Australian miner ordered to pay $108 million for damage caused to Indigenous land

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - SYDNEY — An Australian court on Tuesday awarded a recordpayout to an Indigenous communityin Western Australia for cultural loss caused by iron ore mining on their land without permission.

Justice Stephen Burley of the Federal Court ordered mining company Fortescue to pay A$150 million (US$108 million) in compensation to the traditional owners of the land.

The decision marks one ‌of the largest ever payouts in Australia's history brought under native title laws recognizing Indigenous rights and interests in certain parcels of land.

Fortescue, founded by billionaire Andrew Forrest who is one of the country's well-known billionaires, said in a statement it accepted that the Yindjibarndi people were entitled to compensation.

"Dr Andrew Forrest and Fortescue care deeply about all First Nations people, including the Yindjibarndi community," it said.

The verdict ended a protracted legal battle between the Yindjibarndi people and Fortescue.

Burley said in a summary judgment that the Yindjibarndi's connection to their land was "deep and visceral ... to the effect that their spirit, or wirrard, is destroyed when they see the harm done to their country as a result of the mining are plentiful and uncontradicted."
But the Solomon Hub Project, Fortescue's flagship iron ⁠ore mining operation in Western Australia, had prevented them from accessing more than 135 square kilometres (52 square miles) of their land, he said.

The area had been fenced off because it was "too dangerous to enter" due to mining infrastructure ⁠including open-pit mines, a railway, a tailings dam and waste dumps, he said.

The mining activity also destroyed many heritage sites.

"The data indicates that 124 of those sites have been completely destroyed by the ⁠operation of the mine and many more substantially affected," Burley said.
"All was duly approved under government processes. However, none was done with the approval of YNAC (Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation)."

Since 2013, Fortescue's mines have generated tens of billions of dollars in revenue by extracting iron ore from Yindjibarndi land in remote northwestern Australia.

The Yindjibarndi group had sought A$1.8bn compensation. That figure, they argued, would constitute 1% of the production value profit of the mines, as well as compensation for the loss of around 250 cultural sites and cultural connection to the land.

Acknowledging that the Yindjibarndi had a "deep and visceral connection" to their land which affected all aspects of their lives, Burley on Tuesday found Fortescue liable for economic loss valued at A$150,000 and cultural loss valued at A$150 million.

Burley characterized the latter "as compensation for loss or diminution of traditional attachment to the land or connection to country and for loss of rights to gain spiritual sustenance from the land".

The claim against Fortescue was first lodged in 2017, after a court awarded the Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation (YNAC) exclusive native title rights over a 2,700-sq km area in the mineral-rich Pilbara region.

At that time, Fortescue had already spent several years establishing its lucrative Solomon Hub mines on the land, with permission from both the government and a local Aboriginal representative group, but not from YNAC.

Failure to negotiate a land use agreement between YNAC and Fortescue led to the almost 20-year legal battle which culminated on Tuesday.

While the historic payout is almost three times the amount of the next biggest court-mandated compensation payout to native title owners in Australia, some elders expressed disappointment at the figure.

Speaking outside the court on Tuesday, Yindjibarndi elder Wendy Hubert described the payout as "peanuts" compared to the Fortescue's immense earnings over the years, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Those earnings for the mining company are expected to continue for at least another decade, before the mine is set to close in the mid-2040s.