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Stories We Missed in 2020: Rio Tinto’s Destruction of the Juukan Gorge Proved (Again) Nothing Is Sacred Except Profit
Mining executives knew the spiritual value of the ancient Indigenous site – and they blew it up anyway
On 24 May 2020, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, the mining giant Rio Tinto blew up a 46,000-year-old sacred site: the Juukan Gorge rock shelters. The traditional owners of the land, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP), only learnt about the company’s intentions 11 days before the blast; they issued an urgent request to the Western Australian government to halt the destruction, but to no avail. Carol Meredith, the chief executive of PKKP Aboriginal Corporation has made clear that her people are ‘not anti-mining’ and have financially benefited from their relationship to mining companies. Yet, she explained to the ABC that their hands were tied: ‘If we were to proceed to seeking an emergency declaration, we were requi