"A Three Act Nightmare"
Described as a "three act nightmare - uranium, in a National Park, on Aboriginal land" (121), the Rudall River saga evokes uncanny comparisons with many of CRA's previous exploits in Aboriginal country. There has been a strategy - as at Lake Argyle - to hive off one group of people from another, and conclude deals with them, which are then produced as "evidence" that Aborigines have agreed to exploration and mining (122). Certainly, the Strelley Mob (comprising many of the Nomads - see section on the Pilbara below) did conclude a site-avoidance agreement with Canning Resources, CRAE's front company in the Park. But in 1989, when many of them discovered that their white "leader" Don McCleod was, both figuratively and literally, in the CRA camp, and that the other Western Desert people firmly opposed all mining on their lands, they seemed to withdraw their nominal support for the company's plans (123).There has been the customary batch of protestations from CRA, that their work conforms to guidelines laid down as early as 1978, when mining conditions for Rudall River were first gazetted (124). Yet the company has broken many of the elementary rules: situating base camps close to water and rock holes, interfering with vegetation close to water sources, disturbing plants, dumping rubbish, and constructing access tracks without government permission (125). CRA has accused Aboriginal people of harassing its operations to the extent that, in 1984, it had withdrawn from part of the Park, without being able to conclude an exploration agreement with the Western Desert Land Council (126). The truth is that it had already finished its programme for that year and had neither the need, nor the volition, to reach agreement with "awkward" Aboriginal people (127).
In the last two years, CRA has also cultivated accusations that the white employees of the Western Desert Land Council (Western Desert Puntukurnuparna) are "manipulating" the Aboriginal people - a clear echo from the late 1970's when it was deliberately undermining the roles played by North Queensland and Kimberley Land Councils in supporting traditional communities (128).
The Rudall River region is the likely site of a huge minerals deposit on a par with Roxby Downs (Olympic Dam) or Arnhemland. Under conditions of considerable secrecy, CRA has been exploring the Park for no less than eighteen years (129). In 1979, it upgraded its exploration programme after discovering significant deposits of uranium, along with some copper, gold, lead, zinc, platinum and bismuth (130). By the end of 1987, CRA had spent $20 million exploring some 8,000 square kilometres of this part of the western desert, including 6,000 km within the Rudall River National Park (131). It held around 35 exploration licenses, and 6 mining leases, inside or on the boundaries of the Park (132).
One of these leases, at Kintyre (Karlamilyi) (133), has been confirmed as a world-class uranium deposit, with 15,000 tonnes of resources and 20,000 tonnes of possible reserves. However, estimates of the extent and grade of the lode have been increasing over the past two years. A new drilling programme costing A$10 million (134), in mid-1988 revealed further deposits which could make both an open-cut, and an underground operation, viable (135). In early 1989, reserves were upped by another 1,000 tonnes (136), and it has been stressed continually by CRA that Kintyre is only one part of a potentially vast uranium province (137).
Apart from being an extremely important - and unique - eco-region, rich in fauna and flora (much of it still to be recorded) (138), Rudall River has for around a decade been the home for 300 or more Martu (Aborigines) from the Manjiljarra, Martujarra and Warnman language groups, who began returning to their traditional country after thirty and more years of enforced removal and missionisation (mainly at the Jigalong reserve). The outstation of Punmu was established in 1981 and, three years later, another at Parngurr (Pangurr) (139).
More recently it is the people at Parngurr who have had good cause to be gravely alarmed by CRA's intentions. In 1987, the company announced plans to start drilling at three sites within close distance (up to 10km) of a sacred women's dreaming, Mount Cotten (140). This, and CRA's previous activities, convinced the communities that they must stop the prospecting, until all the implications could be assessed and properly discussed. Under national and international pressure (e.g. from Survival International) in late 1987 the Western Australian government created an "exclusion zone" around Parngurr, from which mining would be temporarily (and possibly permanently) banned. Exploration, reconnaissance, and mining outside this zone was subject to environmental and social impact studies and site-avoidance agreements, "involving full consultation with and input from Aboriginal interests" (141).
At an historic meeting in the desert between the Martu, CRA, Uranerz, other mining representatives, tourist interests, and assorted government officials, in May 1989, the Aboriginal community made it abundantly clear that they did not want mining - especially uranium mining - under any circumstances on their lands (123).
Meanwhile, as the Australian Labor Party conducted a re-assessment in 1988-89 of its "three mines" uranium policy, CRA and the Western Mining Corporation mounted a large-scale public relations offensive, to convince the Australian public that new mines had to open, to take advantage of a "Window of opportunity" scheduled for the early 1990's (137) (142). Even if that window does not open, CRA is committed to new mines in Rudall River, and only huge pressure on an international scale will cause it to relinquish its leases.
Page last updated September 2, 1999.
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