When the miners arrive

Mining and Indigenous Peoples in Australasia
Edited by John Connell and Richard Howitt
Sydney University Press. 200 pp. $22.95
Reviewed by Emlyn Jones

Scholars from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji examine the effect of mining on indigenous peoples and the reactions of these people. There are chapters on Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Sulawesi, Australia and New Zealand.

Mining companies in early days thought of indigenous peoples as innocent and primitive, not worthy of respect. Indigenous peoples failed to envisage the extent of the damage that would occur. Governments tended to favour the interests of mining companies above the interests of local landowners, because mining companies increase national revenue. For example, in New Zealand the Goldfields Act of 1866 gave the crown the right to authorise gold mining over all lands and issue mining rights in return for payment of fees to the government.

Over time, indigenous people have learned to fight back, and mining companies have increasing been compelled to consult landowners. John Connell's chapter on Bougainville illustrates the bitter results of inadequate consultation and the reaction of the local people to unfair division of profits.

Both this chapter and David Hyndman's chapter on the Ok Tedi mine shock by the revelation of the indifference of mining companies to the damage done by the disposal of dangerous waste, including large quantities of cyanide.

Transformation from subsistence economies to wage labour is dealt with in several chapters including Kathryn Robinson's on the Soroako nickel project in Sulawesi.

This is an important book which examines in detail a subject which has not been much explored.

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