Local landowners and communities continue to live with the detrimental environmental impacts of the derelict Panguna copper mine, which was never decommissioned, in the mountains of Bougainville Island. Autonomous Region of Bougainville, PNG. Credit: HRLC
By Catherine Wilson
LONDON, Mar 17 2025 – Local communities are finally witnessing progress in their mission for justice, 36 years after the Panguna copper mine in Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville became the centre of landowner grievances about environmental damage.
The release of the first independent environmental and social impact assessment of the mine, once one of the world’s largest, has also raised local expectations of the former majority owner, Rio Tinto, paying for remediation works.
“This is a significant milestone for Bougainville, one that helps us move away from the damage and turmoil of the past and strengthen our pathway towards a stronger future,” Bougainville’s President, Ishmael Toroama, said in a public statement in December 2024.
“This process has been based on dialogue, empathy and cooperation; now we look forward to continued cooperation and tangible action to addressing the impacts,” Blaise Iruinu, Paramount Chief of the local Barapang clan and member of the impact investigation oversight committee, told local media.
In the mid-twentieth century, the islands of Bougainville and eastern New Guinea were administered by Australia under a United Nations mandate to prepare them for self-government. And the Panguna mine was developed as a major revenue stream to economically support the new state of Papua New Guinea (PNG), which was established in 1975. Affected landowners were not widely consulted on the building of the mine, and many were opposed to it.
A recently released environmental and social impact assessment report on the current state of the Panguna mine identified ageing and disintegrating mine infrastructure as a threat to the safety of people living in surrounding communities. Autonomous Region of Bougainville, PNG. Credit: HRLC
It was then operated by Rio Tinto’s subsidiary, Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL), from 1972 until the outbreak of a civil war forced its closure, without decommissioning, in 1989. The conflict began with a landowner-led uprising after a breakdown in discussions with the company about their allegations of environmental damage and economic inequity in the distribution of the mine’s benefits.
While there was no legal requirement at the time for mining companies to do impact assessments, Rio Tinto signed two Disposal of Tailings Agreements in 1971 and 1987. In these, the company agreed to take measures to protect and remediate land affected by mine waste, but they were not effectively implemented. The mine generated 150,000 tonnes of tailings waste per day, which grew to a total of about 1 billion tonnes during the mine’s life.
Mine waste generated during the extractive operations at the Panguna copper mine has contaminated rivers and waterways used by local communities. Autonomous Region of Bougainville, PNG. Credit: HRLC
In 2016, Rio Tinto divested its interests in the abandoned mine, at the same time rejecting any responsibility for environmental issues. Islanders never accepted this, and in 2020, 156 local residents submitted a human rights complaint, assisted by the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre, to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) contact in Australia. They claimed that Rio Tinto had failed to meet its corporate responsibility obligations as defined in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
Today more than 25,000 people live in the mine’s vicinity. And an initial report by the Human Rights Law Centre on how their lives have been affected described the contamination of water sources and food crops, poor relocation and displacement of villagers and a range of illnesses and health issues. Copper “is highly toxic to fish, plants and other aquatic life and can be dangerous to human health in higher concentrations,” states the 2020 report, After the Mine.
After mediated discussions with the complainants and the PNG and Bougainville Governments, the mining multinational agreed to fund an independent impact study which began in 2022.
The Phase 1 Impact Assessment report, prepared by the Australian engineering consultancy, Tetra Tech Coffey, was publicly released in December 2024. It found that the collapsing mine pit and disintegrating infrastructure pose imminent harm to people living nearby, and mine waste has contaminated land, food gardening areas and water resources, including the main Jaba-Kawerong River. There is also the presence of toxic chemicals in the soil of some areas, while toxic substances kept in ageing storage conditions are becoming increasingly unstable.
“We never chose this mine, but we live with its consequences every day, trying to find ways to survive in the wasteland that has been left behind. The legacy impact assessment has, for the first time, given us data and laid a foundation for solutions,” Theonila Roka Matbob, the lead complainant, stated on December 6, 2024.
The report concludes that the Panguna mine’s unaddressed legacy has undermined the Bougainville Islanders’ human rights to life, health, water, adequate food, housing and a clean environment.
Responding to the report, Kellie Parker, Chief Executive of Rio Tinto Australia, said, “Our focus in Bougainville is on meaningful engagement and long-term solutions.” The multinational has formed a roundtable discussion group with the Bougainville Government and BCL to agree the next steps. “We will work with the roundtable parties and consult with local communities on a response plan to address identified impacts,” Parker continued, claiming that the company had a ‘genuine commitment to working respectfully and collaboratively on this important issue.’
Keren Adams, Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, told IPS that Rio Tinto should take immediate action to rectify the most urgent risks to local communities, “such as ensuring that communities have access to safe water supplies, building bridges so communities can safely cross the Kawerong River and stabilising collapsing levees and infrastructure.” In August last year, Rio Tinto agreed to start working immediately on a number of critically unstable mine sites where there are imminent dangers to the wellbeing of communities.
The timeline and costing of the full remediation are still being determined. “While the report has identified which impacts need to be remedied, there is still a further piece of work that needs to be undertaken investigating the options for how that occurs, so that these options can then be costed and planned,” Adams said.
Mine buildings and machinery, damaged during the Bougainville civil war, have been disintegrating for 35 years since the Panguna mine was abandoned in 1989. Autonomous Region of Bougainville, PNG. Credit: HRLC
However, Professor Peter Erskine, Director of the Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation at Australia’s University of Queensland, told IPS, “If a sustainable cleanup and rehabilitation of the site were to be conducted in line with best practice, it would require the consent and collaboration of the landowners and would take more than a decade,” and, he added, cost billions of dollars. BCL has estimated that rehabilitation would require an investment of USD 5 billion, which amounts to more than twice the revenue, totalling USD 2 billion, of the mine during its years of operation.
The cleanup is also a priority, as the Bougainville Government is planning to reopen the mine to fund its own aspiration of nationhood. The remote group of islands in the far eastern region of PNG, which has long campaigned for self-governance, held a referendum on its future political status in December 2019, with a majority, 97.7 percent of voters, electing for Independence. Currently there is no other major developed economic sector, and the Panguna mine is perceived as the only viable means of making nationhood a fiscal reality.
BCL, now majority owned by local stakeholders, has had its exploration licence in Panguna renewed. And, in November, landowners signed a land access agreement with the company. BCL’s Executive Chairman, Mel Togolo, who claims that the mine will generate USD 36 billion in revenues during its second planned life, believes it will feed a high world demand for copper, a key material used by the renewable energy industry.
The task of transforming the Panguna mine from its ruined state is a massive one, and Bougainville’s leaders and its people are keen for action by Rio Tinto. “Rio Tinto has not yet committed to funding either the solutions or the cleanup which communities are calling for. The Human Rights Law Centre will continue working with communities to ensure Rio Tinto takes responsibility for its legacy,” Adams emphasised.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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