Indigenous Land Use Agreement

The Argyle mining lease area is in the traditional country of the Miriwung, Gidja, Malgnin and Woolah peoples, on land that was formerly part of the Lisadell Pastoral Station.

In September 2004, the area's Traditional Owners signed a Participation Agreement with Argyle that provides a formal and binding acknowledgement of Traditional Owners' rights and interests, including native title rights, in the mining lease area.

The Agreement, which was registered by the National Native Title Tribunal as an Indigenous Land Use Agreement in April 2005, builds significantly on the Good Neighbour Agreement, signed in 1980, under which Argyle continues to make annual payments to local indigenous communities for access to the mining lease area.

In essence, the Participation Agreement recognises Traditional Owners as the landlords of the Argyle mining lease, while recognising Argyle's right to continue its current mining operations and to establish an underground mining operation, should that prove feasible. It also formally establishes a long-term relationship between the two parties, based on a shared desire to build a better future for indigenous communities in the East Kimberley. Traditional Owners were represented throughout the negotiation process by the Kimberley Land Council.

A Traditional Owner relationship committee - comprising 26 Traditional Owner representatives and four Argyle representatives - meets quarterly to jointly monitor the implementation of the Agreement, which spans the following key areas:

Land rights

Under the Participation Agreement, Argyle agrees to hold the grazing lease on trust for Traditional Owners for the life of the mining operation, at the end of which time the lease will be transferred to them. This transfer will enable the Traditional Owners to lodge a claim for full-strength native title over the grazing lease area, which Argyle will support.

Income generation

An important element of the Agreement is a joint commitment to improve community and social infrastructure for indigenous communities in the East Kimberley region. To this end, a portion of the Traditional Owners' income stream from the agreement will be allocated on an annual basis to fund community development initiatives. In the interests of longer-term security, the majority of the Traditional Owners' income stream will be placed in a sustainability fund, an enduring capital fund that is managed by the Traditional Owners' Gelganyem Trust.

Employment and contracting opportunities

Another important commitment of the Participation Agreement is to give support and preference to local indigenous people for jobs and training. A number of training and employment programs are already in place to increase indigenous representation in the Argyle workforce (see Indigenous partnerships) while the position of Business development facilitator was specifically created to provide assistance, support and referral to prospective Traditional Owner businesses for the first three years of the Agreement.

At the same time, a jointly-created Business Development Taskforce is looking for business development opportunities within the mine. All site-based contracts worth more than A$250,000 are notified to the Business Development Taskforce prior to the tender being let so that Traditional Owners have the best opportunity to successfully compete for the contract tender.

Land management

Under the Agreement, Traditional Owners have the right to tour the mine site operations each year and raise any matters they wish to discuss. They also have a mechanism to raise any land management or water management concerns they have at any time. Furthermore, Argyle is required to submit to Traditional Owners any major rehabilitation or decommissioning proposals and must seek the views of Traditional Owners before proceeding. The Devil Devil Springs management plan provides a mechanism for agreed management of the Devil Devil Springs protected area, as it is a site of particular cultural significance to Traditional Owners.

Indigenous site protection

More than 50 indigenous heritage sites have been identified on the Argyle lease with another 25 within a few kilometres of the lease boundary. Argyle acknowledges that the mining lease area is rich in both archaeological and ethnographic indigenous sites and that the Participation Agreement needs to provide the strongest protection possible for these sites in the future. In the site protection management plan, Traditional Owners have indicated that in areas of past and current operations, Argyle needs no further clearances from them to continue its work, which includes the activities required for the Underground operation. For all areas outside the current operation, Argyle has agreed that it will submit a work program to Traditional Owners before conducting any ground-disturbing work. It has also agreed to a mechanism of discussion in the field with Traditional Owners to ensure that any work that Argyle proposes does not interfere with indigenous sites. This represents the high point in site protection agreements between indigenous people and mining companies in Western Australia.

A DVD has been produced that explains the contents of the Participation Agreement to both Traditional Owners and Argyle and is available upon request.