Exploration, Mining and Indigenous
Futures
What does it mean? Why does it matter?
Dr Richard Howitt
School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109
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Exploration, Mining and Indigenous Australians: an introduction to mining matters
Most people know a little bit about mining. But when they have to deal with a proposal to look for minerals or build a mine in their area, they find that they really don't know enough.
What does it mean when a company says they "just want to look"? What difference does it make whether the company is big or small? Does it matter whether or not the company has had dealings with Aboriginals or Indigenous peoples in other places? What can you do to protect yourself, your families and your culture? What can be gained from mining? What are some of the problems that can happen?
These are important questions. This paper tries to explain some things about
the mining industry which will help you understand how the mining industry
operates, why some mining companies are different to others, how exploration
and mining works, how it affects Aboriginal interests and some of the good
things and traps about dealing with the mining industry.
What is mining?
Mining uses things from the earth to make products that people use for many everyday and special things.
For example, Aboriginal people use resources such as ochre and this is an example of mining - getting something from the earth for people to use.
Surprising things start as minerals in the ground. Petrol and diesel start as oil under the ground. Many parts of motor cars and other metal things come from iron ore (which is made into steel) or bauxite (which is made into aluminium). Mining is just the first part of a complicated process that changes the minerals from rocks and dirt into useful things.
Mining is important in the Australian economy for many reasons. Most important,
mining makes profits for mining companies. It also provides jobs for people
(although other industries provide more jobs than mining); and it provides
exports which help to make the Australian economy stronger.
What is the mining industry?
The mining industry is made up of companies that use minerals to make things they sell in places all over the world. Minerals and other resources from the land (for example oil and gas) are useful to people everywhere and some mining companies are able to make good profits from selling the minerals and the things they make from them.
The mining industry is very complicated because different companies work in different ways and think differently about important issues.
There are many different sorts of mining companies that are interested in exploring for minerals in parts of Australia where Aboriginal people have interests.
The ones are talk about quite a bit are the transnational mining companies - big companies with operations in many places around the world. Some transnationals have a bad reputation because of the way they treat people in the Third World, or the way they have treated indigenous people in other places, or pollution or other problems in other places. Some transnationals have been hard for Aboriginal people to get on with because they haven't seen Aboriginal rights as important enough for them to have to worry about. But some transnationals are now beginning to see that it is easier to do the right thing for local groups rather than have "little" problems develop into problems that close down mines and start big fights - like at Bougainville. So some Aboriginal groups are starting to find transnationals are getting easier to deal with. But there are no easy rules about transnationals because each one approaches situations differently.
And sometimes, oil companies are quite different to minerals companies. Some of the oil companies have been able to work in all sorts of places and to accept all sorts of agreements and laws so they can get to the oil - but sometimes they have tried to control what goes on in local politics too. That is the history behind many problems in the Middle East now.
Then there are the big Australian mining companies. Some specialise in just one mineral like gold and others have operations mining all sorts of minerals. WMC (Western Mining) started out just mining gold, but now has nickel, bauxite and lots of other mines too. CRA started out mainly with uranium, but now mines just about everything and does lots of other things too and is part of the Rio Tinto company in England. BHP started out in silver lead and zinc, then got into coal and iron ore to make steel, and now has oil and gas and many other mining and manufacturing operations.
These big Australian companies are often quite powerful in economic and political terms - people used to say "What's good for BHP is good for Australia" and government policies were shaped to help these companies to grow and make profits. That's OK for the people who the system makes rich and powerful - but for Aboriginal people it isn't much help to know that mining on your land will mean other people getting richer and more powerful.
Other ways of thinking about companies include looking at their size, their ownership (public companies/ private companies), what they do (exploration/ specialist miners/ general miners) and their growth (old established companies/ rapidly growing companies).
All these ways of thinking about companies can help you to see that every company that applies for an exploration permit has different reasons for wanting to come onto Aboriginal Land in the Kimberley. Some will be interested in developing good relations with local communities and be interested in contributing to them over many years. And others will just want to make money and leave. Others will think they can make more money by tricking people in ways that undermine the future of the lands and the people.
