Mining or exploration licenses that are given to a company go through a process called a warden hearing. This gives opportunities to communities, individuals, or organizations to present their objections.
The Alliance of Solwara Warriors, a coalition of coastal communities in PNG, recently held a warden hearing concerning seabed mining, but no officials or representatives from the Mineral Resource Authority (MRA) and the Government were present.
In a press conference, the Alliance called on the government to cancel seabed mining and exploration licenses in the country. It is also calling for the termination of Nautilus Minerals’ license as it is still active after the company went bankrupt in 2019.
Director of NGO group West Coast Development Foundation, Jonathan Mesulam, issued the call during a media conference in Port Moresby. He said PNG should follow the footsteps of other Pacific islands that are calling for a pause or a complete ban on seabed mining.
“Our stance today is to call on the government to cancel all the licenses on sea bed mining either exploration or mining licenses. We want those licenses to be canceled, why should we keep those licenses and invite other investors to come and destroy our ocean?”
“If we are talking about ocean then we are also addressing a climate action so when we are talking about the ocean we are also talking about climate change so both these aspects are connected.”
“We also want the government to respond to the objections in a petitioned that we have presented in 2022 and also in a media statement that was published in November last year. To date there has been no response from the government. Prior to this we are also yet to be given a response from objections that were presented in a petition in 2018 and 2021 especially from Mineral Resource Authority,” Mesulam said.
Meanwhile, Caritas PNG supports the Alliance of Solwara Warriors campaign as Mesulam together with his West Coast Development Foundation team had launched three objections in pursuit of the cancellation and ban of seabed mining.
“Objection number one states that there is no national policy on seabed mining, two states that there is no legal regulatory framework in provinces or at the national level to monitor impacts of projects, and the third objective states that the intended project is unknown, as there is not enough information on the impacts, the benefits, and the risks for it. These are some of the points that we have stated in our objections,” Mesulam highlighted.
Three objections have already been filed under the Mining Act sections 4 and 14, with one filed on 31 January.
“For this campaign on seabed mining this will be the third objection. We filed the first objection in 2018 to EL 1196, and in 2020 we filed the second objection to EL2537 and yesterday (Tuesday 31st Jan.) we filed the third objection to EL 1374 to cancel exploration license to Nautilus Minerals or Companies that have paid off Nautilus assets,” Mesulam said.
Most coastal provinces are in support of this campaign and are currently awaiting the government’s responses on the objections that were launched and presented.
