Mae DesTroismaisons
NR 002: Nature and Culture
March 15, 2014
Professor Walter Kuentzel
The world’s largest mining company, Britain’s Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ), began developing Panguna Mine in the 1960s on the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Unbeknownst to the indigenous people of Bougainville, the mine would grow to be extremely large and destructive. Five-hundred and fifty acres of jungle that once served as a hunting ground for locals of the area was cleared for mining by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), an Australian subsidiary of RTZ. Meanwhile, the residents of the area were relocated to a makeshift resettlement or “shanty town”, but no financial support was given by the PNG government or by RTZ to help build a school. In 1967, BCL began excavating what was at the time the biggest open-cast copper mine on earth—nearly five hundred meters deep and covering about seven square kilometers—in the fertile heart of Bougainville (The Coconut Revolution, 1999). Before it was closed in 1989, the mine produced three million tons of copper, seven hundred and eighty-four tons of silver, and three hundred and six tons of gold, accounting for approximately forty-four percent of PNG’s gross domestic product in that seventeen-year timespan (“Panguna-Bougainville”, 2013).
Copper, silver, and gold are all “currency metals,” meaning that they are used to make monetary coins. These metals are also used to produce first-world luxuries like computers, cellphones, and jewelry. Additionally, copper is used for piping and for electrical conductors, silver is used for tableware and in non-digital photography, and gold is used in microelectronics and for dental work (Calvert, 2002). The current prices of copper, silver, and gold are approximately $0.20, $21.46, and $1382.00 per troy ounce, respectively (“Coin and Bullion Melt Value Calculators”, 2014). One troy ounce is about thirty-one grams.
Soon after its opening, Panguna Mine proved extremely polluting, and approximately one billion tons of industrial waste including copper, mercury, arsenic, and lead was deposited into the Jaba River, killing wildlife and transforming whole forests and forests into dusty “moonscape” or desolate land. The river system was virtually destroyed by mine pollution; to this day, there are no fish to be found living in the waters, which are undrinkable and unsafe for people to swim in. When locals protested the digging, their land was taken by force. Of the three billion U.S. dollars in profit that Panguna Mine made, only one one-thousandth (about $3 million) was given back to the people of Bougainville (The Coconut Revolution, 1999). Although not directly stated, historical literature about Panguna Mine implies that most of the mineworkers were from the PNG mainland, not Bougainville (“The Bougainville Crisis”, 1990).
In 1988, the Young Land Owners Association (YLO) led by Francis Ona demanded closure of Panguna Mine, as well as ten billion dollars in damages. Ten billion was more than the mine was worth, and the YLO was granted nothing. Shortly after, Ona broke into the mine at night and stole fifty kilos of high explosives. He and his rebel friends closed the mine themselves via sabotage. Panicking about losing almost half of their export earnings, Papua New Guinea deployed the riot police, who then stormed Bougainville, burning homes down and beating, raping, and murdering civilians. This event only strengthened the resistance, as it enraged the local community and so provided Ona’s guerilla force with all the recruits it needed (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
Now that the Bougainvillians had closed down the mine themselves and RTZ had abandoned it, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BVA) was formed, and it raised the stakes of the conflict, plugging for independence from Papua New Guinea. The riot police could not handle the rebel uprising, so PNG’s Army, the Papua New Guinea Defense Force (PNGDF), was sent in. The PNGDF blockaded the island and were given shoot-to-kill orders so that Bougainville was completely cut off from outside resources like petrol, diesel, food products, medicine, and weaponry. Australia, with ex-colonial interests, provided PNG with helicopters that were soon turned to gunships and trained primarily on the unarmed population of Bougainville (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
The PNGDF drove much of Bougainville’s population into the jungle, where many people began dying from things such as unsanitized childbirth, preventable illnesses like malaria, pneumonia, and tetanus, as well as from asbestos from the mine. The Bougainvillians, cut off from all trade, were forced to innovate, employing their ancestors’ ancient medicinal techniques involving herbs found growing on the island. Francis Ona’s Presidential Headquarters doubled as a surgery, where both rebel soldiers and civilians would go for unprofessional help with serious injuries. More than 15,000 Bougainvillians (approximately one-tenth of the island’s population) died during the conflict, which was possibly the bloodiest in the Pacific since World War II (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
