The government of Papua New Guinea dealt a harsh blow to traditional landowners on May 28 when it passed a pair of amendments to the country’s Environment Act barring legal challenges to mining and other resource projects.

Rushed through Parliament on a Friday night, the amendments shelter resource projects from legal challenges over environmental damage, labor abuse and landowner exploitation, and grant the government wide-ranging power to exempt resource developers from state environmental requirements. Thus, the legislation effectively strips citizen’s traditional and constitutional land rights while giving developers greater power and protecting them from liability.

The legislation, passed by a vote of 73 to 10, came after intense lobbying by China Metallurgical Group Corporation, developer of the $1.4 billion Ramu nickel/cobalt mine. Ramu landowners had recently won an injunction to stop a pipeline that would slurry waste from the mine out to sea off Madang Province, once the mine is completed.

Tiffany Nonggorr, a lawyer representing the landowners, said the battle is not yet over, as the matter is already before the courts.

For more detail check out the June 1 blog post by SLFP Director Toby McLeod about his recent trip to Madang Province to document the Ramu nickel mine story for the upcoming Losing Sacred Ground film series.