A Bougainville family fends among the ruins of Panguna Photo: supplied HRLC
Bougainville communities have got a commitment from mining multi national, Rio Tinto, for an assessment of the environmental and human rights impacts caused by the controversial Panguna mine.
Panguan has been shut for nearly 32 years but the environmental and social damage it caused was a catalyst of the civil war.
Rio Tinto walked away from the mine several years ago, giving its shares to the Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Governments, but 156 members of the local communities, with the help of Australia's Human Rights Law Centre, filed a human rights complaint last year.
They allege the massive volume of waste pollution left by the mine is having severe environmental and human rights impacts and putting lives and livelihoods at risk.
Traditional landowner and MP, Theonila Roka Matbob, is representing the communities involved in the complaint.
She told Don Wiseman about Rio Tinto's concession.
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