The Kakadu controversy Dennis Schulz, journalist in Sydney, Australia.
A protest breakfast at the Jabiluka site.	Indigenous peoples and environmental groups have often been at loggerheads. But in Australia, one group of Aborigines has teamed up with environmentalists in a dispute over a uranium mine. In 1996 the Australian government gave permission for the mining company Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) to begin work at the Jabiluka mining site, with uranium reserves estimated to be worth more than $8 billion. The decision touched off a national and international controversy over Jabiluka, which lies in the middle of the Kakadu National Park, listed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco. In a report last December, Unesco called on the Australian government to put a stop to the mining project, saying Jabiluka threatened the environment of Kakadu and the cultural heritage of the Aborigines. A Unesco committee will decide this July whether to put Kakadu–habitat for hundreds of species of wildlife and Australia’s oldest sites of human occupation dating as far back as 60,000 years ago–on its list of World Heritage Sites in Danger. The Australian government says the Unesco report contains errors of fact, law, science and logic. ERA says the report’s recommendations do not make “environmental, social or legal sense.” Lobbying and demonstrations by a coalition of 3,500 environmentalists and the Mirrar Aborigines, the traditional owners of the site, was a contributing factor in prompting UNESCO to investigate the impact of mining on them and their environment. Kakadu Aborigines remain split on the mining issue. There are only 28 Mirrar among the 500 Aborigines at Kakadu. Many Aborigines hope for Jabiluka’s commencement on economic grounds. At present the Jabiluka project is continuing.