The BVA had to be creative, too. They salvaged leftover materials and machine parts from the abandoned mine to make homemade weapons. They literally fought the battle against the PNGDF and their advanced weaponry with sticks, stones, and scraps, using slingshot guns and bows and poisonous arrows that the soldiers made themselves. The construction of weaponry also helped build confidence in the force. They eventually gained two-to-three hundred powerful modern weapons from the opposition as they won more and more battles. Another tactic the rebels used was the creation of booby-traps that involved planting island herbs on the tracks on which the enemy moved along, When the PNGDF soldiers passed by these particular herbs, they would experience allergic reactions far worse than those caused by poison ivy as their testicles and penises would become swollen and painful (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
“Shopping” in Bougainville in this time of conflict meant bringing back anything you could out of successful operations from weapons and medicine to kickballs for children to play with. It also meant salvaging materials from the abandoned Panguna Mine including switchboxes, piping, and parts that could be reused for improvisational repairs to the island’s collapsing infrastructure. The “primitive” people even made gravity-fed hydroelectric generators out of rubbish, pipes, and spare parts from old cars. There are now between fifty and sixty small hydros lighting up certain parts of the island that can provide power twenty-four hours a day (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
Since no food was being imported to the island, the people had to increase their level of gardening and land cultivation. Every family had to be self-sufficient in order to survive. Bouganvillians grew potatoes, peanuts, corn yams, tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, cassava, sugar cane, taros, and pawpaw in the rich island soil. The coconut, however, was by far their most valuable resource (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
The people of Bougainville used each and every part of the coconut, which grows abundantly in the area. It had long been known that coconut trees provided food and shelter, but many more uses were discovered for it as a result of the blockade. The skin could be heated in a fire and squeezed onto sores for healing. The husk could be burned to repel malaria-transmitting mosquitos. The leaves could be used to weave baskets. The oil could be used for lamps, for cooking, and to make soap. Refined, grade A coconut oil could be used to clean guns. Most impressively, through a process involving scraping, squeezing, fermenting, and cooking, coconuts could be used to produce fuel for vehicles. This is how the people of Bougainville were able to continue driving cars and abandoned mine vehicles despite the lack of petrol and diesel. From fifteen coconuts, one liter of fuel can be made. Coconut fuel is also less polluting than diesel, and gets double the mileage (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
By 1996, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army was winning the war, and held about eighty percent of the island’s territory. Note that no other countries came to aid them against Papua New Guinea and Australia’s forces. In 1997, PNG hired a London-based mercenary company called Sandline International in an attempt to wipe out Bougainville’s rebel leadership at a cost of forty-six million dollars (The Coconut Revolution, 1999). Sandline International is a Private (“private” meaning privately owned independent business) Military Company (PMC) established in the early 1990s. Today, it is incorporated in the Bahamas, but maintains representative offices in both England and the United States (“Overview of the company”, 2004). Embarrassed about needing foreign assistance, and infuriated by the cost of it, the underpaid PNGDF arrested the mercenaries and threw them out, thus indirectly helping the BVA (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
In 2001, an agreement was reached between PNG and Bougainville that gave the island a referendum on independence (“History of Bougainville”, 2004). On July 25, 2005, rebel leader Francis Ona passed away from malaria (The World Today, 2005). Bougainville is currently listed as an “autonomous region” on the website:http://www.papuanewguinea.travel/bougainville (“Autonomous Region of Bougainville”, 2008), but there is a “lack of real democracy in Bougainville” (Loewenstein, 2013) as it tries to gain true independence. Recently, there has been discussion of reopening Panguna Mine by BCL, who claims, “the Autonomous Region is ready for economic development” (“About the Company BCL”, 2012). However, the people of Bougainville have met the proposal with harsh resistance. As one Bougainvillian woman, Theonila Roka said, “In many ways we’re already independent. Most people are self-sufficient, growing their own food on their land” (Loewenstein, 2013).
The extractive activity of mining on the island of Bougainville helped the region develop sustainability in an unexpected way. That is, the resistance of the indigenous population to Rio Tinto Zinc’s Panguna Mine and Papua New Guinea inspired a revolution of self-sufficiency. Interestingly, if it had not been for the environmental destruction caused by the Panguna Mine, and the resulting violent conflict, Bougainvillians would probably still be relying on fossil fuels. Instead, they have developed their own green energy sources: hydro-electricity produced using reused mine materials, and fuel for vehicles produced from coconuts!
