Aggregate mining plays an important role in Tonga's development, but it must be managed carefully to avoid long-term damage to agriculture, fisheries and natural ecosystems. This guideline and accompany operational manual aim to ensure that quarrying activities are safe, sustainable and respectful of local communities.
Plundering the Pacific for its rich natural resources has a long pedigree...There are worrying signs history may be about to repeat, as global demand soars for minerals critical to the clean energy transition.
This report stems from a simple observation: that since Independence in 1975, Papua New Guinea’s economic and social development outcomes have not matched people’s aspirations or government promises. Indeed, despite the abundance of its riches, PNG lags behind its Pacific neighbours on many important development indicators.
In November 2021, Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, was wracked by riots that left three people dead and the city’s Chinatown in ashes.
2,638 people from 64 villages along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea have taken action to stop a huge copper/gold mining project. The project is planned at the head waters of a vital waterway by PanAust, the Australian subsidiary of a Chinese Government owned company.
Thirty-two years since it fled Bougainville island, Rio Tinto has promised to fund an independent assessment of the ongoing environmental damage caused by its Panguna mine, a move landowners have welcomed as “a start” towards repairing decades of contamination.
Efate’s Vaturisu Council of Chiefs as the custom custodians of the land on the island, has suspended all mining as well as prospective mining on Efate until February 2022...The discussion had drawn to the council’s attention that this prospective activity of mining would greatly impact the f
Safeguarding nature in one area can displace harmful activities, such as illegal logging or mining, into another, a phenomenon known as leakage or spillover; but how big is the problem?
Over the last month, the Guardian has run a major investigative series examining the extractives industries... in the Pacific.
The Kiribati island survived droughts due to sacred caves that captured rainfall but rampant phosphate extraction ruined this precious resource...The last decent rain on Banaba was more than a year ago.
