A Papua New Guinea marine conservation party has provided its proposal to the federal government to establish a citizens’ council to advise on deep sea mining projects.
Papua New Guinea is the first nation in the region to have issued a deep sea exploration lease, with the Canadian company Nautilus Minerals.
The mining work is planned to begin in the Bismarck Sea in 2013.
Local people oppose the project but illiteracy prevents them from taking any actual part in the assessment process, the national co-ordinator of Mas Kagin Tapani stated.
According to Wenceslaus Magun, members of a PNG deep sea mining residents advisory council would be selected community representatives providing information to the public and government.
The government should fund this body, or the mining companies on their own, added Magun.
Wenceslaus Magun says that such a body could employ independent researchers to work along with it.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , February 23, 2012; Image: Nautilus Minerals