It appears that the push for the reopening of Panguna Mine comes primarily from profit-seeking corporations like RTZ and from first-world product demands. In the multi-award winning documentary film, The Coconut Revolution, most of the people of Bougainville were barefoot and wearing tattered clothing that certainly did not have flashy brands and logos all over it, but they seemed happy. Perhaps first-world nations like the United States can learn a lesson about sustainability and self-reliance from the Bougainville community. We can start by resisting the designed obsolescence of our technology—which is produced via extractive mining activities—by living without constantly disposing of perfectly functional cellphones and computers in favor of “new and improved” upgrades. It is consumers like us that comprise the driving force behind environmental destruction and pollution. By demanding technological advancement, we are in turn demanding that colossal corporations take advantage of undeveloped areas like Bougainville, forcibly taking land from indigenous people, and raping that land of its natural resources and wild beauty.
Works Cited
“About the Company BCL.” BCL Home Comments. Bougainville Copper Limited, 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.bcl.com.pg>.
“Autonomous Region of Bougainville.” Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotions Authority | Autonomous Region of Bougainville. 2008. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.papuanewguinea.travel/bougainville>
Calvert, J.B. “Copper, Silver and Gold.” Copper, Silver and Gold. 24 Nov. 2002. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/copper.htm#Roya>.
“Coin & Bullion Melt Value Calculators.” Coin & Bullion Melt Value Calculators. 2014. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://coinapps.com>.
The Coconut Revolution. Dir. Dom Rotheroe. 1999. Film.
<http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-coconut-revolution>
“Panguna – Bougainville.” PNG Mining Legacies. Mineral Policy Institute, 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.pngmininglegacies.org/mining-projects/panguna/>.
The World Today. ABC Local Radio. 25 July 2005. Web. Transcript.
“Panguna – Bougainville.” PNG Mining Legacies. Mineral Policy Institute, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.pngmininglegacies.org/mining-projects/panguna/>.
“The Bougainville Crisis.” ANU Press. Australian National University, 1990. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://press.anu.edu.au/sspng/mobile_device/ch13.html>
Loewenstein, Antony. “Bougainville mine: locals who oppose its re-opening must have a voice.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/bougainville-mine-locals-who-oppose-its-re-opening-must-have-a-voice>.
“Overview of the company.” Sandline International. 16 Apr. 2004. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.sandline.com/site/index.html>.
NR 002: Nature and Culture
March 15, 2014
Professor Walter Kuentzel
The world’s largest mining company, Britain’s Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ), began developing Panguna Mine in the 1960s on the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Unbeknownst to the indigenous people of Bougainville, the mine would grow to be extremely large and destructive. Five-hundred and fifty acres of jungle that once served as a hunting ground for locals of the area was cleared for mining by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), an Australian subsidiary of RTZ. Meanwhile, the residents of the area were relocated to a makeshift resettlement or “shanty town”, but no financial support was given by the PNG government or by RTZ to help build a school. In 1967, BCL began excavating what was at the time the biggest open-cast copper mine on earth—nearly five hundred meters deep and covering about seven square kilometers—in the fertile heart of Bougainville (The Coconut Revolution, 1999). Before it was closed in 1989, the mine produced three million tons of copper, seven hundred and eighty-four tons of silver, and three hundred and six tons of gold, accounting for approximately forty-four percent of PNG’s gross domestic product in that seventeen-year timespan (“Panguna-Bougainville”, 2013).
Copper, silver, and gold are all “currency metals,” meaning that they are used to make monetary coins. These metals are also used to produce first-world luxuries like computers, cellphones, and jewelry. Additionally, copper is used for piping and for electrical conductors, silver is used for tableware and in non-digital photography, and gold is used in microelectronics and for dental work (Calvert, 2002). The current prices of copper, silver, and gold are approximately $0.20, $21.46, and $1382.00 per troy ounce, respectively (“Coin and Bullion Melt Value Calculators”, 2014). One troy ounce is about thirty-one grams.
Soon after its opening, Panguna Mine proved extremely polluting, and approximately one billion tons of industrial waste including copper, mercury, arsenic, and lead was deposited into the Jaba River, killing wildlife and transforming whole forests and forests into dusty “moonscape” or desolate land. The river system was virtually destroyed by mine pollution; to this day, there are no fish to be found living in the waters, which are undrinkable and unsafe for people to swim in. When locals protested the digging, their land was taken by force. Of the three billion U.S. dollars in profit that Panguna Mine made, only one one-thousandth (about $3 million) was given back to the people of Bougainville (The Coconut Revolution, 1999). Although not directly stated, historical literature about Panguna Mine implies that most of the mineworkers were from the PNG mainland, not Bougainville (“The Bougainville Crisis”, 1990).
