By Anthropologist John Burton.
From: Oceanic Anthropology Discussion Group.
We have been dealing with the Union of Watut River Communities, an
environmental NGO in Papua New Guinea. and at the same time Morobe Mining,
which operates the Hidden Valley mine, where I did a social impact
assessment ten years ago. These two are in dispute and our job is to try and
collect information that will throw light on the situation, in much the same
way that colleagues and I did at Ok Tedi 1991-94
http://www.crawford.anu.edu.au/rmap/archive/Ok-Fly_social_monitoring/
One of a new wave of NGOs in the country, UoWRC makes very clever use of
blogs and the internet, including mobile internet, to get its message
across. For example, we had our picture taken by Blackberry at our first
meeting with the NGO and they had us posted on facebook before we could say
Jack Robinson.
We were initially taken into the communities where the NGO is active by its
leader, but in the last two weeks the relationship between UoWRC and the
mining company has soured over issues between them, and his position has now
altered. Hence the following post earlier today:
http://ramumine.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/watut-communities-warn-australian-academics-to-stay-off-their-land/
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