French nuclear giant drops heritage bombshell

Jano Gibson, ABC

June 20, 2011, 3:46 pm

The Federal Government says a French nuclear energy company has tried to block a push for the world heritage listing of land near Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.

An Australian delegation has travelled to Paris for a meeting of the World Heritage Committee to try to get the Koongarra area added to Kakadu.

The Government says French energy giant Areva formally requested the nomination of Koongarra be removed from the agenda of the meeting.

When Kakadu was declared a national park in 1979, a small section of land was left off the map.

Known as Koongarra, it contains a major uranium deposit that was discovered in 1970, and for which Areva holds exploration licences.

Last year, the only remaining traditional owner for the area, Jeffrey Lee, asked for the land to be added to Kakadu National Park, where he works as a ranger.

Mr Lee has joined the Australian delegation in Paris and says he wants his land included as part of Kakadu's world heritage listing.

"I've been fighting for Koongarra now for so many years," he said.

According to reports at the time, his decision went against the wishes of his father and grandfather who wanted uranium mining to go ahead.

Last year, The Age newspaper reported that Mr Lee, the sole member of the Djok clan and senior custodian of the land known as Koongarra, could have become one of Australia's richest men if he had allowed Areva to extract more than 14,000 tonnes of uranium from its 12.5 square kilometre mineral lease in the area.

Mr Lee had been under "enormous pressure ... for a long time" to change his mind about including the land in Kakadu, according to the report.

The Koongarra uranium deposit is located adjacent to an escarpment about 30 kilometres south of the existing Ranger uranium mine and three kilometres east of the popular tourist destination, Nourlangie Rock.

The value of the uranium there has been estimated to be more than $5 billion.