Negotiations focus on historical Kakadu uranium injustice
In response to recent media reports on the renegotiation of the Ranger Uranium Mine agreement, the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), which represents the Mirarr Traditional Owners of the Ranger mining area, confirms that talks are continuing. These talks aim to mitigate some of the historical political and financial injustices associated with the 1978 Ranger Uranium Mine arrangements put in place by the Australian government.
The current renegotiation – recently referred to by mining company Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) – addresses historical matters only. It does not consider the future of mining beyond the existing Ranger authorisation. Mining at Ranger must cease by 2021 with rehabilitation completed by 2026. Any mining beyond 2021 would require Federal legislation and cannot be agreed to under present arrangements. The Mirarr remain unequivocal in their opposition to any mining operations at the adjacent Jabiluka site.
The Mirarr await detailed information from the current Ranger 3 Deeps exploration. Mirarr insist on the highest level of scrutiny of the potential environmental and social impact of any proposal to mine uranium at Ranger beyond 2021.
Rio Tinto and ERA as well as the Australian government must genuinely respect and adhere to the internationally recognised right of Indigenous people for free, prior and informed consent regarding development on their traditional lands before any further arrangements are made for extension of the Ranger operations into the future.
Rio Tinto and ERA have gone some way to demonstrating a collaborative approach in their current dealings but the future of the operations remains a matter for the Australian government which has yet to engage with the Mirarr about future authorisations.
We look forward to a positive and speedy resolution to this long-standing injustice.
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Kirsten Blair
Community and International Liaison
Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation
0412 853 641
skype: kirsten-blair
www.mirarr.net
www.facebook.com/mirarrcountry
South Australian Native Title Services (SANTS) legal case against govt’s discriminatory law
Aboriginal groups to challenge SA Govt’s legislation on oil, gas licences on constitutional, racial discrimination grounds, Adelaide Now, Valerina Changarathil October 08, 2012
THE State Government’s retrospective amendments to the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act affecting exploration and production licenses in the Cooper Basin area will be challenged in Federal Court on constitutional and racial discrimination grounds.
Aboriginal groups representative, the South Australian Native Title Services (SANTS), will file an appeal to this effect in an ongoing matter set for hearing early next year. Continue reading
South Australian government’s contempt for Aboriginal rights
Native title ‘reforms’ slammed http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/native-title-reforms-slammed/story-fn9hm1pm-1226490977811 BY:MICHAEL OWEN The Australian October 09, 2012 THE government-funded native title service provider in South Australia has lashed state Labor for cosying up to miners with moves to streamline approvals in indigenous areas and strip away Aboriginal rights.
Native Title Services chief executive Keith Thomas accused Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis of adopting an inaccurate and inflammatory position on reforming the state’s Aboriginal Heritage Act, and said the Labor government had revealed its true colours.
“This government has clearly demonstrated its attitude to Aboriginal people with recent moves to remove native title rights in relation to petroleum exploration and production in the Cooper Basin and traditional fishing rights on the Yorke Peninsula,” Mr Thomas said. Continue reading
South Australian govt to strengthen mining companies’ power over Aboriginals
Mine project appeals set to be scrapped BY:MICHAEL OWEN The Australian October 04, 2012 MINING companies are being promised speedy Aboriginal heritage approvals on new projects under a plan by the South Australian Labor government.
Mineral Resources Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Aboriginal Heritage Act needed to be “freshened up” because red tape and legal challenges by indigenous groups were delaying important mining projects…. subscription only
Aboriginal elders of Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA) fight uranium mining
WANFA’s Elders speak out from Kutunatu Ngurra http://indymedia.org.au/2012/09/22/radiation-exposure-looming-for-wiluna Gerry Georgatos Traditional Aboriginal Elders have never been more concerned about the sovereign risk to Country, and of its very health, with the loom of uranium mining. The Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA), made up of Aboriginal Traditional Land Owners from the Pilbara, the Kimberley, the Goldfields, the Great Victorian Desert, the Central Desert, the Gascoyne, Perth and the South West, and alongside their supporters, have declared “that it is a must do in preventing uranium mining on Country.”
The WANFA met for its annual conference on September 16 at the registered sacred site of Kutunatu Ngurra camp just outside of Leonora, in the ochre heart of Western Australia.
WANFA chairperson Kado Muir said, “(The Elders and Traditional Land Owners) support Aboriginal sovereignty across all Aboriginal territories in WA. The State Government and its industries need to respect the basic human rights of Aboriginal peoples.”
Mr Muir said that everyone is concerned in light of the “fast-tracking of the Toro Energy Wiluna uranium project assessment.” Mr Muir had invited Environment Minister Bill Marmion to meet with WANFA representatives, Elders and land holders but he declined. “He shows an unwillingness to engage with our local Elders and community,” said Mr Muir.
