Undermined and Wasted: Australia’s Nuclear Landscape
The story runs that everything the ancient Greek King Midas touched turned to gold. In the 1950’s and 60’s uranium was seen as a Midas mineral and, with around 35% of the world’s uranium reserves, Australia became a significant player in the global nuclear trade. At the time with...
A Sense of place, a sense of loss: Australia’s Mining Legacies
With the construction phase of the mining boom over and demand for Australia’s energy and mineral resources waning, now is a good time to reflect upon the issue of mining legacies and what they mean for our connections to landscape and place – our ‘sense of place’. The extractive...
Poison or poverty? Glencore’s blackmail of Borroloola
Panic has set in for the global resource sector with a sharp commodities slump bringing some of the world’s biggest mining companies to the brink of financial collapse. In Australia, Glencore, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing diversified commodity traders, has been hit hardest of all. While...
A state of disorder: An exhibition reveals the truth of the Tasmanian mining landscape
Since fossicking through war debris when she was a child living on Manus Island as the daughter of a Royal Australian Navy doctor, Isla MacGregor has since carried with her a deep interest in geology and minerals. Originally from Scotland, the MacGregor family came to Australia in the post-war...
The Risky Rise of the Dams
With mining growth comes larger, deeper, more unwieldy tailings ponds, experts warn. By Andrew Nikiforuk, Today, TheTyee.ca The average height of a tailings dam has grown from 120 metres in the 1960s to 240 metres today. Image of Mount Polley tailings dam spill by Cariboo Regional District. A massive mining...