Abstract
This chapter looks at what happens in Australia when indigenous people who are landowners need to negotiate with multinational corporations engaged in mineral exploration and production on their lands. Focusing on a number of significant benefit-sharing agreements, the chapter explores some of the broad fundamental tensions that arise when the interests of indigenous minorities in commercially valuable resources are belatedly recognized in post-colonial circumstances.
The chapter begins with a brief background of the situation of indigenous people in Australia. A synoptic historical and statutory overview of the relationship between miners and indigenous people, as mediated by the state, follows. Next is an analysis of five important issues that have arisen in Australia: How do relatively powerless and marginalized groups gain leverage for commercial negotiations? On what basis are benefit-sharing agreements made? To whom should payments made under benefit-sharing agreements be distributed? How should payments made under benefit-sharing agreements be utilized? Who should be responsible for decision-making?
The chapter identifies a range of emerging issues of equity and effectiveness that have created problems in the Australian situation. Elements of these problems resonate with the circumstances of the San and their negotiations over the utilization of Hoodia, and these are discussed.
Ultimately, there are no easy solutions to the development problems faced by indigenous peoples. While scarce capital generated by benefit-sharing agreements should help to ameliorate these problems, it is important to acknowledge that any one agreement will only provide a partial solution. Managing expectations while sustainably implementing agreements is clearly an emerging challenge. This is especially the case over the life cycle of a long-term agreement. Recognizing the inevitable challenges posed in agreement implementation should, at the very least, ensure early investment in capacity-building that might allow adaptive and informed management of agreement implementation.
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1 In Australia, there are two indigenous minorities, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. It is current convention to refer to them as either ‘Aboriginal people’ and ‘Torres Strait Islander Australians’ or ‘Indigenous Australians’ with initial capital letters.
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2 In the past these agreements were referred to as ‘mining agreements’, but increasingly they are being referred to as ‘benefit-sharing agreements’ in accordance with global practice.
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3 In this chapter, ‘Commonwealth’ refers to the Commonwealth of Australia, not the Commonwealth of Nations.
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4 Much of this history is covered in Jon Altman, Aborigines and mining royalties in the Northern Territory, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1983.
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5 In 1965 an agreement was completed for manganese mining at Groote Eylandt, also within the Arnhem Land Aboriginal reserve. In this case a special royalty was paid by the miner, GEMCO, a subsidiary of BHP, to the Church Missionary Society, which held these monies in trust for Aboriginal people residing on Groote Eylandt (Altman 1983).
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6 Exclusive possession is the strongest form of native title possession and has similarities to inalienable freehold title. However, it is a misnomer as it does not exclude mining exploration and production. Lesser forms of native title that are only partial might see native title rights co-exist with the rights of other interests such as those of pastoralists. In such situations native title rights might be limited to a right to forage and perform ceremonies, and there may only be a requirement for miners to consult or notify native title groups.
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7 www.atns.net.au/ accessed 28 February 2008.
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8 For example, in terms of the major agreement for mining at Century, Aboriginal people receive payments of $A3 million per annum for 20 years, but in 1 year alone (2006–2007) the mining company Zinifex reported profits of over $A1 billion.
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9 In the interests of transparency it should be noted that I was appointed the ‘independent expert’ to the study advisory group and subsequently to the UNESCO Kakadu Mission in 1998.
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10 ‘Repressive authenticity’ is the term Patrick Wolfe (1999) uses to describe the history of anthropology's codification of particular forms of Aboriginality.
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11 It is recognized, however, that there certainly are costs, if less tangible ones, associated with the cultural and heritage losses that accompany the commodification of Hoodia.
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Altman, J. (2009). Benefit Sharing is No Solution to Development: Experiences from Mining on Aboriginal Land in Australia. In: Wynberg, R., Schroeder, D., Chennells, R. (eds) Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3123-5_15
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