Sustainable Development can
be best defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” according
to the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (Oxford University
Press, 1987).
Sustainable Development is
only used when human beings put dollars and cents before common sense. This is a
developing countries phenomenon. (Mete, R, 2014.) Despite often being labeled
as a “mountain of gold floating in a sea of oil” Papua New Guinea or Papua New
Guineans, have yet to experience the benefits promised by mining and other extractive
industries (MPI, 2012). With poor education standards, increasing infant
mortality and declining services all contributing to a static Human Development
Indicator, Papua New Guinea have a right to question the assumption that ‘
extractive industries brings development’.
Australian miners have staked
Papua New Guinea, where the incredible prospectivity is enough to outweigh its
challenging operating environment, as a brave new mineral frontier. But the
ever challenging balancing act of operations versus landowner concerns
threatens to turn the Pacific elephant country allure into an elephant
graveyard for careless miners.
Melbourne-based Newcrest
Mining Ltd is the most prominent face of a new generation of Australian miners
trying to tap opportunities in the Pacific. Pascoe A, in Australia’s Paydirt
article published in September 2012 says while Australians have long dominated
PNG’s mining sector, the nation has been revived as a hot frontier for
Australian miner delving into elephant country as traditional minerals domains
dry up.
Australian miners are no
strangers to making mines work in highly challenging environment – notably in
Sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade; where they have been credited with
bringing along their high domestic standards in occupational health and safety
to other countries. The Federal Government sponsored mining for Development
initiatives to build on that reputation in the realm of community development.
However, the evidence suggests the quality control exported by Australians in
the Pacific is more problematic.
Perhaps this reflects the
ignominious legacy of Australian miners in PNG – namely the Ok Tedi, Panguna
and Watut River by Hidden Valley catastrophes, the former arguable among the
worst mining environmental disaster ever, the other partly responsible for a war
(Bougainville) which killed 16,000 people including women and children.
The historical implications
isn’t a good start given companies are working with a state and bureaucracy
rife corruption, which appear to have intensify with the development of the
US15.7 billion PNG LNG project in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Operated
by ExxonMobil-subsidiary Esso Highlands Ltd, the LNG projects has ignited renewed interest in the
nation’s resources sector and the two governments fighting for leadership
rights prior to the recent election have both sought to capitalize on that.
In Papua New Guinea, this
means, for example, amending the Environmental Act to allow Ramu Nico to
deposit tailings into the ocean. And while miners may see the lax regulatory
environment as a necessary trade-off given the steeper risk gradient they undertake
by trying to build projects in Papua New Guinea, the down side may outweigh the
benefits.
The concerns of landowners
have tended to be the bigger casualties of the recent new push for investment
as a weak regulatory environment makes the corporate social responsibility
requirement set by the government more opaque. However, as Rio Tinto Ltd found
out in Bougainville – and as the new generation of miners are beginning to
discover; Papua New Guinea is not a country where miners and developers can
afford to pay lip services to landowner’s discontent regardless of the level of
engagement required by government.
It is time now that the young
people in both Papua New Guinea and Australia look for opportunities that are
being available such as Dialogues and Conferences to empower youth’s
participation and sharing information through the Information Communication
Technologies platform that are available and use them to get their voices to be
heard. In addition, young people should rediscover themselves as young men and
women – future leaders for tomorrow, reclaim that the source of action and
responsibilities lies within our self. The next step is to think globally and
to think humanity as a single moral community linked by mutual responsibility. The
youth population of today should be encouraged to participate more actively on
this journey. The young generation should act responsibly now, because older we
are, the deeper our roots are in the past and less able we are to see ways in
which the future is developing.
Flaws in environment and
mining laws with duplicate responsibilities of government regulators, absent of
impact assessments and baseline data can be identified as the barrier to
Sustainable Development. According to Australia’s Paydirt (2012) article,
Newcrest PNG Manager Peter Aitsi argues that landowner discontent reflects a
lack of manpower in the government departments charged with overseeing
regulation of the resources sector. “The kind of support the agencies
responsible for the sector are given is very poor,” Aitsi told Paydirt in Port
Moresby. “So as a result, some of the frustrations we’re seeing from our
communities are intensifying because of the lack of confidence within the
process, and that can only be restored if we have functioning, better resourced
government representation.” But Dr Gavin Mudd, a Melbourne-based environmental
engineer specializing in mining who regularly visits Papua New Guinea said
while the track record of Australian miners in PNG was partly an indictment on
government, that didn’t make it a get-out-of-jail-free card. “Miners can’t just
complain that government isn’t pulling its weight,” Dr. Mudd said. “At the end
of the day they’re in control.” (MPI, 2012).
Another bi cause of landowner
agitation is the lack of transparency and communication by developers with
affected communities. Many land owners in Papua New Guinea are being “starved
of information” and the developers are
not paying enough attention to the risk that presented. Most developers easily
underestimated the concerns and impacts of landowners. This is a basic risk
management, and you cannot break that sort of perception by being secretive –
you’ve got to be open.
Papua New Guinea should by now develop
own policies and regulations to guide Sustainable Development. This is the call
every Papua New Guinea landowners should raised with their political leaders to
hold them responsible enough to promote Sustainable Development.
Given the reality that Papua New
Guinea have a total of eight mines, by which three of these are purely gold
mines, three gold and silver mines, one copper and gold and one nickel and
copper. These make the country one of the world’s resource rich nations, and
pumps about three quarters of revenue into the country’s economy. However, the
management of mine tailings disposal is said to have been overlooked over the
years by government, developers and stakeholders causing a national threat on
the health of future generations, particularly on our mass rural population.
According to the Constitutional
and Law Reform Commission of Papua New Guinea, It is strongly recommended that
the government should seriously look at the environment, health and social
impacts of all extractive industries rather than concentrating more on the
revenue generation.
There should also be call to
Australian Government to impose stricter standards on miner’s overseas practice
and the government silence implied consent for repugnant behavior. The
Australian government does not seem to mind if the actions of Australian miners
lead to the destruction of lives and livelihoods of Papua New Guinean. Papua
New Guinea and the Pacific are ripe with opportunities for miners and in so,
Papua New Guinea Government needs to ensure it’s ready for it. This means that
people who come in and do the right thing by the communities they operate in,
and do the right thing by the Government that gives them the license to do so.
Papua New Guinea is a very
prospective country. But it’s not just a matter of how many tonnes of metal
you’ve got in the ground; it’s actually how you spread the value from that,
making sure you generate more benefits than you do impacts.
