The Frieda River Mine is expected to come into full operation in 2012 and it shall have a lifespan of 23 years. The mine is located near the headwaters of the Sepik River in the border between East and West Sepik provinces. The Mine will be operated by Highlands Pacific Limited, a company incorporated in Papua New Guinea. According to geological reports provided by Highlands Pacific Limited, the ore potential found in the Frieda River area outsizes the neighbouring Ok Tedi Mine with a heavy presence of gold and copper accompanied by a rich concentration of other metals as well. This mineral wealth carries an attractive financial projection that runs into billions of kina. The newspaper articles below carry the reports and some of the issues relating to the Frieda River Mine.
This is the original article which appeared in the business section of The National on 25 April 2008
I wrote a response to this report which appeared in The National on 5 May 2008
Greg Anderson, from the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, responded to my concerns with a letter that appeared in The National on 30 May 2008
A prominent Papua New Guinea lawyer, John Gawi, who is himself from the Sepik River has written a letter of response to the above letter by Greg Anderson. Mr Gawi demands that environmental plans for the Frieda River Mine must be put in place before the government and the developers rush into the production phase. Mr. Gawi’s letter could be found in The National of 27th June 2008. Concerns about this particular mine is continuing.
The letter entitled “Frieda will not be an ecological disaster” penned by Greg Anderson of the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum (The National 30/05/08) must not go unchallenged. This letter is written with a self-approving moral corrective that seeks to rectify what Mr Anderson perceives as the incorrect assumptions of the letter I wrote about the Frieda River Mine (The National 05/05/08). Anderson’s letter is swayed by an admirable intent to paint a positive image of the mining industry in PNG. It carries the message that mining and mineral wealth plays an important role in digging out PNG from its persistent confinement in the bottomless pit of economic miseries.
People in isolated locales in PNG need mines because mines provide necessary services and infrastructure development that the PNG Government is not able to provide. Thus geographic isolation and economic marginalism provide an attractive rationale for mines to be opened. It is a geographical fact that all the mining that has ever gone on in PNG takes place in very isolated environs in the country. However, in the same breath isolationism and marginalism have contributed towards isolating environmental issues from the extractive agenda of mining companies. The Fly River experience is more than a case in point. The government and company are interested mainly in the landowners around the mining area, but the majority of the people who shall bear the ultimate brunt of this mine are marginalised from the radar of environmental concerns.
Continue reading ‘Is there such a thing as an “environmentally friendly mine”?’
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