So, even if you think you know about "mining", there are so many sorts of mining companies that there is always more to learn - and you always have to work out what the company's real goal is - what are they going to get out of their proposal? And what are they offering to local Aboriginal people, and why are they offering that? This really means that you have to think very carefully about each proposal "on its merits" - just because one proposal is bad doesn't mean all mining proposals are bad; and just because one is good doesn't mean that the next one that comes along won't be trying to rip you off.
As well as individual mining companies, the mining industry includes some organisations made up of lots of companies to represent "the mining industry" as a whole. The Minerals Council of Australia is made up of mining companies from all over Australia. The Australian Petroleum Exploration Association (APEA) is the national organisation of oil companies. The WA Chamber of Mines and Energy is made up of companies that operate in Western Australia. There are also other groups like the Australian Gold Producers Association and the Association of Mineral Exploration Companies (AMEC).
It is important to understand that mining companies compete with each other.
They are in business to make money, not to make people happy. Even though
they might all "look the same", and even though industry groups like the
Chamber of Mines and the Minerals Council might try to say things for the
whole industry, there are big differences between companies. It is because
of these differences that some companies will try to get along with Aboriginal
people and others will always oppose any negotiations with Aboriginal people.
Aboriginals and the mining industry
In Australia, and many places around the world, mining companies are interested in land where Aboriginal people and other indigenous people live.
There are many reasons for this. In the industrial areas of the world, many of the minerals were dug up and used a long time ago and because many of the places where Aboriginal people have been able to survive are very remote, mining hasn't really happened before. So there are still some very rich mineral deposits in some of these places. The mining industry is also interested in finding ways to get minerals out of the sea, from other unexplored places like Antarctica, and even from the waste of old mines where they can still find good minerals.
Some of Australia's biggest mines are in places where Aboriginal people live. For example, at the Pilbara iron ore mines and the ports where the iron ore is loaded into boats to be sold to steelmakers around the world, Aboriginal people have been greatly affected by the development of new mines, new towns and new people. The bauxite mines at Weipa and Gove are also on Aboriginal land. The Argyle Diamond mine, the Granites Gold Mine, the Ranger Uranium mine, the Groote Eylandt manganese mine and many others are also on Aboriginal land or close to Aboriginal communities. In these places local Aboriginal people have had to struggle hard to look after their interests. In most cases they haven't really seen the benefits that mining was meant to bring. They were often promised jobs that haven't developed; the people often became displaced persons in their own land - like refugees pushed to the edges of the new society on their country. Even where they have received some benefits, there have also been new problems, and other people and the companies and governments have received an even bigger share of the benefits.
In many places around the world, indigenous peoples have seen mining as a new invasion of their lands and a threat to their culture.
But it is not all bad news. For many people in remote areas, mining is the only industry that is likely to be interested in investing money in the area. It is an important part of the economic future for these places and the people in them. In Papua New Guinea, traditional land-owners have even started fighting to get a fair deal out of mining companies (at Bougainville, and more recently at Mt Kare, Ok Tedi and other places). But many Papua New Guineans really want mining to happen because it will bring jobs, money, business and development to their areas. They see this as helping their kids to have a better future.
Most of the problems that do occur, happen because mining companies' biggest worries are about money, markets and minerals. They think a lot about other places and not very much about the way that their mines change people's lives.
Because exploration and mining brings in new people, new investment, new
ideas and new things, it is inevitable that old ways of thinking and living
change. This is called Social Impact. It can happen in all sorts of ways
- some expected and some very surprising.
Social and Environmental Impacts
In remote areas, even small changes can have big effects. New people, new roads, new sources of money, new opportunities for young people, new sources outside influence - even when they don't last long, these things can create changes that keep affecting people for many years. In cases like the Argyle Diamond Mine, the arrangements that were supposed to look after people and help them cope with the social impacts (the Argyle Social Impact Group) were terminated while the mine still had many years left to go.
Many of the most noticeable changes start happening when mining gets under way and there are lots of new people working in a mine, and it stays for more than five years. But there are also lots of changes that happen even from short periods of exploration.
Its not just people who can be affected by the changes, but also the country itself (these are the environmental changes that an Environmental Impact Statement is meant to study). Mining can cause changes to water, to soil, to landscapes and so on, as well as the social life of affected communities.
It is often these things, social and environmental impacts, that Aboriginal
communities want to negotiate about when talking about mining agreements.