Despite one approval after another, and the dismissal of appeals, by the Government to the prospective uranium miners Mr Muir said that WANFA is determined “to stop the poison of uranium mining contaminating Aboriginal lands.”
Mr Muir said that WANFA will “challenge the Australian Uranium Association’s Indigenous Dialogue Group who are representing the industry rather than a true Aboriginal community view.”
“We will also continue to expose anthropologists, archaeologists and pro-industry consultants who attempt to validate negligent practices of the mining industry.”
“We want our Land Councils, Native Title representative bodies and Native Title organisations to fulfil their legal requirements to be accountable, transparent and representative of their communities views.”
Ultimately, WANFA is calling for an independent public inquiry or royal commission into uranium mining. “We need an inquiry and it will be called for, and when this happens then maybe Governments and the nuclear industry will be forced to stop minimising and trivialising the dangers of radiation,” said Mr Muir.
Western Australian Aborigines fear radiation pollution from Wiluna and Yeelirrie uranium mining projects
Radiation exposure looming for Wiluna http://indymedia.org.au/2012/09/22/radiation-exposure-looming-for-wiluna 22 Sep 2012 By Gerry Georgatos Perth Western Australia Gerry Georgatos – courtesy National Indigenous Times – nit.com.au “They are going to kill our people, some will die quickly, some by a thousand cuts,” said Wiluna Elder Glen Cooke.
“We don’t want Maralinga all over again where our people will be hurt and die sick and young, and for decades the truth hidden.” “If they bring uranium out of the ground at Wiluna and radiation to our people many of our young children today will be tomorrow’s Yami Lesters.”
Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium project’s final environmental approval looks near certain from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the uranium mine will become the front runner for more uranium mining throughout Western Australia and predominately on Aboriginal lands where communities continue to thrive – for now.
The many years-long ban on uranium mining in WA has been lifted.
Angst has ripped through Aboriginal communities State-wide and especially at Wiluna and Yeeliree.
“The Government has not said that they cannot guarantee against radiation poisoning of our people,” said Mr Cooke. EPA chairman Paul Vogel said radiation exposure for people living near Wiluna would be “very low”.
Yeeliree Traditional Owners and chairperson of Western Australians Nuclear-Free Alliance (WANFA), Kado Muir said all the Elders from across WA who make up WANFA cannot believe the “high risk” claim by Dr Vogel of “very low” radiation exposure risks to communities nearby the proposed Wiluna mine. “There are no genuinely safe levels with radiation – radiation exposure at any level is bigger than exploding dynamite. Chernobyl and Fukishima didn’t get it safe, so what makes us think Australia will? This is our peoples lives they are putting at real risk, not theirs.”
“How many Western Australian communities have suffered lead and aluminium poisoning from leaks along freight routes and from refineries, and it was said risks would be contained but they weren’t? They skyrocketed past base levels and with uranium a thousand times more dangerous, what are they saying? Are they mad? Uranium belongs in the ground, not above it.”
“Don’t our peoples, our communities, our Country matter to these Boards?”
The EPA claim to have tightened conditions around the uranium project after an independent appeals committee made 21 new recommendations after appeals were made by independent groups, the Conservation Council of WA and WANFA and its Elders to the EPA decision to approve Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium project.
Canadian company CAMECO is also seeking approvals to mine uranium on Mr Muir’s Tradtional Country – Yeeliree.
WA environment minister Bill Marmion said nine appeals had been lodged against the EPA decision in May. The EPA has three uranium proposals before it. “I am satisfied the appeals committee has carefully considered all the matter raised in the appeals and have accepted their recommendations,” Mr Marmion said in a statement. He said he would consult the Radiological Council and the Ministers for Indigenous Affairs and Health
Aboriginal social justice group honours Julian Assange and Mamdoub Habib
By agreement we will be issuing both Julian Assange, via his father, and Mamdoub Habib, who will be present, an Aboriginal Nations Passport that will allow both to respectfully travel through the Aboriginal Nations of Australia. Mamdoub now and Julian on his return to Aboriginal Australia. Both these men were denied any assistance, firstly by the Howard Government and then by the Gillard Government respectively.
Indigenous Social Justice Association September 9, 2012 It is with a sense of pride and complete social justice that this Association has worked with the Sydney Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition to have the privilege of successfully arranging for Julian Assange to be able to be issued with an Aboriginal Nations Passport that his father, John Shipton,
will accept on his behalf at the Welcome to Aboriginal Land Passport Ceremony to be held at The Settlement, 17 Edward Street, Darlington from 11am to 4pm on Saturday 15 September, 2012.
