The Rhetoric of Sustainable Development in Rural Papua New Guinea: A Legacy of Mineral Extraction

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This article seeks to highlight the rhetoric of sustainable development in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) mineral extraction sector. Here the contemporary model for socio-economic development advocates mineral extraction as a development strategy, which, I argue, might be better described as disingenuous, neo-colonial prototypes of dependency, protracted poverty and socio-ecological disruption. I will analyse the role extraction projects play in international development and the rhetoric used to present them as corollaries of long-term development. Then I will focus this issue on a specific case study in PNG – Ok Tedi copper mine. Singapore-based company Papua New Guinea Sustainable Development Program have modernised the Ok Tedi region creating a Western town in an isolated environment. The rhetoric of modernity and development is all-encompassing, but with closure looming the indigenous population face a future without resources, services or support. The nature of PNG ‘society’ is frequently contradicted in development efforts, which remain focussed on short-term strategies that stratify rather than integrate a liberated population. The proposed paper argues that for sustainable development to be achieved in contexts of mineral extraction in the developing world, well thought out processes must be employed and executed with specific historical and social thought underpinning their imposition.

Stream: Economic Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

My work focuses on two areas in Papua New Guinea - Kutubu and Ok Tedi - where multinational resource extraction industries have had unprecedented impacts on the indigenous populations. My interests include sustainable development, poverty, kinship, gender and globalization.