Sophie Boukhari, UNESCO Courier journalist
Taken in October 1998, this aerial
shot clearly shows the advanced state of construction of the Jabiluka mine by the
company Energy Resources of Australia.The Mirrars, an Aboriginal group, maintain
that the mine would seriously harm their most sacred sites.
‘We are telling
the truth. Non-Aborigine people often doubt the sincerity of our cultures. But this
sacred site belongs to the Mirrars.’
The Jabiluka, Ranger and Koongarra
enclaves are not themselves classified as “world heritage” though they are within
the Kakadu park (20,000 km2).
‘Now we recognize
cultures which aren’t monuments but where the landscape has a very great cultural
value, especially in Africa and Oceania. They have to be protected in the name of
humanity.’
Kakadu park has many prehistoric rock art sites portraying mythological heroes, animals
and objects familiar to the Aborigines.
‘We respect
Mecca and Jerusalem, so we should respect these holy places too. The problem is that
nobody has ever defined their exact area. That’s just known to a few sages. They’re
supposed to keep this secret but now they’re ready to reveal it to defend themselves.’
The opening
of a mine in Australia’s Kakadu Park has revived international debate about the protection
of the world heritage
How far
should world heritage be protected and who should judge? Nearly 30 years after UNESCO adopted its 1972 Convention on protecting natural
and cultural heritage sites “of outstanding universal value”, the question is still
stirring passions. The much-publicized row over Kakadu, which was put on the World
Heritage List in 1981, is the most recent example.
Supporters and opponents of extracting uranium from the Jabiluka mine, which is an
enclave in the park but not officially part of it, have been fighting it out for
the past few years. Battles between experts, flights of rhetoric, clashes between
police and militants, press campaigns, special meetings of UNESCO units and diplomatic horse-trading have all
been part of this stormy episode of world heritage.
Kakadu is in Australia’s Northern Territory and includes a wide range of wetland
and woodland ecosystems. The area contains many rare species and numerous places
where ancient rock drawings can be seen. Cultural traditions there go back more than
50,000 years, making it the continent’s oldest known human settlement. This long
history makes its “cultural landscape” a unique showcase of the relationship between
humans and their environment.
Dreamtime
The scenery,
plants and animals of the region feature strongly in the religion and traditions
of the 550 or so Aborigines who live in Kakadu. They keep a close spiritual link
to their lands, of which they are “traditional owners” under Australian law. They
believe they were put there by “spirit beings” such as the rainbow serpent, which
they say appeared at the time of the world’s creation to give the planet its shape
and existence.
Once their work was done, the Aborigines say, these supernatural creatures–which
still have influence over the inhabitants and the fertility of the land–spread out
over the countryside, pausing to fight or to rest, and established a number of sacred
places: the so-called places and trails of “Dreamtime”.
But the dream stops right there. Today, the Kakadu region is seen as the site of
one of the world’s richest deposits of uranium. The park, the biggest in Australia
and the size of Belgium, contains an explosive mix–the familiar tug-of-war between
conservation and economic development, the tricky problem of radioactive waste and
the assertion of indigenous peoples’ rights.
Three mining enclaves (Ranger, Jabiluka and Koongarra) were mapped out in the early
1970s, before the park was created in 1979, Australian officials point out. The Ranger
mine has been operating since 1981. The Northern Land Council (NLC), which officially
represents the 16 local Aborigine tribes in the running of the park, gave the go-ahead
in 1982 for the Jabiluka mine.
A year later, things changed. A new government was elected which curbed uranium production
and put the Jabiluka project on hold. But “with the agreement of the NLC and consent
of the Aboriginal traditional owners,” according to an April 1999 Australian government
report, the Jabiluka lease was transferred in August 1991 to the firm Energy Resources
of Australia (ERA), although the deposit was still not being mined.
There was another U-turn in March 1996, when the Liberal Party won national elections
and said it favoured opening new uranium mines, including the one at Jabiluka. After
environmental surveys, the government gave a green light to ERA, which started digging
in early 1998. It reckons the project, which will create jobs, could earn up to $2.5
billion in export earnings and produce $140 million in royalties for the Aborigines.
But the 27 members of the Mirrar tribe are dead against the project.
A “dangerous”
site
The Mirrars
are the traditional owners of the Jabiluka enclave. They say the mine is dangerous
for them and they no longer feel bound by the agreement the NLC signed in 1982. Their
new leader, Yvonne Margarula, has proved very tough. They say the Aborigine leaders,
including her late father, were pushed into the agreement by the mining companies
at a time when Aborigine rights were still little enforced and their leaders unused
to “modern” negotiations.
