McArthur River Mine’s zinc-lead processing plant Image credit: Glencore
Last year Glencore unit McArthur River Mine (MRM) received approval from the Northern Territory’s mining minister to proceed with expansion at the mine, 670 km southeast of Darwin, including doubling the size of its waste dump, as per a Reuters report.
However, the head of a Northern Territory oversight authority told an Australian inquiry on Tuesday that the expansion at an Australian lead and zinc mine run by Glencore puts at risk several sacred Aboriginal sites including a historical quarry.
Benedict Scambary, chief executive of the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) said: “The scale of the mine expansion raises some quite serious questions about the maintenance and protection of sacred sites on that lease and also access to those places for custodians into the future.”
“We understand our obligation to protect sacred sites on our mining lease and take this obligation very seriously,” Glencore said, adding that it would seek approvals from AAPA for any future mining plans that required them”, he added.
Scambary told the parliamentary inquiry into Rio Tinto’s destruction of rock-shelters last year that the MRM waste dump expansion could impact adjacent sacred sites, and that Glencore did not have proper authority from appropriate elders to do so. Sites at risk included one related to creation stories, known as barramundi dreaming, as well as a quarry where stone tools were made, Scambary said.
Aruna Gaitonde, Editor in Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough&Polished
