The fight over a new uranium mine in Australia' s tropical Kakadu National Park escalated recently with the first arrests in what is predicted to be a marathon protest campaign.
On March 24, two protesters who chained themselves to machines were charged with trespassing. Another 50 entered the Jabiluka mine construction site. Three weeks earlier, 9,000 demonstrators rallied in three major Australian cities to protest the uranium mine in northern Australia. A blockade was set up at the site of the proposed mine in April, and aboriginal landowners and environmental activists have vowed to stop work there until the project is completely abandoned.
Jabiluka is located in the Alligators River Region of the Northern Territory and is surrounded by the World Heritage-listed, Kakadu National Park, comprised of savannah and wetland. Energy Resources Australia Ltd. (ERA), wants to mine an estimated 20,000 tons of ore from Jabiluka, one of the world' s richest untapped uranium bodies, to export to France, Germany, Japan and the US.
"The traditional owners don' t want this mine and... are prepared to go as far as they can on this one," says Jacqui Katona, spokesperson for the Mirrar Gundjehmi people, the aboriginal community in the area.
The Mirrar have a legal right of veto over any mining activity&emdash;in theory. But proponents say Mirrar leaders agreed in the ' 70s and ' 80s to allow the leasing and mining of land covering the Jabiluka deposits.
Challenges have been tried in court, but ERA is racing to take advantage of the dry season to start work. The company says the mine' s operations would pose no threat to the fragile wetlands of Kakadu, but the Mirrar dispute this. They also fear the disruptive effects big mining operations will have on their society.
The federal government approved the mine last year, despite claims that it failed to acknowledge threats to the cultural and natural values, and the unresolved problems of the nuclear industry.
"A project that generates 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste is simply not acceptable, safe or necessary," declared protest organizer Jayne Weepers of the Northern Territory Environment Centre. "This is the worst sort of industrial development in the best sort of place."
ERA, which owns Jabiluka and the nearby Ranger Mine said the new development may be worth AU $3.8 billion to the Australian economy with royalties to traditional owners of up to $210 million.
With the world' s largest reserves of the mineral, Australia now exports 6,500 tonnes of uranium oxide each year to 11 countries. Its largest customers are the United States, Japan and South Korea.
The Mirrar have learned painful lessons from another mine, the Ranger uranium mine, which ERA has operated on Mirrar land since 1980. Each traditional owner gets royalties of US $1,350 a year from Ranger, but with the mine ERA also brought alcohol to the township, which has had a devastating effect on the community.
Direct action was also taken in Melbourne, home of ERA' s parent company, North Limited, where 100 people occupied the head office. At the public demonstration in Sydney to support the blockade, Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown compared the Jabiluka campaign favorably to one of Australia' s greatest battles:
"Having come through the Franklin [Dam] campaign where there were 6,000 who went to the blockade, 1500 arrested and 500 jailed, I think this is going to be bigger. I don' t say that lightly. I' ve never said that about any environmental issue since the Franklin but that' s how I see this one."
The Franklin campaign, mounted mostly by the environmental lobby, overthrew a conservative government when the Australian Labor Party promised to support its goals in a 1983 federal election. In this election year, aboriginal Australia has been dealt a double blow by the current conservative government' s support of the mine and proposals to amend the recently awarded land rights. The coalition fighting Jabiluka seeks to make this a bigger election issue than the Franklin.
If you want to act in solidarity with the Mirrar Gundjehmi there are several things you can do: 1. Organize an action in your city during the week of May 11-17 targeting the Australian government. Make a visit or phone call to your local Australian consulate or embassy. 2. Write letters of protest to the Prime Minister John Howard, Parliament House, Canberra, 2600 Australia. 3. If you live in the US or Japan in an area with nuclear power utilities, tell them to boycott uranium from Energy Resources of Australia Pty. Ltd. (46 percent of ERA' s business is in the US).