A major copper-gold exploration project on Aboriginal territory has been knocked back by South Australian court.
The presiding Judge concluded that: “The native title in the land of the traditional owners in preventing mining are significant and genuine. The Kokatha people’s genuine, longstanding and consistently voiced opposition to mining weighed against approval.”
This is a significant judgment, not only for the Kokatha in the Lake Torrens region, but also – by implication – for some of their Aboriginal kinsfolk, 75 kilometres away.
Here, BHP Billiton operates its massive Olympic Dam (aka Roxby Downs) mine, which purportedly hosts the world’s fourth largest remaining copper deposit, its fifth largest gold lode and its largest cache of uranium.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10661.