioactive mineral has become louder.

In fact, the Wongatha Aboriginal clan that calls this region its home does not see any wisdom in having uranium mining in Australia at all. “We don’t need uranium mining in this country,” says Wongatha leader and pastor Geoffrey Stokes. “We have sun, we’ve got wind, we’ve got people. Why should we pollute our country for money?”………….

Today, the Anti Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia says, more than 100 domestic and foreign companies are exploring for uranium all over Western Australia…………many residents of Kalgoorie, some 600 kilometres east of the state capital, Perth, would rather not have anything to do with uranium.

Even Kade Muir, a Wongatha anthropologist who was born in Kalgoorlie but now resides elsewhere, says, “We don’t want this product disturbed from the ground. We don’t want to bequeath a legacy for future generations of a toxic environment.”

Such sentiments are echoed by the Labor Party, which had imposed a policy restricting uranium mining to just three locations in Australia at any one time when it led the federal government in the eighties…………..

For decades, uranium mining has been a touchy subject for Aboriginal people. Hundreds of Aboriginal communities were cleared out into cattle stations, towns and cities in the fifties and sixties, when Australian and British governments tested atomic weapons in the South Australian desert and off the coast of Western Australia.

That left many Aboriginal people with serious health problems such as cancer and unexplainable illnesses.

A 1997 Australian parliament report describes the devastating impact of uranium mining………..The report observes: ‘(The) history of uranium mining in Australia and its impact on Aboriginal people is deplorable. Past mining in places like Rum Jungle have left areas so degraded that traditional owners are unable to use them, while mines such as Ranger (also in the Northern Territory) have been forced on traditional owners against their will.” “Even at mines such as Olympic Dam,” it adds, “…there was deep concern at the reckless degradation of sacred sites and insensitivity to their culture.”

Australia’s aboriginal communities clamour against uranium mining | Environment | guardian.co.uk

August 9, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, uranium, Western Australia | aboriginal, antinuclear, Australia, nuclear, uranium