We strongly endorse the words of Ms Linda Pearson of the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition, see below, on the total lack of support by our Federal Government to assist Julian against being press-ganged to America to face corrupt charges against him for informing the world’s people of the absolute lies that all Governments continue to tell their people. Whilst it is true that all Governments lie, it is well known that America leads the pack in their eternal quest for American hegemony of the world’s resources. Continue reading
Traditional Aboriginal Owners demand consultation on uranium
6 Sept 12, The Walkatjurra Walkabout started at Yeelirrie on the 24th August, led by Traditional Owner, Kado Muir. Days after leaving Yeelirrie, BHP Billiton announced that they had sold their uranium project to Canadian company, Cameco.
Sovereign Union of First Nations is inevitable
Darwin, 3 September 2012 — Two prominent East Arnhem Land leaders and sovereignty campaigner, Michael Anderson, have agreed in Darwin that a sovereign union of Aboriginal nations needs to grow from the grass roots.
Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra (OAM) from Galiwin’ku, George Gaymarani Pascoe, from Milingimbi and Anderson, the last survivor of the four founders of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra, agreed thatits success can only be achieved “if our people want it”.
“Dr Djiniyini Gondarra agreed that we now work towards building alliances with our nations right across this continent under our law. He said that when we feel we have achieved this we should all walk to the centre of Australia, Uluru, the Rock, in order for us to become a collective One and thereby showing our national unity,” Euahlayi leader Anderson writes in a media release.
George Pascoe said he was devastated when he realised that Minister Jenny Macklin had raided the Aboriginal-owned treasure chest of royalties in order to fund her Stronger Futures program, “but through their military junta demanded that Aboriginal people sign head lease agreements for 40 years before they agreed to fund housing projects or any other infrastructure projects that are so necessary”. Continue reading
In Arnhem Land, Aborigines show the way to save Australia’s threatened ecosystems
Aboriginal conservation in Arnhem Land http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/
journal/aboriginal-conservation-in-arnhem-land-ipa.htm THE INDIGENOUS PROTECTED AREA program has been remarkably successful at helping traditional owners contribute to Australia’s National Reserve System.
A network of 51 IPAs now covers an area similar in size to Japan (365,000sq.km) and makes up almost one-third of the NRS, which also includes national parks, state reserves and protected private land. Some individual IPAs, such as theSouthern Tanami in the NT, are larger than entire European countries.
An IPA is an area of land or sea that has been dedicated by its traditional owners to conservation and sustainable resource use in agreement with the Australian government. It’s different from other Aboriginal land, because traditional owners will manage it in line with World Conservation Union (IUCN) standards.
IPAs are also developed to maintain culture and bring traditional owners back to their land, as well as develop skills, provide employment and find income sources. Management remains with traditional owners, who are assisted by scientists and business managers to ensure conservation standards are met.
See David Hancock’s images of Djelk and Warddeken IPAs in the gallery attached to this story.
THE DJELK IPA includes coastal landscapes, estuaries, wetlands and tropical savannahs. Its 6732sq.km covers the land of 102 Aboriginal clans and 12 language groups marking it out as a place of remarkable cultural diversity. Read more about Djelk here.
Where: Northern Arnhem Land, NT
Established: 2009
Size: 6732sq.km
Threatened species: Arnhem Land rock-rat, black wallaroo, white-throated grasswren
THE WARDDEKEN IPA, bordering Kakadu National Park, covers an area just one-fifth the size of Tasmania and is rich in ancient art sites, rare plant and animal species, and pristine habitats. Read more about Warddeken here.
Where: Western Arnhem Land, NT
Established: 2009
Size: 13,704sq.km
Threatened species: bustard, northern quoll, black wallaroo, Arnhem Land rock-rat, Oenpelli python
Read the full story on IPAs across the nation in issue 110 (Sep/Oct) of the Australian Geographic journal.
Traditional Aboriginal owner leads renewed fight against Yeelirrie uranium mining
Traditional owner opposes Yeelirrie development http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-28/traditional-owner-opposes-yeelirrie-development/4227384 Aug 28, 2012 A traditional owner is planning to step up protests against uranium mining at Yeelirrie, near Wiluna. Kado Muir says the new owners of the Yeelirrie deposit in the Goldfields will have a tough time trying to develop a mine at the site.
BHP Billiton has announced it is selling the deposit to Canadian-based Cameco.The Minister for Mines, Norman Moore, has welcomed the deal saying Cameco is more likely to develop a mine at the site.
Mr Muir says he is concerned about the change of ownership. “With Cameco in place, it does cause quite a bit of concern for us because they are a company who will seek to develop the mine as quickly and as soon as they can,” he said.
“That just adds impetus to our campaign to ensure that WA remains a uranium-free state.”
Mr Muir believes the public will not support uranium mining in WA. “We are worried about it,” he said. “[Cameco] are up against the wall in terms of time lines and the people of WA have not yet had the chance to voice their concerns about
uranium mining at the ballot box. “There is no broad community support for uranium mining in WA.”
