Rio Tinto investors escalate indigenous concerns amid Apache struggle

Australian Council of Superannuation Investors chief Louise Davidson said “investors are engaging with Rio Tinto and BHP to understand how they are managing this issue and what steps they have taken to engage traditional owners and other stakeholders who have raised concerns around the proposed project”.

Resolution Copper, 55 per cent owned by Rio Tinto and 45 per cent owned by BHP, said its proposed underground mine in Arizona could supply nearly 25 per cent of United States copper demand for 40 years.

But it is being opposed by one of the Native American tribes within the project area, the 17,000-member San Carlos Apache tribe, which fears the impact on sacred and actively utilised religious land at Oak Flat, known as Chi’chil Bildagoteel.

Resolution has committed to ongoing engagement in coming years to ensure the consent of all 11 Native American tribes with connections to the land “before any potential decision to invest in developing the project”.

Rio Tinto’s blasting of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters last year sparked a global outcry and eventually led to the resignations of its chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques, two other senior executives, and, most recently, chairman Simon Thompson, who will step down over the coming 12 months.

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Following a board-led review into the circumstances of the Juukan Gorge disaster, Rio established a new “social performance” team to strengthen the miner’s oversight of community engagement and heritage practices and regularly review its performance. “This aims to ensure that communities and heritage issues are managed with the same rigour and discipline as applies to health, safety and the environment,” Rio said.

Rio also committed to spend $50 million to increase employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians across the business and enhance Indigenous leadership in its Australian operations.

Although the Juukan Gorge blast was legally sanctioned, it went against the wishes of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) traditional owners, who said they were not made aware of Rio’s plan to proceed with the blast until it was too late to call it off. Rio has apologised and acknowledged multiple failures in its communication with the PKKP that could have prevented the debacle. Its new chief executive, Jakob Stausholm, said restoring trust was one of his top priorities

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The First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance, representing Australia’s key Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land groups, said Rio’s public apologies for Juukan Gorge would “ring hollow” unless its behaviour also changed.

“The issues confronting First Nations people in Australia and the United States are very similar,” alliance co-chair Kado Muir said. “We stand with our North America brothers and sisters in opposing the destruction of Oak Flat.”

In an open letter this week, the PKKP Aboriginal Corporation said their devastation had rippled across the globe like a “big stone dropped into water” and highlighted how First Nations heritage was undervalued.

“The responses from governments and companies like Rio Tinto and BHP will be a critical test on how meaningful the commitment is to prevent something like the Juukan Gorge destruction happening again,” the PKKP said.