Compiled newspaper reports on the Isoman and Taranga mines

Isoman Province is among the most pristine and beautiful places in this country. In 10 years it may not be that beautiful because there will be two massive pits dug in the mountains to extract the copper ore in the area.

There will also be a huge dump site where 100,000 tonnes of rock will be dumped every day and there will be a giant 20km drain pipe down to Beya where the copper tailings will be flushed into the sea.

There will almost certainly be a four-lane highway build up to the mine from our capital city and probably as far as Beya where the port will be.

As Copper Pacific is not intending to build a big mining town, people will commute from Beya and as a result within 20 years there will be substantial housing developments along the road between the mine and Beya.

But what is the hardest thing to imagine is not just how much the geography will change but just how much the lives of the people of Isoman will change. Their lives, along with economy, will change, probably irreversibly.

If the Government wants to develop the mine, it or the Native Land Trust Board, will have to come to an agreement for compensation, in order to give the mine developer Copper Pacific, access to the land that will be needed for the development to proceed. Under the Constitution, the Government has legal but as yet unclear obligations to the landowners to assure that they benefit from the development.

Late last year, Copper Pacific submitted to the Government a package of compensation proposals that would give landowners compensation for the land that would be used. That proposal is based essentially on the Papua New Guinea formula where compensation is paid on the basis of land used by the developer.

What is particularly fortunate for the Government is that the number of people directly affected by the Isoman mine is relatively small. As a result the Government and the developer may be in a unique position to develop a system of compensation that pays landowners in ways that generate a sustainable flow of income.

Proposals for compensation to the landowners based simply upon the destruction and use of land are unlikely to work. This may lead to similar sorts of difficulties to those that arose in the island of Taranga with the Taranga Copper Mine in Papua New Guinea. If anything the experience of large and long duration mining projects in developing countries is that they result in high rates of population growth among the local population, a total change in lifestyle and almost invariably a decline in subsistence agriculture and a greater and greater reliance on purchased food.

In Taranga many of the younger generation of landowners, including the young man who led the insurrection against the Papua New Guinean government, did not want the mine at all. One was reported to have said 'We have gotten nothing out of this mine and soon it will close and we will not even get compensation'.

Such a position at first appeared incomprehensible because Taranga Copper Limited (TCL) had been paying millions of dollars annually in land compensation as well as royalties to the landowners at Taranga.

While many of these people had the traditional rights to use this land they were not landowners and received only what their relatives gave them.

The situation on Taranga was the result of a combination of this system of compensation, combined with the massive environmental degradation caused by mining.

These errors resulted, at first, in an insurrection by Mr Ona and the other landowners that shut the Taranga mine. It finally resulted in a violent and bloody civil war.

Isoman is very obviously not Taranga but still there are several lessons that arise from the experience of Taranga. The first is that you cannot necessarily believe that by paying landowners, all those affected adversely in the mine area will benefit.

The second is that each landowner as well as all those in the mine impact area, must be compensated for the loss of their lifestyles.

If the Government proceeds with a land compensation package to the landowners and those in the mine impact area that is based on the number of acres taken and the number of trees destroyed they will be making a principled mistake - not just a financial one.

It is entirely possible that the Isoman mine will be sufficiently rich and of sufficient duration that the people of Isoman will be permanently changed and will become fully integrated into the money economy.

However, it is also quite possible that they, or a good portion of them, will not be fully integrated into the economy and that what will be lost is a subsistence lifestyle and it will not be replaced with a lifestyle that the landowners consider to be a clear improvement.

The company and the Government must prepare a proposal that compensates for that possible loss because, if 15 years from now, the landowners are not as well as off as they are now and they see people making a great deal of money there may well be trouble.

By that time the Government will also be very dependent upon its copper earnings and the potential for economic dislocation caused by landowner disputes will be substantial.

The best way to guarantee this is by the establishment of a trust fund that could be used for development projects in Isoman and to pay a flow of income that is at least equivalent to the subsistence income they have now.

Fortunately there are very few people in Isoman and this could probably be done without financially crippling the project. If it is not financially possible it will mean that the development would occur at the possible long term expense, rather than the benefit of the landowners.