By TODAGIA KELOLA

THERE must be a specific legislation governing the recent approval by the Government for the world’s first offshore mining project in the country, a senior lawyer has said.

Camillus Narokobi who has written a thesis on the Bismarck Archipelago seas while doing his Masters degree on the studies on law of the sea, said PNG doesn’t have any legislation governing the mining of our seabed.

But PNG is a signatory to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the sea. And it is obliged under this International law to enact specific legislations in relation to seabed mining and the protection of its marine resources.

He argued that the Mining Act and the Environment Act that are being relied on, may not be adequate for these purposes.

“Under the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, PNG has to have some enabling laws so that freedom of navigation, freedom of laying submarine cables, pipelines and scientific research, freedom of fishing in the high seas and the right to transit through PNG waters. We are obliged to enact legislations to provide for this” he said

Another PNG national, a mining expert at the Western Australian School of Mines, Kaul Gena, also supported this call and posed these questions to developer Nautilus Mineral Corporation:

• What are current ore reserves of Solwara one project and its adjacent areas?
• 
What mining methods are they going to use at 1700 metre depth when the ores are hosted by hard dacitic to rhyolitic lava?

• The ores consist of lead and arsenic bearing minerals, what are the possible mitigation measures that the company will use to avoid environmental contaminations?