A large-scale study of social and environmental impacts from Rio Tinto's abandoned Panguna mine in Bougainville has found a plethora of actual and potential human rights violations, including risks to life. The Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment was initiated in the wake of a human rights complaint brought by The Human Rights Law Centre on behalf of about 170 Bougainvilleans …
While Bougainville's Panguna mine was abandoned decades ago, mining has not stopped in the area. "All our sources where we used to get clean drinking water, it's been polluted by the mine, by the tailings," she said. But The Human Rights Law Centre's Keren Adams said, on the ground, there was a "sense of frustration that things aren't moving towards …