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Koori Mail
01-Dec-2010
http://bhpbillitonwatch.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/koori-bhp-1-12-10.pdf
PROTESTERS outside BHP Billiton’s annual general meeting in Perth have slammed the resource giant’s uranium mining plans in Australia.
Conservation groups, unions and Aboriginal traditional owner groups voiced their environmental concerns at the Perth Convention and Exhibition centre on 16 November. They raised particular concerns about BHP proposed uranium mine at Yeelirrie in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. Conservation Council of WA director Piers Verstegen said BHP had been acting behind the scenes to -prevent’ a public inquiry from going ahead into uranium mining in WA. Read the rest of this entry »
Radio Australia, Pacific Beat Home
November 17, 2010 18:19:08
Across the Pacific region managing the development of major mining projects usually involves dealing with the concerns and grievances of traditional landowners.
In Papua New Guinea’s Madang Province, landowners have been fighting to stop the Ramu Nickel Mine over fears it will dump mine waste into the sea and ruin their environment. Read the rest of this entry »
BHPB is in a joint venture partnership with other fossil fuel giants to build an industrial gas processing facility at James Price Point, north of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The development of heavy industry and a deepwater port on the pristine Kimberley coast would have severe local impacts in the middle of the world’s largest Humpback whale nursery, and facilitate wide scale industrialisation of one of the world’s last unspoiled areas. Read the rest of this entry »
In Janary 2010 farmers in Caroona, from the Liverpool Plains northwest of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia, lost the battle to block BHP Billiton from exploring for coal in fertile agricultural land. Chief Justice Brian Preston found that their were no grounds to rule the licence invalid.
Preston stressed that the court was not judging whether the licences should have been granted in the first place. Stating that the government had failed to follow due process when it issued BHP Billiton’s exploration licence farmers had blockaded against BHP Billitons exploration, fearing that the development of coalfields would damage their livelihoods and the water that they rely on. Read the rest of this entry »
BHP Billiton’s Ravensthorpe Nickel mine highlights the human costs of the boom to bust mining economy; but beneath this lies another story, that of the environmental costs of unplanned mine closure.
The Ravensthorpe Nickel mine does not lie on any old land. The ore body sits in the Bandalup corridor, an area of remnant native vegetation connecting the Fitzgerald River National Park with the Ravensthorpe Range; and from there to the Great Western Woodlands and arid interior beyond. Read the rest of this entry »
“Within the Wongutha Tribal group I am the leader of my clan, the Koara people. Yeelirrie is in my tribal boundary. One of the things BHP has not done, and what it’s supposed to do it, its law actually for them to do a heritage survey with me and my people.
They’ve never consulted with me to do that. What I need to say to you is this … before we ever knew about nuclear anything that place Yeelirrie was a no go zone for my tribal people. The name of it, in my native language, the place Yeelirrie means ‘death’.
BHP Billiton has never done a heritage survey with me. I’m happy that while uranium is in the ground it’s safe, I’m concerned what it’s going to do when it comes out of the ground. Now if it’s going to start killing off people in another country, destroying their lives, I’m concerned about that, because it’s my land that could be doing this stuff. It concerns me, it concerns my tribal group, it concerns the surrounding people.”
- Richard Evans, Koara Traditional Owner Read the rest of this entry »
Western Mining Corporation first developed the Olympic Dam (Roxby Downs) Uranium Mine in 1983, despite strong and sustained opposition from Kokatha and Arabunna Traditional Owners and environmentalists. BHP Billiton purchased the underground Olympic Dam mine in 2005. In May 2009 BHP Billiton released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) detailing plans to turn Olympic Dam into a massive open pit mine[1]. This new open pit mine is intended to operate alongside the existing underground mine and to increase uranium production from 4,000 to 19,000 tonnes per year and copper production from 200,000 to 750,000 tonnes a year[2]. Read the rest of this entry »
BHP Billiton was part of a consortium of three multinational companies which in late 2000 bought the Colombian Government’s 50% share of the massive opencast Cerrejon coal mine in the Department (province) of La Guajira in northern Colombia, one of the largest opencast coal mines in the world.
The mine, operated by Exxon subsidiary Intercor (which owned the other 50% share) had a history of forced relocations of Indigenous and Afrocolombian communities, with inadequate or non-existent compensation, to make way for mine expansion[1]. Read the rest of this entry »
POLLUTION FEARS: WANFA chair Della Rae Morrison says over 140 overseas mining companies mining for deposits all around WA are poisoning country and water. Picture: Alf Sorbello, Source: PerthNow
THE human and environmental impacts of the world’s largest mining company will be the focus of protest and attention at BHP Billiton’s annual general meeting today in Perth as Aboriginal leaders speak out.
Members of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA) and the Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA) are attending BHP Billiton’s annual general meeting in Perth today to raise issues directly with the board and shareholders about conduct of uranium mining developments on Aboriginal land.
Richard Evans, Koara traditional owner of the proposed Yeelirrie Uranium deposit in WA, said: “This is not the first time we have explained to BHP Billiton that Uranium mining at Yeelirrie is unwanted.
“BHP Billiton are not talking with the right land owners, they are going through the back door with consultation. Read the rest of this entry »
Other Sides to the Story: Threatening Lives, the Environment and People’s Future
An Alternative Annual Report on BHP Billiton with case studies from across the world Case studies questioning BHP Billiton’s record on human rights, transparency and ecological justice.
