By Grace Lima (Post Courier, 14 January 2021)

The campaign against deep sea mining in the Bismarck Sea by the Alliance of Solara Warriors (ASW) still continues.

Concerned Citizens, who make up the alliance in East New Britain and New Ireland province declared this in Kokopo this week.

The team represents other concerned stakeholders and thousands of communities in the New Guinea Island region, Milne Bay, Bougainville, Madang and other coastal provinces in the northern mainland.

Team Leader Jonathan Mesulam said they want the government and everyone to know that the campaign is ongoing and they are the face of the people in the wards that will be affected.

He said, to date the government has not cancelled all the licences of Nautilus and made a public statement so that everyone is aware and assured that the mining company is totally gone.

“We know that in 2018, Nautilus went away due to some reasons unknown but, last year, we learnt that there is a new company known as Deep Green Finance limited here to continue with exploration project”, said Mr Mesulam.

The name Nautilus is gone but the workers are still here, working under this new company and that is why we want to make it clear that our position still stands and we are still against it,”.

He said they lunched two objections- Objection el2537 last year and Objection el1196 in 2018 - and the Mineral Resource Authority (MRA) is yet to respond to them.

The group is also plaintiff in a case before the courts against MRA and the state regarding the issuing of licence.