Do You Thnk They Care?

[Freeport Spill]

This is not the only Major Blunder. Here Is One AT A Much Bigger Scale.

[Freeport Spill]

Freeport McMoran's environmental record has been abysmal, challenged by its own shareholders since 1994. Yet only a few years ago, the Papua mine increased its dumping of untreated tailings into the Aghawaghon River system to 285,000 tonnes per day - the equivalent of a ten-tonne dump-truck load every three seconds. Industrial waste pollutes the river and surrounding ocean, poisoning fish and eliminating an important source of protein for local tribes. This adds insult to injury, as the mine was built on land appropriated from the indigenous people, who now receive none of the financial returns.
BP (formerly 'British Petroleum') is another controversial multinational operating in Papua. BP is investing $2?$7? billion (US) in a gas project at Bintuni Bay and in a production-sharing contract with Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina. The gas wells and processing plant are to be located in 600 hectares of rainforest, one of the largest remaining mangroves in SE Asia. Many villages along the coast will need to be relocated, forfeiting their land and likely also losing their fisheries and rivers to pollution. Despite the fact that the gas facility is expected to earn BP and the Indonesian government over $800 Million per year, only $60,000 has been offered to the hundreds of local villagers for use of their traditional lands and sea-ways.
Fifty percent of the Indonesian government's income is from oil exports, and one third of the oil comes from West Papua. Other multinational oil companies who have operated or continue to operate in West Papua include Amoco, Chevron, Esso, Mobil, Shell, Texaco, as well as others.
Is this 'development' or plunder? However you might view it, Canada has supported these initiatives politically over the last thirty years and Canadians have provided much of the expertise and financing as project consultants or business partners. Recently when Canadian diplomats toured Indonesian provinces, they applauded the industrial development taking place - the modernization of "less advanced" cultures.
In the words of a West Papuan refugee, "We have a message for the so-called 'developed' nations. We have a wonderful culture, a culture that can cope with ecology. We doubt whether what you want us to learn is a better way of life."