How Aborigines were cheated out of their land in Victoria
The most important outcome of this event was that Batman became the first and possibly the only early Anglo-Australian to formally recognise the indigenous Aboriginal population as property owners.
On this day: annulment of the Batman treaty AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC 27 Aug 12 IN 2012, MOST MELBOURNIANS would be confused if you offered them a handful of tomahawks, a few handkerchiefs, some blankets and some scissors for their land. One hundred and seventy-seven years ago in the rough-shod days of early Australian settlement, however, they
represented a princely sum. And that is exactly what settler John Batman used for currency to acquire the 250,000ha on which Melbourne and Geelong sit. Continue reading
The Hibakusha of Japan, and of indigenous peoples, victims of nuclear testing
the world is still full of hibakusha who can testify to the rippling consequences of radiation exposure on health, family and community.
Nuclear testing hibakusha who have been removed from their home communities have suffered the social breakdowns
They often define themselves in relation to the colonial power that irradiated them, i.e., they are victims of French nuclear testing, of Soviet nuclear testing, of American nuclear testing
The late Mrs Milpuddie and her [Aborignal] family were found sleeping in a bomb crater. The people were taken, stripped and scrubbed. Their dogs were shot. Another family were ordered to walk to Western Australia, and ordered not to leave the track. Obeying those orders, the adults died of thirst. Only two children arrived alive.
Hibakusha: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Beyond . Dr Bo Jacobs 11 Aug 12, http://www.dianuke.org/hibakusha-hiroshima-nagasaki-robert-jacobs/ Hundreds of hibakusha gather in Hiroshima today, and in Nagasaki on 9 August. Many more will stay away from such commemorations, preferring to spend these anniversaries in private. Almost all of these hibakusha were children when their families were attacked with nuclear weapons: and it is these grown children who remain to bear witness.
While over 70,000 people were killed in Hiroshima on the day that the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city center in August 1945, even more people became survivors of that attack. Many tens of thousands would die in the coming weeks, months and years, but some would live long and full lives. Their lives would forever be marked by this experience. Many have never shaken the trauma of expecting that they would die, having watched their family and their friends die, having
seen an endless horizon full of the dead and dying and the corpses of people and animals burned beyond recognition, and of seeing their homes and city disappear into fire and rubble.
Beyond the epidemiological and psychological affects on the hibakusha, the social impacts were often as devastating. Experiencing discrimination in marriage and employment, many were also plagued by their own worries about whether to have children, and by anxieties that every subsequent cold or flu that they or their children experienced might be the first signs of an impending fatal illness. In a sense the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki never ended. Continue reading
Outback Aboriginal company joins forces with solar power company
Aboriginal people to install solar systems in remote WA communities http://www.abc.net.au/rural news/content/201207/s3556353.htm ABC rural news By Babs McHugh , 30/07/2012 An Indigenous mining company has joined forces with a solar power company to build renewable energy systems in remote Western Australia.
Carey Power plans to train and employ local Aboriginal people to install and maintain the power systems, which will also be rolled out to mine sites.
Minnie King is a Torres Strait Islander who’ll run the company, which has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an Aboriginal Corporation in the Northern Territory to look at power solutions there.
She says Carey Power will be initially focused on solar energy projects, using panels bought in China.
“We’re interested in looking at perhaps doing hybrids, where there are existing diesel generation systems in communities, looking at installing solar there, perhaps solar farms,” she said. “But in saying that, there are other technologies that we would be interested in exploring down the track.”
Lizard’s revenge: The South Australian government ignores its founding document
The uranium mine is in Kokotha country, but its impact crosses into Arabunna country to extract water for the mining. The Olympic mine expansion crosses the Mashers Faultline* itself, where there is a calculated risk of mining induced earthquakes of severe magnitude.
Lizard’s revenge: The South Australian government ignores its founding document, the Letters Patent from Britain, as though it never existed
Lismore, NSW, 18 July 2012 — The recent demonstrations against expansion of the BHP Roxby Downs uranium mine in South Australia, led by Arabunna Elder, Kevin Buzzacott, highlight how governments and mining companies ignore and completely override the sovereign rights and human rights of First Nations Peoples, writes sovereignty activist, Michael Anderson.
The last survivor of the four founders of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra writes: “The ongoing catastrophe of the Fukushima meltdown in Japan is fresh in our minds and the previous disaster of Chernobyl in the Ukraine still haunts us, but governments are ignoring the warnings and, instead, appear beholden to mining industry, in particular the uranium industry.”
Mr Anderson is the National Coordinator of the interim National Unity Government of the ‘Sovereign Union’, launched at the 40th anniversary of the embassy in January.
He charges that the South Australian government ignores its founding document, the Letters Patent from Britain, as though it never existed. Continue reading
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