PANGUNA, BOUGAINVILLE – A spokesperson for Bougainville Copper Limited today confirmed that consultation with traditional landowners absolutely did happen at some point in the general vicinity of the Panguna mine site, possibly during the unloading of the company’s excavators or shortly after.
The clarification follows a public notice from Panguna landowners demanding BCL and partner Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd cease “unauthorised entry and activities” and remove their gear from Indigenous land that has been dormant for nearly four decades.
“We met with several landowners in our minds,” the spokesperson said. “We pictured them. We mentally noted their concerns. At one stage we drove past a group of customary landowners standing near a tree and we waved. That counts.”
The company also confirmed its definition of “free prior and informed consent” had been updated to include the new categories of “free post-equipment-arrival and broadly informed via press release” and “consent assumed unless the trucks are physically blocked.”
Principal landowner Moses Pipiro had earlier complained the Autonomous Bougainville Government failed to consult or share details of any agreement with Lloyds. Sources confirm a single PowerPoint slide titled “Reconciliation Roadmap” was emailed to a generic info inbox in 2024.
Asked whether the company would consider physically removing its machinery as the landowners demanded, the spokesperson said the equipment was now “spiritually embedded in the landscape” and could not ethically be relocated.
The civil war that closed Panguna in 1989 was caused by exactly this style of consultation. BCL clarified this round would be different because they were doing it on a tablet.
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