In 1988, the Young Land Owners Association (YLO) led by Francis Ona demanded closure of Panguna Mine, as well as ten billion dollars in damages. Ten billion was more than the mine was worth, and the YLO was granted nothing. Shortly after, Ona broke into the mine at night and stole fifty kilos of high explosives. He and his rebel friends closed the mine themselves via sabotage. Panicking about losing almost half of their export earnings, Papua New Guinea deployed the riot police, who then stormed Bougainville, burning homes down and beating, raping, and murdering civilians. This event only strengthened the resistance, as it enraged the local community and so provided Ona’s guerilla force with all the recruits it needed (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
Now that the Bougainvillians had closed down the mine themselves and RTZ had abandoned it, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BVA) was formed, and it raised the stakes of the conflict, plugging for independence from Papua New Guinea. The riot police could not handle the rebel uprising, so PNG’s Army, the Papua New Guinea Defense Force (PNGDF), was sent in. The PNGDF blockaded the island and were given shoot-to-kill orders so that Bougainville was completely cut off from outside resources like petrol, diesel, food products, medicine, and weaponry. Australia, with ex-colonial interests, provided PNG with helicopters that were soon turned to gunships and trained primarily on the unarmed population of Bougainville (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
The PNGDF drove much of Bougainville’s population into the jungle, where many people began dying from things such as unsanitized childbirth, preventable illnesses like malaria, pneumonia, and tetanus, as well as from asbestos from the mine. The Bougainvillians, cut off from all trade, were forced to innovate, employing their ancestors’ ancient medicinal techniques involving herbs found growing on the island. Francis Ona’s Presidential Headquarters doubled as a surgery, where both rebel soldiers and civilians would go for unprofessional help with serious injuries. More than 15,000 Bougainvillians (approximately one-tenth of the island’s population) died during the conflict, which was possibly the bloodiest in the Pacific since World War II (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
The BVA had to be creative, too. They salvaged leftover materials and machine parts from the abandoned mine to make homemade weapons. They literally fought the battle against the PNGDF and their advanced weaponry with sticks, stones, and scraps, using slingshot guns and bows and poisonous arrows that the soldiers made themselves. The construction of weaponry also helped build confidence in the force. They eventually gained two-to-three hundred powerful modern weapons from the opposition as they won more and more battles. Another tactic the rebels used was the creation of booby-traps that involved planting island herbs on the tracks on which the enemy moved along, When the PNGDF soldiers passed by these particular herbs, they would experience allergic reactions far worse than those caused by poison ivy as their testicles and penises would become swollen and painful (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
“Shopping” in Bougainville in this time of conflict meant bringing back anything you could out of successful operations from weapons and medicine to kickballs for children to play with. It also meant salvaging materials from the abandoned Panguna Mine including switchboxes, piping, and parts that could be reused for improvisational repairs to the island’s collapsing infrastructure. The “primitive” people even made gravity-fed hydroelectric generators out of rubbish, pipes, and spare parts from old cars. There are now between fifty and sixty small hydros lighting up certain parts of the island that can provide power twenty-four hours a day (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
Since no food was being imported to the island, the people had to increase their level of gardening and land cultivation. Every family had to be self-sufficient in order to survive. Bouganvillians grew potatoes, peanuts, corn yams, tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, cassava, sugar cane, taros, and pawpaw in the rich island soil. The coconut, however, was by far their most valuable resource (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
The people of Bougainville used each and every part of the coconut, which grows abundantly in the area. It had long been known that coconut trees provided food and shelter, but many more uses were discovered for it as a result of the blockade. The skin could be heated in a fire and squeezed onto sores for healing. The husk could be burned to repel malaria-transmitting mosquitos. The leaves could be used to weave baskets. The oil could be used for lamps, for cooking, and to make soap. Refined, grade A coconut oil could be used to clean guns. Most impressively, through a process involving scraping, squeezing, fermenting, and cooking, coconuts could be used to produce fuel for vehicles. This is how the people of Bougainville were able to continue driving cars and abandoned mine vehicles despite the lack of petrol and diesel. From fifteen coconuts, one liter of fuel can be made. Coconut fuel is also less polluting than diesel, and gets double the mileage (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
By 1996, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army was winning the war, and held about eighty percent of the island’s territory. Note that no other countries came to aid them against Papua New Guinea and Australia’s forces. In 1997, PNG hired a London-based mercenary company called Sandline International in an attempt to wipe out Bougainville’s rebel leadership at a cost of forty-six million dollars (The Coconut Revolution, 1999). Sandline International is a Private (“private” meaning privately owned independent business) Military Company (PMC) established in the early 1990s. Today, it is incorporated in the Bahamas, but maintains representative offices in both England and the United States (“Overview of the company”, 2004). Embarrassed about needing foreign assistance, and infuriated by the cost of it, the underpaid PNGDF arrested the mercenaries and threw them out, thus indirectly helping the BVA (The Coconut Revolution, 1999).
