Archbishop Peter Loy visited Ba parish - Photo: Fr Pat Colgan
The background is as follows: for a number of year, alarm bells have been ringing about a black sand mining project in the Ba River (a Columban parish) in Fiji, that critics say has taken place without proper community input.
The practice, sometimes called iron sand mining, involves digging up seabeds that are rich in minerals. After the iron extracted, the sand is then returned to the ocean floor.
Some human rights organisations are worried the project in Fiji's Ba delta region, operated by Australian-based company Amex Resources, did not meet the standard of a 'free, prior and informed' consent of the indigenous landowners, and thus may well be in contravention of UN law. - Click here to read more - Watch video: Heartless Mining.
Archbishop and Church leaders planting a coconut tree after the ecumenical riverside service - Photo: Fr Pat Colgan
Tevita Naikasualu, a volunteer for the Catholic Commission of Social and Ecological Justice, believes the mining is putting local environments at risk. He says locals are confused about the potential impacts on their seafood, and a previous collaboration of the company with WWF (Pacific) was only further muddying the issue. Mr Emil Muller chairman of the Catholic Caritas Group in Ba also raised concerns.
Amex Resources Managing Director Matthew Collard said the company has undertaken all of the necessary environmental impact assessments and followed all government guidelines. - Click here to read more.
Village women after the planting of their coconut tree - Photo: Fr Pat Colgan
The situation has been a focus of Archbishop Peter Loy's 'Jubilee for Creation - September 2020' preaching and action. He made a second visit to the village within a year yesterday and today. After the traditional welcome ceremony, he had a local evening session with the elders and people of the village, talking through the teachings the Laudato Si', and how they might apply at this painful juncture. He stressed the need for village unity, and not to allow the ecological wisdom of the ancestors to be overthrown in the seductive dazzle of a 'quick buck'.
After 7:00am Mass and further breakfast discussions, we all moved down to the edge of the delta, near where the mining/extraction is located. The heads of other Christian denominations were present, and we listened in silence together to the 'cry of the land' and the 'cry of the sea'. It was a moving moment, continued in the offering of a bundle of yaqona to His Grace to ask solemn forgiveness from him and God if the villagers had been disobedient to him in their elders' signing of exploratory licences to the company, which appear to have issued in the full-scale mining we are now seeing.
Offering a bundle of yaqona, asking forgiveness from God - Photo: Fr Pat Colgan
We thank the Archbishop, and his Caritas team, for their support to the people and the Columbans who administer the parish, in our efforts to uphold Catholic social teaching, and also uphold the safety and food security of a large section of our parishioners.
Columban Fr Pat Colgan is the Parish Priest at Christ the King Parish, Ba, Fiji.
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