Mining company fined for unlawful work

Swiss multinational Glencore, the owner of McArthur River Mine in the NT, has been fined $31,500 after pleading guilty to unlawfully carrying out work at a sacred site without the appropriate formal certification.

The mining company reportedly did not seek certification from the Northern Territory’s sacred sites authority, the Aboriginal Area Protection Authority (AAPA), for the installation of handrails at Barney Creek in 2017.

The site is part of a sacred Barramundi Dreaming site called Damangani.

AAPA’s lawyer, Jon Bortoli, said that the mine conducted water monitoring between 2009 and 2022 without an authority certificate in the creek, which has been a registered sacred site for 20 years.

“McArthur River Mine apologises and regrets the concern this has caused to Indigenous traditional owners and custodians,” the company said in a statement.