Traditional owners say they are being left to “pick up the pieces” in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region after mining company Rio Tinto damaged a rock shelter sacred to the Muntulgura Guruma people.
Rio Tinto discovered the disturbance near its Nammuldi iron ore mine, about 60km from Tom Price last month during its cultural heritage monitoring.
The company said in a statement that during the survey it identified the fall of a Pilbara scrub tree and a 1 sq metre rock from the overhang of a rock shelter in an area adjacent to the mine site. It said it halted works and alerted traditional owners to the incident.
“As soon as we identified this, we paused nearby blasting work, which was occurring 150 metres away, and notified the traditional owners of the land, the Muntulgura Guruma people,” the statement said.
Aaron Rayner, the chief operating officer of the Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal Corporation (WGAC), which represents the Muntulgura Guruma people, said the full extent of the incident was not yet known and that any impact was “unwelcome”.
“WGAC is aware of the reported impacts to the rock shelter site on Muntulgura Guruma country in the Hamersley Ranges,” he said.
“Regrettably, it seems as though Rio’s blast management plan has failed on this occasion, leaving the Muntulgura Guruma people to pick up the pieces.”
Rayner said traditional owners would work with the mining company to assess the full impact and would also be independently verifying the report in the future.
“We will work with Rio Tinto to better understand what has happened and will work to independently establish the facts in the coming weeks,” he said.
Rayner said he was unable to confirm if the reported impact to the rock shelter was due to blast activity or whether the company had prior approvals under any existing state legislation.
Rio Tinto was widely condemned after it legally destroyed 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge under Western Australia’s half-century-old cultural heritage protection laws with ministerial consent, despite it being a recognised sacred site.
The outcry triggered a federal parliamentary inquiry examining the laws protecting culturally significant sites and spurred the government to update the state’s Aboriginal cultural heritage protection laws.
Despite stakeholder consultation, including with miners, farmers and pastoralists, as well as Indigenous groups, and the government initially standing by the laws, they were only in place for five weeks. The government scrapped the laws after strong criticism and is consulting with community and stakeholders to modernise the 1972 legislation.
In a statement, Rio Tinto said initial drone assessments have not found structural damage to the rock shelter or impacts to any cultural materials and has apologised over the incident.
“We are working closely with the Muntulgura Guruma people to better understand what has happened and will be guided by them on the appropriate next steps,” the statement said.
“We deeply respect the Muntulgura Guruma people.”
