On June 13 the Federal Court in Darwin, Australia delivered a blow to the spirits of the Gudanji, Yanyuwa, Garrawa and Mara peoples. As many of you know, we have been following the events surrounding the zinc mine expansion and diversion of the McArthur River in the Northern Territory since last year. Now, in a decision that has been awaited since last August, the Court upheld the government’s decision to allow Swiss-based Xstrata Corporation to pursue a $110 million mine expansion project at the McArthur. This expansion plan includes a 5.5 kilometer diversion of the river which would allow Xstrata to tap a large deposit of zinc, a mineral which is skyrocketing in value on the world market, in great part due to Chinese demand. Since July 2007 the mining company has been forging ahead with the construction of the diversion canal anticipating this decision. Opponents of the diversion plan continue to charge that the diversion of the river will destroy sacred sites and have deleterious environmental effects on the fisheries and mangroves downstream.

The Gudanji and Yanyuwa people of Borroloola, with whom we filmed last August, have been persistent in their opposition to the diversion as moving the river would cut their rainbow serpent and turtle dreamings (see our site report on the McArthur River) and forever damage the community spirit of the people. They also fear that Xstrata’s subsidiary, McArthur River Mining (MRM) has dug up burial grounds and removed bones from the site.

The traditional owners, as Aboriginal peoples are known in Australia, and the Northern Land Council – an agency that was set up to administer land rights claims for Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory – had sued the former federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell a year ago, charging that he had not followed correct procedure or analysis when he issued a permit for the mine’s expansion plan. This lawsuit followed a back-and-forth series of politically and culturally charged events, including the a decision by the NT Supreme Court halting the river diversion in April 2007 and the Northern Territory government’s highly contentious passage in May 2007 of last-minute legislation to allow for the diversion to begin.

In response to the litigation and publicity, MRM had refused to allow the traditional owners onto the property to conduct ceremonies. Last month, led by our friend Jacky Green, the Gudanji formed a roadblock at the mine entrance in protest. Xstrata issued several trespass notices to the protesters and police stepped in on behalf of the mining company.

After the June 13th decision, the Gudanji again gathered at the mine entrance with about 80 people, including Yanyuwa, Garrawa and Mara people, asking to be permitted onto the site to perform a farewell ceremony to the sacred sites. MRM refused and accused the Northern Land Council of staging a media stunt. The council fired back, charging that MRM was in violation of Australia’s Sacred Sites Act by refusing permission to the people to access their sites and perform ceremony. On June 19th, the police once again cleared off the protesters.

The Northern Land Council will now press its case with the new Environment Minister Peter Garrett. They hope he will agree to conduct a federal environmental impact assessment and halt the mining company’s river diversion work. We’ll keep tabs on news from the McArthur River and let you know how you might be of help!

To read the national press coverage, check out the recent articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age (Melbourne) and The Northern Territory News (Darwin). To find out what actions may be taken in Australia in the coming months, check out the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory’s page and their McArthur River blog.

Check out SLFP’s new video: Song for the Rainbow Serpent! Three percent of the world’s zinc lies beneath the serpentine riverbed of northern Australia’s McArthur River — and the zinc will soon be headed to China’s steel mills. For Aboriginal Australians, the entire river is respected as the Dreamtime pathway of the Rainbow Serpent, one of the most important of the ancestor spirits who formed the land and still enforces the law. Xstrata Zinc is starting to excavate an open pit mine at McArthur River and is building a 5.5 kilometer diversion channel to redirect water around the deep hole the mining company is digging. When we tried to enter the area with traditional owner Harry Lanson, the mining company threatened to arrest us for trespassing and ordered us to leave. As Harry Lanson asserted his right to visit the land he was born on, to show us his sacred sites, a helicopter landed within 100 feet of our “mob” — which included more than a dozen children. We retreated back down the road to the river. Even after the humiliation and stress, the Aboriginal women proceeded with the dance they had come to do next to the river, to honor the female form of the Rainbow Serpent, which in English they refer to as a “mermaid.”

Check out a new two-minute film: A Song for the Rainbow Serpent

We’re preparing our Annual Report and have created an aerial map of the McArthur River Mine diversion. The river follows the Dreamtime pathway of the Rainbow Serpent, but a giant zinc deposit has attracted the attention of mining giant Xstrata, which plans to divert the river through a 5.5 kilometer channel so that they can dig an open pit mine and export the zinc to China. It’s all hard to visualize so we went up in an airplane to film the river and the mine, and if you click on the image to the left you’ll get a clearer view of what’s happening. Note that the small mountain at the top center of the image is a sacred site knows as Barramundi Dreaming.

With the Australian Federal Supreme Court preparing to hear a case on the legality of the McArthur River mine expansion and river diversion plan, a group of 50 men, women and children boarded a bus in Boroloola and traveled nearly 1000 kilometers to Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory. They went to observe the court proceedings and pray, sing and dance in front of the Parliament Building. When they first arrived they burnt eucalyptus leaves and moved around the area smudging the buildings out of respect for an elder who had recently passed away. The smoke billowed around the group purifying all of the places where the elder had been during his last visit.

Australia’s booming economy depends in large part on resource extraction, and the powerful mining industry flaunts its economic and political clout with the current federal and Northern Territory governments. In April 2007, the Aboriginal people of Boroloola won a court case charging that the McArthur River Mine (MRM) permits were illegally issued by the NT government. The Territory Parliament then hurriedly passed a new law within a week that overturned the court ruling and allowed the mine to continue operating.

