Miners
First contacts | Explorers | Buffalo hunting | Missionaries | Miners | Pastoralists
The first mineral discoveries in the Top End were associated with the construction of the Overland Telegraph line between 1870 and 1872, in the Pine Creek - Adelaide River area. A series of short mining booms followed.
I don't like him,
it's a nuisance.
I mean, mining worry me.
It wrecks the place.
Look at Jabiru.
- Bill Neidjie, Bunidj clan
Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Mining brought good things,
brought social problems too.
It gave an income to us people.
Bought and built things
which our kids will benefit from.
- Senior Murumburr Traditional Owner
Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre
The construction of the north Australian railway line gave more permanency to the mining camps, and places such as Kurrundie and Pine Creek became permanent settlements. The mining camps and new settlements drew many Aboriginal people away from southern Kakadu. Although no Aboriginal people are known to have worked in the mines, their sudden exposure to drugs (opium and alcohol) and disease at the camps proved devastating for the population of the entire Alligator Rivers region (Press et al. 1995).
Small-scale gold mining began at Imarlkba, near Barramundi Creek, in 1920 and at Moline, south of the Park, in the 1930s. The mines employed a few local Aboriginal people.
In 1953 uranium was discovered along the headwaters of the South Alligator River valley. Thirteen small but rich uranium mines operated in the following decade, at their peak in 1957 employing over 150 workers. The scars from the open-cut mine at Coronation Hill can still be seen. No Aboriginal people were employed at any of these mines.
Early in the 1970s large uranium deposits were discovered at Ranger, Jabiluka and Koongarra. Following receipt of a formal proposal to develop the Ranger site, the Australian Government initiated an inquiry into land use in the Alligator Rivers region. The Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry (known as the Fox inquiry) recommended, among other things, that mining begin at the Ranger site, that consideration be given to the future development of the Jabiluka and Koongarra sites, and that a service town be built (Fox et al. 1996, 1997). The impact of the Ranger mine and the service town (Jabiru) on Aboriginal people has been enormous. Traditional owners of the mine area negotiated royalty payments, to be paid as compensation for the loss of access to country.
Aboriginal people have varying opinions about mining as can be seen in these quotes on the right.