Context here is not just the size and planet-wide power of the mining company, it’s that this same mining company infamously, in May 2020, blasted an Aboriginal site at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Australia that contained important evidence of 47,000 year-old Aboriginal presence, despite the site’s importance having already been known at the time. The blasting was done with legal government permitting/permission for the expansion of an iron ore mine, which resulted in massive public outcry and criticism of the permitting process in Australia. It was then revealed, in September 2020, that not only was the company aware of the site’s significance, but that several days before detonating explosives, upper-level corporate managers hired lawyers in anticipation of potential legal injunctions that might be launched by Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people.
The Murujuga region, specifically, is estimated by archaeologists to be home to perhaps the highest concentration of surviving ancient rock art on the planet, with a million, or more, petrogylphs, some dating to 40,000 years before present.
In 2024, confirmation of this Aboriginal record were reported and published at Phys dot org (“Results from Juukan Gorge show 47,000 years of Aboriginal heritage was destroyed in mining blast”, July 2024) and Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 338 (“A 47,000 year archaeological and palaeoenvironmental record from Juukan 2 rockshelter…”, August 2024).
In the Pilbara region alone, not including the rest of the state of Western Australia, there are at least 13,000 formally documented Aboriginal/ancient cultural sites on land leased to Ri* Tint*, not including the land leased to other mining companies. Multiple other mining companies have also continued to receive approval to expand mines while knowingly obstructing, removing, or destroying Aboriginal cultural heritage sites. The B/H/P mining company “owns” over 8,000 Aboriginal sites in the Pilbara. In 2020, in the aftermath of the Juukan news, there were 536 formally-documented cultural heritage sites located within the Paraburdoo iron ore extraction hub.
Near Murujuga, the local area is also home to some of the planet’s most massive gas plants, iron ore terminals, ammonium and nitrates and explosives plants, undersea gas pipelines, and what has sometimes been called the southern hemisphere’s largest gas refinery.
In just two years from the end of 2016 to the end of 2018, the value of Western Australia petroleum and mineral extraction grew from $10 billion to $90 billion. In Western Australia, rates of Aboriginal incarceration doubled between 1990 and 2010.
