Jubilee Australia Report: Community Perspectives on the Panguna Mine

Tied up with debate over Bougainville's Referendum on independence is debate over Panguna copper mine located in the heart of Bougainville. On the one hand, the argument is being made that permission should be given to re-open the mine,  to provide income for Bougainville as a fully independent state. A counter-argument is that the environmental, social and cultural damage caused by the mine, and by the civil war, outweighed any benefits. 

A number of consultation events have been held across all parts of Bougainville, but it is not clear how effective these have been in getting a representation of the range of community views. Jubilee Australia conducted its own project to seek out the views of the people most severely affected by the mine: the communities living around it in the area known as Mekamui. Many of the people continue to live with the effects including illness and birth defects; loss of livelihood as they can no longer grow food or catch fish in the rivers; and the destruction and poisoning of their traditional lands. You can access the report here.

Once the biggest copper mine in the world, the mine has played a critical role in the decolonisation of PNG and its subsequent history. Income from the mine was considered essential for PNG to become an independent state, and the mine was developed despite opposition from many of the landowners affected. Only a tiny percentage of the mine's profits were received by Bougainvilleans, although they did experience improved education and health care compared with other provinces of PNG. The people in the vicinity of the mine or of the transport links to port, paid a catastrophic price and in many cases continue to do so, as their natural environment and sources of food and water have been destroyed by tailings and chemical outflow from the mine. The closing of the Panguna mine in 1989 after landowner actions marked the formal beginning of the decade-long civil war in Bougainville.  Some fear that re-opening the mine, apart from any other effects, could spark new conflict.