Barbara McCarthy, an indigenous member of the NT Parliament representing Arnhem Land, opposed the hasty legislation. She told me, “We did everything possible in the legal system and when we won the goal posts were moved again. It’s wrong. I’m sorry — it’s wrong.”

The community awaits a decision by the Supreme Court while MRM is continuing with the diversion of the river. A finding in favor of the plaintiffs will mean that Xstrata (the parent company of MRM) will not be able to proceed with the mine expansion plan and the diversion of the river. An independent monitor was recently assigned to review all environmental assessments of the mine and to evaluate the impact of the diversion. However, the monitor will be paid by Xstrata, diminishing its “independence” from the viewpoint of the Borroloola community members.

One remarkable and odd thing about our visit in Darwin was that the regional newspaper, The Northern Territory News, rather than running a story on the Aboriginal delegation protesting the mine expansion, ran a story about our film crew documenting the Aboriginal story.

Check out our new three-minute film clip: The Road to Darwin.

This afternoon we took a break from filming Anton took the men out to fish around the other side of the island. While they were hunting barracuda by boat, Steve’s daughters took me fishing for barracuda by hand. Juanita (15) managed to keep an eye on her little sisters Shanny (9) and Harriet (3) as they clambered over the sun-baked rocks and searched for bait among the tide pools.

Then, having stabbed bits of hermit crab onto mid-size hooks, they wrapped one end of the clear filament around their left hand and swung the fishing line lasso-style out onto the fiercely shimmering sea.

I stood on the rocks peering into the bristling blue waters seeing only the reflection of the sun and clouds, my eyes watering at the intensity of light and color. I asked if there were many fish in this area. Juanita looked at me confused. You don’t see them? she smiled. See the fish? I was perplexed. What fish? At that moment, Harriet, who was perched on a rock twenty feet away, snapped her elbow back and brought up a sizable barra, turning around to hold it up for Juanita to gauge its worth and for me to admire. Juanita nodded and turned back to me. There are scores just there, she pointed a few yards out, they are all around us. Big, too! I narrowed my eyes. But where? I couldn’t see a thing. She nodded and laughed. My dad says we all have bush eyes. You see that boat? she pointed at the empty horizon. I rubbed my eyes, straining. Ten minutes later the fishing boat roared into my view.

Steve Johnston and his son Anton came into King Ash Bay on the McArthur River to take us out to Vanderlin Island, their home and one of the Sir Edward Pellew Islands in the Gulf of Carpinteria. The islands sit at the mouth of the McArthur, and the Johnstons have reported that the oysters, turtles and fish in the gulf have been poisoned by the heavy metals running down the McArthur from the mine site near Borroloola.We boarded their fishing boats and headed out. Dave, Charles and I climbing in with Anton and Will, Dave W. and Toby filming with Steve in his boat.

As Anton steered us out the mouth of the river towards Vanderlin, he pointed out viscous sand clouds appearing just under the surface of the waves. These are the trails of the dugong, an endangered mammal related to the manatee or sea cow and now endangered due to polluted waters and commercial fishing in the gulf. Anton knows these waters well and, although there were no obvious markers to my eyes, he located a spot that he indicated was a dugong dreaming, a place known to his people for all of known history. We circled around and within minutes there were dozens of these elusive creatures surfacing and schooling nearby.

Charles shouted with surprise. He’d been studying and researching the McArthur River and the Gulf area for many years, and had become familiar with the plight of the dugong, but he’d never seen one in person. We followed their lines and suddenly saw a mother surface with her calf right at the bow of the light boat.

I stood on the bow, perched to photograph them, catching the shot just before they plunged beneath the waves, their presence erased in the churn of our wake.

When we tried to enter the McArthur River Mine area with Traditional Owner Harry Lanson, we were told we would be arrested if we didn’t leave immediately. When Harry argued that he should be able to visit his sacred sites, mine security forces called in the troops. Here is how close the chopper was to Jacky Green and his kids when it landed.

The McArthur River watershed floods during the monsoon, and perhaps the Aboriginal people keep track over tens of thousands of years, relating the severity and length of flooding to the health of the people and their land. When a mining company wants to put an open pit zinc, lead and copper mine in the center of the river course, build a giant 28-foot high earthen berm wall around the open pit to try to keep monsoon water out, and dig a 5.5 kilometer diversion channel to re-route the river away from its normal channel, the corporation is clearly rising to a major engineering challenge. Do the engineers care if it all fails?

Or is this another experiment in domination and control posing as science and certainty? In these aerial photos, there are two prominent sacred sites visible in addition to the channel of the river itself, which the local people revere as the dreamtime pathway of the Rainbow Serpent. The mining company has fenced off the sacred sites and threatens to fine any employee who trespasses or defaces the sites. Keep an eye on rainfall totals for Australia’s Northern Territory as we head into the wet season…

On our first day in Borroloola we were down by the McArthur River waiting for a group of Aboriginal women to arrive for a riverside interview. While we were waiting, I saw a beautiful white egret standing amidst the grass and I went down to the river’s edge to take a photograph. When the women arrived and were getting out of the car, one quickly yelled, “Get away from there!” followed by quite a commotion, with everyone yelling and waving their arms, until I finally heard one woman exclaim: “There are crocodiles here and they jump right out of the river and drag people away!”

We never did see a croc right there in that location, but just a little ways down the river on the very next day….