Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

328 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
the case 20 years ago. Nothing has changed in the last 20 years,
or in the year since the Prime Minister gave his apology earlier last
year. Onshore processing of natural gas could make a big difference,
because it generates economic impacts on a massive scale. Just one
project currently being planned is expected, over its 30-plus year life,
to generate economic impacts valued at a trillion dollars.
“If we can win a substantial share of this economic activity, it can give
us a once-in-a-century opportunity to make a real difference to our
lives. It can provide us with jobs, with incomes, with the chance to set
up businesses, to send our kids to school. It can generate an income
stream that, properly managed, can allow us to invest for our future.
“Kimberley Aboriginal people have been working hard for two years to
grasp that opportunity. They cooperated with the Western Australian
Government and oil and gas companies to find a suitable site on the
Kimberley coast for a central ‘hub’ where a number of companies
could process offshore gas. We have spent months considering sites,
ruling out ones that were unacceptable for cultural, environmental or
engineering reasons. By late last year they had narrowed the search
to three potential sites, and were ready to quickly identify the best
available option. In return they expected, and were promised by the
former state government, substantial economic participation in gas
development, and the right to say no to any sites that would threaten
major environmental or cultural damage.
“Now this has all changed. Kimberley Aboriginal people are again
threatened, as they were in the 1970s and 1980s, by an approach to
development that rides roughshod over their rights and leaves them
out in the economic cold.” 26
The State Premier gave the traditional owners a deadline of 31 March
2009 to reach agreement for a site, or the land would be seized through
compulsory acquisition. So what this means is if the local people do not
give their consent to using the preferred site, the government will take the
land anyway. This is clearly not a good example of free, prior and informed
consent.
What needs to be stressed is the frailty, not only of some specific
agreements, but even the frailty of our power to negotiate. The example
outlined above could potentially set a precedent for more compulsory
acquisition of traditional lands in order to provide certainty to extractive
industries for access to land, and to governments for quicker approvals
and economic gain. The reality is that when the going gets tough for