Rio Tinto deep in the dust to destroy Aboriginal heritage | Financial

The British-Australian firm destroyed 46,000-year-old caves in the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region on May 24. The caves are known as one of the first places to be inhabited by the indigenous people of Australia thousands of years ago.

“What happened in Juukan was wrong and we are committed to ensuring that the destruction of a heritage site of such exceptional archaeological and cultural significance never occurs again during an operation in Rio Tinto,” said company chairman Simon Thompson in a statement. statement.

The three executives were previously forced to forgo their several million Australian dollar bonuses after shareholders expressed anger at the destruction of the Aboriginal heritage.

Its own investigation found that while Rio Tinto had legal authority to destroy the caves, this “did not meet the standards and internal guidelines that Rio Tinto sets itself.”

The mining giant initially defended destroying the Juukan Gorge by pointing to an agreement it made with the state government in 2013. But protests from Aboriginal leaders, who said they had not been notified of the planned explosion until it was too late to prevent it, prompted the company to apologize.

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