Exprimental Seabed Mining

Mining earns some revenue for the country but that is not the end of the story. It is lauded by many as a revenue earner and i used to believe this however, the trend of miseries associated with mining in the country points more towards the villagers, land owners, and the environment as the real losers. Villages and inhabitants located within or near the mines suffer more physically and socially. The current events in Porgera  this year 2017 where it is reported a police raid, again, was carried out is yet another example of misery brought upon the villagers as a result of mining. Facts surrounding this event of police raid have yet to be verified but what is certain is another misery in the midst of national pursuit of benefits. Apart from the villagers' misery there is continuous animosity over mining benefits held in trust between the government and various stakeholders. This is brought up in political debates on the floor of parliament and in the public via the media. With ...

While the multi-national companies are projecting their benefits in Kina and Dollars we have already started "benefiting" by living on stench from the dead marine life. Is this the sign of kind of life we will live with for the duration of this project? Reports of dead fish and other marine life first appeared on social media (PNG Loop) last night and now re-posted here from ramunickel: Dead sea creatures causing awful smell in Namatanai Loop PNG Unusual deep sea creatures and fish and other marine creatures are dying in Namatanai, New Ireland Province, from a cause the local people are yet to find out. Naomi Watong, a local woman from Konos village in the Central New Ireland district of Namatanai told Loop PNG that the sea creatures have been dying since Saturday April 9, 2016 at around 12 midday  until  now (April 13). She said the villagers found out about the dead fishes when alerted by children who went out for a swim on that day. “We went and got the fish...

Recently China passed the country's first law on deep seabed mining that is designed to protect the marine environment and ensure sustainable exploitation of its mineral resources. Now, did Papua New Guinea do this before allowing Experimental Seabed Mining in the Bismarck Archipelago?  Here ramunickle writes briefly on China's law on deep seafloor mining. China Passes Seafloor Mining Law by ramunickel Unlike PNG, China has put a law in place to regulate Experimental Seabed Mining BEFORE licensing any operations - common sense really! The Maritime Executive | 27.02.2016 On Friday, China passed the country's first law on deep seafloor mining. The law is designed to protect the maritime environment and ensure sustainable exploitation of its mineral resources. Xinhua reports that the law stipulates that exploration and development should be peaceful and cooperative, in addition to protecting the maritime environment and safeguarding the com...

Duke of York islands ignored in seabed mining debate by ramunickel Kabakon Island, Duke of York Islands, Papua New Guinea ActNow! The stunningly beautiful Duke of York islands are the closest small islands to the site of the proposed Solwara 1 experimental mine in Papua New Guinea, yet the islanders say they have been completely ignored in the mine development process. The 13 Duke of York islands sit offshore from Kokopo, in the narrow St George's Channel between New Britain and New Ireland. They lie directly south-east of where the seabed mining is scheduled to begin in 2017. The islanders are already facing the impacts of climate change with the rising sea level affecting food security on the low lying atolls. In 1999 the islanders collected signatures on a petition stating their overwhelming opposition to the proposed mining. The petition was presented to the East New Britain Provincial Government but, fifteen years later, the islanders a...

Global opposition mounting against the latest environmental abuse – deep sea mining by ramunickel Tom Lawson | Occupy.com  The world's oceans are in a bad way, to put it mildly. Decades of overfishing, industrial pollution, plastic waste and threats to basic ecological stability posed by climate change all demonstrate how "humanity is collectively mismanaging the ocean to the brink of collapse," according to the World Wildlife Fund's  Living Blue Planet Report  released in September. Now another threat is emerging: deep sea mining. Seabed minerals were discovered as far back as 1873. But it's only within the last decade, as demand has grown for items such as smartphones – and as the depletion of inland resources has pushed mining exploration to further extremes – that technology has made the exaction of copper, zinc, manganese, nickel, cobalt an...

Australian govt and opposition reject Pacific calls for no new coal mines – but what about PNG? by ramunickel Australia's opposition Labour Party has joined the governing Liberals in rejecting Pacific calls for a moratorium on new coal mines (see story below) but PNG is also investing in coal mining, turning its back on its Pacific neighbours. PNG has recently spent K10 million to help encourage new coal mining , while Australian companies like Mayur Resources are pushing for new coal fired power stations in three of PNG's major centres . Why is nobody in the media calling out the PNG government for its hypocrisy and lack of support for Pacific island neighbours? Bill Shorten refuses to back Pacific island calls for moratorium on new coal mines Tom Arup | The Age Labor leader Bill Shorten has refused to back Pacific island calls for a moratorium on new coal mine development ...