The Mirrars also consider the experience of the Ranger mine inconclusive. Although
the Aborigines have received royalties, “the social situation in the region has not
improved since the 1980s,” according to a 1997 survey commissioned by several of
the parties involved in running Kakadu, including ERA. Unlike other Aborigine tribes
who favour the mining, the Mirrars say it will turn their lives upside down and threaten
their traditional subsistence economy based on hunting and gathering. They also stress
that the site of the mine is a very sacred spot, one of the “Dreaming” places that
are “dangerous” because disturbing them will have terrible consequences. “We are
telling the truth,” says Margarula. “Non-Aborigine people often doubt the sincerity
of our cultures. But this sacred site belongs to the Mirrars.”
The tribe teamed up with ecology activists to form the Jabiluka Blockade in 1996
to halt the project, and militants have clashed with police at the site several times.
Almost two-thirds of Australians say they are against opening the mine. An aggressive
international campaign has been launched and has spread around the world.
The dispute soon landed on the desk of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee,
on which sit representatives of 21 countries each elected for six years. They have
been inundated by hundreds of letters denouncing the mine’s threat to the environment
and the cultural rights of the Mirrars. The World Conservation Union, one of the
Committee’s three advisory bodies, confirms that the danger is real.
The Committee decided to send experts to Kakadu in June 1998. The mission reported
that there were “severe ascertained and potential dangers to the cultural and natural
values” of the park. It noted the scientific uncertainty about the impact of the
mining on water supplies and aquatic wildlife and about the long-term effect of stored
radioactive tailings. It was also concerned about the mine’s “visual impact” on the
site and the damage it might cause to the daily culture and religion of the Mirrars.
The International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Centre
for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM)–two
advisory bodies of the World Heritage Committee–emphasized the fragility of the intangible
heritage of the Aborigines. “We respect Mecca and Jerusalem, so we should respect
these holy places too,” says Henry Cleere of ICOMOS. “The problem is that nobody
has ever defined their exact area. That’s just known to a few sages. They’re supposed
to keep this secret but now they’re ready to reveal it to defend themselves.”
Cleere, along with the Mirrars and many experts, says the Jabiluka enclave cannot
be dissociated from the park’s huge network of “Dreaming” trails and places even
if legally it is not part of the heritage site. To disturb the enclave, they say,
would threaten the whole sacred network.
Cultural rights
The mission
criticized the fact that the building of the mine was presented to the World Heritage
Committee as a “fait accompli” when the Committee should have been told about it
before work began, according to the terms of the 1972 Convention. It called on the
Australian government to revise the 1982 and 1991 agreements so as to protect the
Mirrars’ cultural rights.
In December 1998, the Committee, meeting in Kyoto (Japan), urged the Australian government
to stop building the mine and scheduled a special session for July 1999 to decide
whether to classify Kakadu as an endangered heritage site. The NGOs were very pleased
and the Australian government launched a counter-attack.
The Kakadu dispute has many domestic political implications and has set off fierce
arguments with the opposition Labor Party and the Greens, who challenge the government’s
environmental policies and accuse it of jeopardizing the process of reconciliation
with the Aborigines, which was stepped up in the early 1990s.
The environment minister, Sen. Robert Hill, led a strong delegation to Paris to stress
several points. First, that Australia had no lessons to learn from anyone. It had
been among the first countries to sign the Convention in 1974 and had changed its
laws accordingly. The mission said Australia had the biggest expanse of world heritage
sites of all the signatory countries and that it spent $30 million a year on maintaining
them.
Alcohol and Western
food
Hill emphasized
that the mining enclaves were already there when the site was put on the World Heritage
List and that Australia had said at the time it reserved the right to start operations
at Jabiluka. The Ranger mine had not caused any environmental damage, the Australian
delegates said, pointing to their country’s long experience in mining and very strict
regulation of it on ecological and health grounds. Citing a number of experts, they
said environmental risk was small and the way the radioactive tailings were stored
was very safe. The mine was also hidden by hills and hardly visible from the park.
It could only really be seen from the air and only 10 per cent of visitors to Kakadu
flew over the park.
Recalling that the Aborigines had initially agreed to mining at Jabiluka, the officials
said the mine did not directly threaten the sacred sites, which were protected under
Australian law. They in effect accused the Mirrars of using their religion as an
argument to derail the project. The April 1999 government report said it was not
until 1997 that there was a call to extend Boyweg, one of the sacred sites, possibly
to cover the whole mining valley. “These revisions upgraded the site from ‘sacred’
to ‘sacred and dangerous’,” it said, adding that the new call was “not consistent
with anthropological records or previous statements.”
The delegation also said the government was not responsible for the slow social and
economic development of the Aborigines and the breaking down of their culture. “We
can’t stop them using royalties to buy alcohol and Western food,” one delegation
member told the Committee. The Australians promised however to revise ERA’s mining
plans and resume talks with the Mirrars to establish their cultural rights more clearly.