People often want to control developments on their land so that they are
not disturbed by mills and mines all over the place (like the Warlpiri agreements
with North Flinders that limit the company to having just one processing
mill for all the gold ore mined in the Tanami area). They might also want
to see agreements about jobs, training, site protection, looking after plants
and animals, protecting water and so on. It is important to remember, though,
that an agreement is no use if you can't check up that a company is doing
all the things it said it would, and you can enforce the agreement (make
the company do what it said it would).
Exploration
Exploration is the first part of any mining project - because you can't just take any old rock and get minerals. Even when you know a mineral is in the ground, you have to do a lot of study and exploration to work out whether it is good enough to mine and to make money from.
Mining companies have to make money from digging and selling minerals. If they don't make money from their operations, they go broke and go out of business.
So, if a mining company is going to look for minerals and build a mine they will be interested in doing this because they want to make money.
Some companies make their money from exploration. They do the work of finding
and investigating a mineral deposit, then they sell their interest to another
company to develop into a mine. Sometimes these companies keep a small interest
in the mine (joint ventures, carried interests etc), and sometimes they prefer
to take a "royalty" on the minerals produced. Some people, like Lang Hancock
for example, have become very rich from charging this sort of royalty.
Mining
Once a company has identified a mineral that it wants to mine, it has to develop a plan for getting the material out of ground and into a form that people will want to buy, or it can use in its processing plants and factories. For different minerals this involves different methods of mining and processing. And, like in exploration, the techniques and equipment used for the job changes all the time as mining companies try to reduce their costs and get in front of other companies in the same industry.
There are basically two sorts of mines - underground and open cut. An open cut mine is a big hole where the soil and rock on the ground is dug up and put to one side, then the minerals below are dug up by bulldozers and other equipment. The size of the hole depends on what is being mined, how rich the mineral is (how much mineral there is compared to the amount of other rock and dirt), and how much it costs to move the dirt and other rock. In underground mines the dirt and rock lying on top of the mineral is left alone and a tunnel is dug into the ground to get to the mineral. There are many different sorts of underground mines and ways of getting minerals out in them. In some mines there are huge machines, while in others there is only room for the miners and tools they carry with them. For oil and gas, and even some minerals now, they don't need to dig a mine because they put a pipe into the deposit and pump the mineral or gas or oil out.
Most minerals can't be sold without some processing. This is because the amount of mineral in the ground is usually not very much, and the company would have to cart a lot of worthless rock and dirt around unless they just get the mineral out. This is called concentrating or processing. This can be done by sorting, by heating and using chemicals, by grinding and all sorts of other techniques. This is the information that the company should be able to give you when they tell you what they want to look for. As you can imagine, being able to know what is under the ground, how much it is worth, what you need to do to turn it into a pure mineral, and how much that will all cost is a very complicated job. It is not just a matter of going and "looking" and "finding" minerals. The companies have to spend a lot of money and time and work getting a mine into production. When they talk to you, they want to make an agreement that helps them know where they stand and what is expected of them. In all things, mining companies don't like surprises - whether it is in the geology under the ground, the markets where they sell the minerals, the mills and plants where they process them or the communities where they are working.
When mining companies talk to indigenous communities, they want to remove risks that problems that might stop or delay the mine. This means that companies often need to negotiate about things even when the law does not require them to negotiate. Just like they negotiate with other stakeholders involved in building a mine, they will talk to indigenous groups about the things that matter to them.
Different views of important ideas - the case of 'development'
One of the key strategic challenges facing Aboriginal groups, governments and private interests in such negotiations, is dealing with the vastly different meanings of important ideas like development.
State, territory and federal governments often oppose native title processes, oppose even the existence of the ëright to negotiateí provisions of the Native Title Act, and seek to avoid recognising indigenous Australians' longstanding rights to country. In their own thinking, the governments are trying to keep the land 'free' for development. Their idea of 'development' is a policy fundamental for many governments. For them, development often involves separating indigenous people from their country to free it up for other people to use to generate money. It also often separates indigenous people from their culture and even from each other as in the Australian experience of the stolen generations and the genocidal policies of governments. This idea of 'development' is shown in Figure 1.
