MELBOURNE (Reuters) – BHP Group will have to engage in not damaging Aboriginal cultural sites while expanding its mining operations while conducting a review of Australia’s heritage law, a shareholders’ organization said in a solution presented Thursday.
The proposal is presented on the basis of BHP’s monetary results, expected next week, and after a government investigation into how Rio Tinto’s peers legally destroyed caves showing human room dating back 46,000 years from the expansion of an iron mine.
The moratorium on damage to cultural sites would reduce the threat while considering reforms, the group of shareholders, the Australasian Center for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR), said in a statement.
“Investors simply cannot stand idly by and allow another crisis to happen in Juukan Gorge,” said the group’s executive director, Brynn O’Brien, referring to the caves destroyed through Rio Tinto.
The organization is aligned with commercial budgets that are committed to supporting socially guilty investment. The solution is supported by an organization representing all of Australia’s primary Aboriginal territorial councils.
BHP said it consults with investors about problems such as its cultural heritage approach.
“Our commitment to classic homeowners is based on deep respect and commitment to the cultural importance of their country and heritage,” the company said in a statement.
A proposal to revise the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act will be made public in the coming weeks.
The law is considered obsolete because it allows classical owners to appeal, among other things.
BHP said it would not disrupt any main sites for Banjima’s operations on the southern flank, even though the state government had given it permission to alter 40 sites.
The ACCR also called on BHP to lift the gagged ordinances that save Aboriginal teams from opposing advances in their lands and transparent by putting pressure on industry teams.
In a separate resolution, the ACCR asked BHP to review the paintings of its associations in relation to economic stimulus measures in reaction to the new coronavirus, and how this relates to its commitments in the Paris meteorological agreement.
In July, the New South Wales Minerals Council called on the state to accelerate the approval of 21 new or expanded coal mining projects.
Melanie Burton reports; Editing through Robert Birsel
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