[Anthropgrad] REMINDER - RMAP Argument - 4.30-6pm Wednesday 24 October 2007

[RMAP Seminars]

BROWNIES VS GREENIES: Does Mining Make for Sustainable Development?

Panel
** Dr Glenn Banks (UNSW at ADFA Senior Lecturer)
** Dr Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt (RMAP Fellow)
** Dr John Burton (RMAP Fellow)
** Mr Wijayono Sarosa (RMAP PhD Candidate)
Moderator
** Dr Colin Filer (RMAP Convenor)

Wednesday 24 October 2007, 4.30-5.30pm - followed by refreshments
Coombs Extension Theatre, ANU

Abstract
A recent film called ‘Mine Your Own Business’ claims that environmental 
NGOs are being socially irresponsible, and even hypocritical, when they 
attack the development or continued operation of large-scale mines in 
countries or regions where mining can make a huge contribution to the 
alleviation of human poverty, where this economic benefit greatly 
outweighs the costs of environmental damage, and where the mining 
companies themselves apply strict standards of corporate social 
responsibility. Environmentalists have retaliated by attacking the film 
itself, which clearly takes a pro-mining stance and was partly funded by 
a company proposing to develop a new mine in Romania. A showing of an 
extract from the film will be followed by arguments from the panel and 
then open discussion.

Bio
Glenn Banks completed his undergraduate and Masters degrees in Geography 
at Canterbury and then embarked on a PhD at the ANU in Canberra on the 
relationship between a multinational mining corporation and the local 
community at the Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Since 1997, he 
has taught Geography at the University of New South Wales campus at the 
Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. His interest in the 
resource sector in Melanesia has continued as a researcher and as a 
consultant to a range of companies and international institutions.

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt has widely researched the environmental and social 
issues around mining in South Asia - both capital-intensive, large, coal 
mining operations owned by the State, and the large number of informal 
mines and quarries (popularly called Artisanal and Small Mines or ASM) 
providing livelihoods to millions of people. Kuntala has set up an ASM 
Asia Pacific Network (see asmasiapacific.org), and is currently the 
Chief Investigator of an ARC Linkage project 'Creating Empowered 
Communities: Gender and Sustainable Livelihoods in a Coal Mining Region 
in Eastern Indonesia' (see http://empoweringcommunities.anu.edu.au).

John Burton is a Fellow at RMAP with current research interests in Papua 
New Guinea, Torres Strait and North Queensland. He specialises in social 
mapping, landowner identification and land ownership in Melanesia, the 
social impacts of mining on traditional owners, and Native Title research.

Wijayono Sarosa holds a Bachelor degree in environmental biology from 
Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia and a Master in Land 
Resources Management from the University of Queensland, Brisbane. Since 
1989, he has worked on environmental management and community 
development areas in several multinational mining companies in 
Indonesia. He is currently a PhD Candidate at RMAP with research 
interests in corporate social responsibility, sustainable development 
and mine closure.

-- 
Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University

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