'Development' is also a policy fundamental for a lot of Aboriginal communities, although it is often 'community development', 'infrastructure' or 'economic development'. What indigenous communities mean when they talk about 'development' is itself affected by government policy settings. But there is also a set of meanings constructed within the communities' own frames of reference. They often mean something that is very different to the ideas that dominate government thinking.
How are we to understand the practical differences in these contrasting ideas about ëdevelopmentí and visions of the future? How might we tackle the misunderstanding that come from these differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal parties (and also within Aboriginal parties at times) in negotiations? And how might professionals engaged to assist Aboriginal communities in pursuing their own 'development' goals discuss such differences and strategies to put their priorities and concerns into negotiations?
Although it is a simplification, I don't think it is unreasonable to summarise
the following as core goals of Aboriginal people:
In many Aboriginal organisations, there is a clear statement of priorities
which reflect these goals. These might be articulated in terms such as:
These goals help to define an Aboriginal view of development as those activities and interventions that help to bring Aboriginal people, Aboriginal country and Aboriginal culture back together to stand strongly to produce better practical outcomes. For indigenous Australians, 'development' generally involves bringing people, country and culture closer together. This view of 'development' is shown in Figure 2.
So, development becomes those things that contribute to these highly desired outcomes. Mining, tourism, building and construction, retailing, education, health infrastructure etc can all be evaluated in these terms by the affected Aboriginal people themselves. And clearly some proposals to develop new mines or explore for minerals work against the outcomes desired by Aboriginal people.
Looking at mining proposals this way can help communities to build up negotiating positions which they can be prioritise Aboriginal development priorities and will foster sustainable, equitable and respectful investment in regional economies which are often fundamentally dependent on Aboriginal peopleís cultural, ecological and economic presence.
It is also possible for indigenous groups to begin 'mapping' who is looking after country, looking after people, looking after culture and building the economy in their area (Figure 3). By looking at the work of their own community organisations, government agencies and private sector groups (including mining companies) Aboriginal groups can identify how policies in various government departments, inappropriate guidelines within Aboriginal funding programs, and narrow visions of indigenous rights works against building indigenous participation in regional communities by strengthening strategies and actions for caring for country, caring for people and caring for culture. By plotting a map of locally influential players on a suitable chart, and discussing where they should be to contribute to desirable futures for Aboriginal people, important negotiating, lobbying and investment goals can emerge from workshop discussions. This can help to link together community needs, priorities and negotiating strategies.
Figure Three: A grid for mapping the existing and desired roles of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal institutions in a regional economy
Who is Ö?
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Looking after Country |
Looking after People |
Looking after Culture |
Building the Economy |
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Aboriginal Domains
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Non-Aboriginal Domains
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So - what does it all mean for indigenous Australians?
If indigenous Australians are going to get something worthwhile out of mining proposals, they and their resource organisations will need to do a lot of thinking and talking and work. To look after everybody, even those people whose interests in land are not recognised by governments and mining companies, it will probably be necessary to have strong guidelines about how mining companies should handle Aboriginal concerns. You will need to know enough about the company, the mineral they are looking for and the industry that uses that mineral to be able to argue strongly that the things you want will not stop the mining company from making money. And you have to understand enough about what they are saying to make sure that the problems can be handled. Otherwise the big hopes people might have about the good things that can come from mining will be broken. At the end, the minerals will be gone and nothing will be left for young people to show for mining.
In many ways, every time someone wants to explore you have to deal with their proposals as if it would really become a mine - because you don't have a right to negotiate with them after they have done their exploration and want to start a mine. In some cases this is the law, in other cases, it is hard to get companies to understand the need to keep talking after negotiations have finished and an agreement signed. This doesn't mean that every exploration program will find something. It is very rare that exploration finds minerals that will justify a new mine. This is particularly true in very remote places where a new mine will cost a lot of money to build and the minerals will cost a lot of money to take away in trucks to be sold. In many parts of Australia, mining companies will not even think they need to consider Aboriginal interests because there is no Aboriginal Reserve or lease area. They may consider the legal requirements of the Native Title Act, but not really understand who the Aboriginal people connected to a place are or how thy fit together. Companies will sometimes think that there are 'no real Aborigines' left in a place and just try to get the appropriate site clearances and archaeological approvals and forget about the people who are actually living with or whose cultures are connected to those places if they can.
The challenge in negotiating with mining companies, therefore, is how to
negotiate an agreement which:
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