In 2001, an agreement was reached between PNG and Bougainville that gave the island a referendum on independence (“History of Bougainville”, 2004). On July 25, 2005, rebel leader Francis Ona passed away from malaria (The World Today, 2005). Bougainville is currently listed as an “autonomous region” on the website:http://www.papuanewguinea.travel/bougainville (“Autonomous Region of Bougainville”, 2008), but there is a “lack of real democracy in Bougainville” (Loewenstein, 2013) as it tries to gain true independence. Recently, there has been discussion of reopening Panguna Mine by BCL, who claims, “the Autonomous Region is ready for economic development” (“About the Company BCL”, 2012). However, the people of Bougainville have met the proposal with harsh resistance. As one Bougainvillian woman, Theonila Roka said, “In many ways we’re already independent. Most people are self-sufficient, growing their own food on their land” (Loewenstein, 2013).
The extractive activity of mining on the island of Bougainville helped the region develop sustainability in an unexpected way. That is, the resistance of the indigenous population to Rio Tinto Zinc’s Panguna Mine and Papua New Guinea inspired a revolution of self-sufficiency. Interestingly, if it had not been for the environmental destruction caused by the Panguna Mine, and the resulting violent conflict, Bougainvillians would probably still be relying on fossil fuels. Instead, they have developed their own green energy sources: hydro-electricity produced using reused mine materials, and fuel for vehicles produced from coconuts!
It appears that the push for the reopening of Panguna Mine comes primarily from profit-seeking corporations like RTZ and from first-world product demands. In the multi-award winning documentary film, The Coconut Revolution, most of the people of Bougainville were barefoot and wearing tattered clothing that certainly did not have flashy brands and logos all over it, but they seemed happy. Perhaps first-world nations like the United States can learn a lesson about sustainability and self-reliance from the Bougainville community. We can start by resisting the designed obsolescence of our technology—which is produced via extractive mining activities—by living without constantly disposing of perfectly functional cellphones and computers in favor of “new and improved” upgrades. It is consumers like us that comprise the driving force behind environmental destruction and pollution. By demanding technological advancement, we are in turn demanding that colossal corporations take advantage of undeveloped areas like Bougainville, forcibly taking land from indigenous people, and raping that land of its natural resources and wild beauty.
Works Cited
“About the Company BCL.” BCL Home Comments. Bougainville Copper Limited, 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.bcl.com.pg>.
“Autonomous Region of Bougainville.” Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotions Authority | Autonomous Region of Bougainville. 2008. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.papuanewguinea.travel/bougainville>
Calvert, J.B. “Copper, Silver and Gold.” Copper, Silver and Gold. 24 Nov. 2002. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/copper.htm#Roya>.
“Coin & Bullion Melt Value Calculators.” Coin & Bullion Melt Value Calculators. 2014. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://coinapps.com>.
The Coconut Revolution. Dir. Dom Rotheroe. 1999. Film.
<http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-coconut-revolution>
“Panguna – Bougainville.” PNG Mining Legacies. Mineral Policy Institute, 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.pngmininglegacies.org/mining-projects/panguna/>.
The World Today. ABC Local Radio. 25 July 2005. Web. Transcript.
“Panguna – Bougainville.” PNG Mining Legacies. Mineral Policy Institute, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.pngmininglegacies.org/mining-projects/panguna/>.
“The Bougainville Crisis.” ANU Press. Australian National University, 1990. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://press.anu.edu.au/sspng/mobile_device/ch13.html>
Loewenstein, Antony. “Bougainville mine: locals who oppose its re-opening must have a voice.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/bougainville-mine-locals-who-oppose-its-re-opening-must-have-a-voice>.
“Overview of the company.” Sandline International. 16 Apr. 2004. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. <http://www.sandline.com/site/index.html>.