This land is whose land?
Under WA law, Aboriginal traditional owners have no legal right to stop mining, but they can negotiate land access compensation. A few confidential deals have been settled for multimillion-dollar sums — 0.5 per cent of production value — with protection for important sacred sites agreed to by big miners keen to avoid costly legal delays like the prolonged Yindjibarndi dispute. But according to a Fortescue spokesman, Andrew Forrest does not believe in big dollar “mining welfare”, saying it doesn’t help Aboriginal people, and this is why Fortescue is offering an annual compensation package of $10 million for the Solomon mine project. […] They say they will mine 60 million tonnes a year at first, rising to 100 million tonnes or more in future. That 60 million is worth around $10 billion at today’s prices and these are rising all the time.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/this-land-is-whose-land–20110405–1d30g.html