USGS Map of Northern Territory Uranium Mines

Jabiluka is a pair of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

deposits and mine development in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

of Australia that was to have been built on land belonging to the Mirarr clan of

Aboriginal people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

. The mine site is surrounded by, but not part of, the

World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

–listed

Kakadu National Park Kakadu National Park is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia, southeast of Darwin. It is a World Heritage Site. Kakadu is also gazetted as a locality, covering the same area as the national park, with 313 people recorded l ...

History

Exploration on the site began in the late 1960s with Jabiluka 1 being discovered in 1971 and the much larger Jabiluka 2 discovered in 1973. The Jabiluka deposits were included in the group of uranium deposits that were the subject of the Fox Inquiry. As a result of this inquiry, the Jabiluka mining lease and two others were created along with Kakadu National Park. Feasibility works into the development of the mine were well progressed at the time of the

1983 Australian federal election The 1983 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 5 March 1983. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives and all 64 seats in the Senate were up for election, following a double dissolution. The incumbent Coalition government wh ...

, which saw the Australian Labor Party take government. Under this government, an export licence for the uranium was unlikely to have been granted and the project development was stopped. Energy Resources of Australia Ltd bought the deposit from Pancontinental and proceeded without background work. Upon the election of the Howard Liberal government in 1996, the project was once again placed into development. The ''Jabiluka Long-Term Care and Maintenance Agreement'' signed in February 2005 gives the

traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...

veto rights over future development of Jabiluka. However, in 2007, Rio Tinto suggested that the mine could reopen one day. In 2024, the

Northern Territory Government The Northern Territory Government is the executive branch of the Northern Territory. The Government of Northern Territory was formed in 1978 with the granting of self-government to the Territory. The Northern Territory is a territory of the Co ...

decided not to renew ERA's lease for the high-grade uranium deposit.

Controversy

In 1998 the issue came to a head when Jacqui Katona and Yvonne Margarula, of the Mirarr people, called on activists to come from around Australia and the world to blockade the construction of the mine by

Energy Resources of Australia Energy Resources of Australia Ltd () is a public company based in Australia. It is a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto Group which as of 2021 owns 86.3% of the company. The remainder is publicly held and traded on the Australian Securities Exchange. The ...

(ERA). Over 500 people were arrested in the course of the eight-month blockade. Hundreds of thousands of people across Australia also took part in demonstrations against the mine while others set up action groups and took part in shareholder activism. ERA developed the surface infrastructure and the decline down to the ore-body to allow for further definition of the resource. Falling uranium prices prevented the project from proceeding. ERA's

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

, North Ltd, was bought by

Rio Tinto Group Rio Tinto Group is a British-Australian multinational company that is the world's second largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). It was founded in 1873 when a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Río Tinto, in Hu ...

, who announced that the mine will not go ahead – at least until their nearby

Ranger uranium mine The Ranger Uranium Mine was a uranium mine in the Northern Territory of Australia. The site is surrounded by, but separate from Kakadu National Park, 230 km east of Darwin. The orebody was discovered in late 1969, and the mine commenced o ...

is mined out. The Mirarr people agitated for Rio Tinto to clean up the mine site and restore it in keeping with the surrounding National Park. On 12 August 2003 rehabilitation works commenced on the Jabiluka site, 50,000 tonnes of material from the mine were put back down the decline at Jabiluka, filling up 1.2 km of decline. In 2013, work to remove and remediate the interim water management pond commenced. According to ERA, between 2005 and 2015 over 16,000 stems of two dozen different species of native plants were planted at the Jabiluka site. Aerial photography shows significant recovery and regeneration.

Documentary films

The 1997 documentary film, ''Jabiluka'', was produced and directed by David Bradbury. Another film on the subject was made by

Cathy Henkel Cathy Henkel is a South African documentary filmmaker who lives and works in Australia. Her works have typically focused on subjects of environmental activism, and to a lesser extent, the performing arts. Career Her career in documentary film ...

, called ''Walking Through a Minefield''. It was released in 1999. In 2006, documentary filmmaker Pip Starr released ''Fight for Country: the story of the Jabiluka Blockade''. Starr spent five years working on the film. In 1979 Bonita Ely, assisted by Charles Green and William Winford, performed "Jabiluka UO2", using the binaries spiral and straight line to express conflicting, opposing, cultures. Two men like surveyors draw a straight long white line across the landscape. Ely creates a fringed conical dome adorned with an ochre spiral, referring to the woven mats women in Arnhem Land make for their babies and to rest in. To continue the line the men will destroy the cone. Ely spins in front of them to communicate its importance but they ignore her, she collapses from vertigo, they smash the dome. After they pack up and leave Bonita Ely reasserts the spiral, burning the spiral into the earth with dry grass.

References

External links

Jabiluka Deposit Summary Report

Jabiluka
*{{cite web, title=Welcome to the Mirarr site, accessdate=28 June 2009, publisher=Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, url=http://www.mirarr.net/ Geography of the Northern Territory Underground mines in Australia Uranium mines in the Northern Territory Protests in Australia

History

Controversy

Documentary films

See also

References

Further reading

External links