Mine bid enrages caves’ owners

THE traditional owners of ancient caves destroyed by Rio Tinto say they are now angry with Fortescue Metals after finding out the company wants to mine other culturally significant land nearby.

There was international outrage following the blasting of the 46,000- year- old Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia’s Pilbara region in May, which extracted $ 135m worth of iron ore as part of Rio Tinto’s Brockman 4 mine expansion.

The Puutu Kunti Kurrama People ( PKKP) are muzzled by confidentiality clauses within their participation agreement with the mining giant, so have largely limited their comments about it to their feelings of devastation, but on Monday spoke out far more openly at a federal inquiry into the blast, protected by parliamentary privilege.

PKKP cultural heritage manager Heather Builth dropped a bombshell when asked about a six- month moratorium covering Juukan Gorge and land immediately to the west that the group scrambled to secure in a bid to protect what remains.

She revealed the group was shocked to find out three days ago that Fortescue applied on September 27 to turn two prospecting licences within the moratorium area into mining licences.

“So they’ve gone ahead, applied for mining licences over the area that we’ve got a moratorium on because of its high cultural sensitivity,” Ms Builth said. “We weren’t told of this — we found it out ourselves.

“And now we’re very worried … we’re pretty upset with FMG at this stage as well.”

She said the PKKP was rushing archaeological surveys later this month because the moratorium runs out in January and will then be reviewed.

“We haven’t finished our cultural mapping … of that area,” Ms Builth said. She said Fortescue’s move was “insensitive to say the least … unconscionable to say the most”.

“We have told them that we know this and that we’re pretty upset about it. They have not reached out to us yet.”

Fortescue has been sought for comment.

The inquiry earlier heard Rio Tinto was not allowing access to the land for cultural surveying and conservation of Indigenous artefacts.