Then, on July 12, 1999, Hill sprung a surprise: the Jabiluka mine would start operations
in 2001 but just slowly, only reaching full capacity when the Ranger mine had virtually
closed in about 10 years’ time. The government would earmark $1.8 million to beef
up the park’s infrastructure and would step up efforts to improve housing, water
supply, education, health and the job situation for the Aborigines.
“There will be an enquiry in coming months to assess the danger to the cultural property
of the Aborigines,” he said. “We intend to appoint a mediator between the traditional
owners and ERA. We’re going to take a break. We recognize the problems of mining
in this environment, even if the mine is not strictly part of the park.”
The World Heritage Committee decided not to classify Kakadu as an endangered heritage
site. But the Committee said it was still “gravely concerned” by the mine’s impact
on the living cultures of Kakadu and by the lack of dialogue and progress in jointly
managing the Mirrar people’s cultural heritage. It said it had significant reservations
concerning the “scientific uncertainties” relating to the project and asked the Australian
government to present new reports before April 15, 2000.
The many NGO representatives who came to UNESCO headquarters at the same time
as the delegation strongly protested. The Wilderness Society called the Committee’s
decision “a dramatic capitulation to intense pressure from the Australian government.”
It and other NGOs said the decision damaged the 1972 Convention’s credibility and
was the outcome of a “dirty tricks campaign” by Australia to win over the countries
represented on the Committee.
The government had announced in early 1999 a $600,000 lobbying campaign to prevent
Kakadu being classified as an endangered site. It also said in June 1999 it would
back the candidacy of Australia’s former foreign minister Gareth Evans to succeed
Federico Mayor as Director-General of UNESCO. The Wilderness Society said
it hoped such backing was not simply “a way of pressuring” the current chair of the
World Heritage Committee, Japan’s Koichiro Matsuura, who is also a candidate to replace
Mayor.
Apart from its many political dimensions, the Kakadu affair has shown how vulnerable
world heritage is. How far must preservation go, when exceptional landscapes and
monuments are increasingly under threat, as evidenced by the lengthening list of
endangered sites, which now total 23? Can mining or other economic projects be blocked
when they endanger sites but when the need for jobs and development is more and more
urgent? And who should decide the importance of a site and how it should be preserved?
“In the beginning, world heritage was defined in the light of Western artistic cultural
traditions,” says Cleere. “But that’s changed. Now we recognize cultures which aren’t
monuments but where the landscape has a very great cultural value, especially in
Africa and Oceania. They have to be protected in the name of humanity.”
But what should be done when their importance is not fully appreciated, including
in their own country? How far can the international community go to protect them?
The jury is still out. Under the 1972 Convention, countries which ask for sites to
be put on the World Heritage List must recognize them as “a world heritage for whose
protection it is the duty of the international community to co-operate”. But they
can also interpret it as meaning their sovereignty will be “totally respected”.
With Kakadu, the Australian government has stuck to a very narrow interpretation
of the Convention regarding international co-operation, as embodied by the Committee.
It has refused to recognize the Committee’s right to list the site as endangered
without its prior agreement. Sen. Hill has also challenged the way the Committee
works by questioning the legitimacy of its advisory bodies, saying “the role of so-called
independent experts and advisers is up for scrutiny in the future.”
Eco-imperialism
He has thereby
given comfort to those who oppose joint management of world heritage. Forty members
of the U.S. Congress have backed Australia over Kakadu, denouncing UNESCO’s supposed “eco-imperialism”.
In a petition to President Bill Clinton on July 1, 1999, they said any dispute over
an Australian mine should be settled by Australians “working with their elected leaders,
not at some obscure World Heritage Committee.” They urged Clinton to ensure that
the Committee did not “meddle” in the Jabiluka issue. The pressure group also wants
world heritage sites in the United States to be controlled by the U.S. Congress.
It said this demand was “a response to the Committee’s meddling in a dispute regarding
a proposed gold mine located on private property outside the boundary of Yellowstone
National Park”. The U.S. government forced the abandonment of the mining project
there in 1996, after Yellowstone was declared an endangered world heritage site.
These and many other examples show that joint management of world heritage is nevertheless
gaining ground. The Jabiluka affair was not part of this trend, but it has illustrated
the astonishing organizational power of supporters of world governance. NGOs, politicians
(the European Parliament voted against the mine in January 1999) and ordinary citizens
all over the world were inspired to campaign to “save Kakadu”.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” says Sarah Titchen, who is in charge of the
case at UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. “Now
everyone around the world involved in world heritage knows about Kakadu.”
Meanwhile the saga continues. The Mirrars are now opposing, quite legally, the building
of a 15-km road through their territory. The road would allow ERA to take uranium
mined at Jabiluka to be treated at the Ranger mining complex, which would be less
environmentally harmful but most of all, much cheaper. ERA has even hinted it will
leave the Kakadu region by 2006 if the Mirrars do not give way. It shouldn’t count
on the rainbow serpent to advise them to do so.