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Maeve
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And these two consider themselves environmental experts ???? I suppose in a way they are, they have both made millions from vandalising the environment
CLIMATE-change expert Ross Garnaut has been linked with two companies accused of using a controversial method of releasing mine waste into rivers and the ocean in Papua New Guinea.
But the economist also chaired Lihir Gold, a mining company which has merged with Newcrest Gold, and he is a director of OK Tedi Mining Limited.
Lihir was the subject of a takeover bid by Newcrest Mining and Prof Garnaut will relinquish his $A327,225 role as a result of the merger.
The Lihir group is set to produce one million ounces of gold a year on Lihir Island, 900 kilometres north of Port Moresby.
OK Tedi extracts copper, gold and silver from its remote Star Mountains operation in PNG's Western Province where it reportedly discharges 56 million tonnes of metalliferous waste into local river systems each year.
Tiffany Nonggorr, a lawyer representing indigenous PNG landowners, says the practice by Lihir of dumping billions of tonnes of mine waste and metalliferous tailings, including cyanide and heavy metals, is a great concern.
The practice is banned in China, Canada and the US.
********* A report by the Australian International Development Aid Bureau - now Ausaid - in 1994 described the logging practices of Axiom subsidiary Silvania Forest Products as:..."more like a clear-felling operation and bearing little relation to an attempt at even retaining a token sample of future commercial crop on the site."A separate report also described Silvania's forest practices as "amongst the worst in the world."
Mr Turnbull connection to the logging industry in Solomon Islands began in 1991 and 1992, when he owned shares and also chairman of the then Hong Kong listed Axiom Forest Resources that own logging operations and forest concessions in the country.
Following the reports, the Solomon Islands government then, which was led by a Prime Minister with logging interests and ownership, the former and late Solomon Mamaloni, threaten to close down Silvania's operations due to constant breaches of logging practices.
Since the height of the logging boom in the 1980s and 1990s, where Mr Turnbull and Axiom were making millions of dollars and enjoying the luxury lifestyle of Sydney's Eastern suburb, the poor people of the Solomon's endured social problems and lasting environmental damages.
Mr Turnbull is a millionaire and current Federal Member of Parliament for the Sydney seat of Wentworth - one of the wealthiest suburbs of the Sydney's Eastern suburbs.
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