INTRODUCTION
There is a growing awareness among indigenous communities in Australia and the Pacific of the scale and novelty of the challenges confronting them in transmitting many of the essential features of what they regard as their cultural heritage.Footnote 1 These challenges pertain to obvious elements of cultural heritage such as language, song, dance, ceremonial performance, and maintaining the sanctity of places or knowledge of the landscape, to more mundane practices such as observing spatial proprieties between genders and different kin categories, or maintaining an appropriate volume for conversation in men's houses. One response to this challenge from a number of communities has been to generate more or less formal plans for the management of local cultural heritage, understood here in the broadest of terms to comprise both the tangible and intangible sources and expressions of communal knowledge and identity.
For example, custodians of cultural heritage in locations such as the Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park in Australia and Chief Roi Mata's Domain in Vanuatu have developed programs in collaboration with external partners that map future directions for the use of cultural heritage, roles and responsibilities, and resourcing strategies.Footnote 2 Key features include the novel use of new multimedia and geographic information system (GIS) technologies for storing, transmitting, and using cultural knowledge, archival resources, and spatial information.Footnote 3 Increasingly these programs, often run through local cultural centers, are being promoted and developed with guidance and support from organizations such as UNESCO, the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and the Australian government's South Pacific Cultures Fund, among other local and international agencies. In other cases communities have been able to draw on government resources or have maximized the possibilities from cultural tourism to provide the financial basis for local programs.Footnote 4
National bodies charged with the protection of culture in Melanesia have recently sought to address the broad issue of local-level cultural heritage management. In Papua New Guinea (PNG) the National Museum has appointed a Cultural Center Officer to work with local-level institutions to develop their programs; and in Vanuatu, the volunteer fieldworker program has been a key factor in the successful development and national integration of the Vanuatu Cultural Center (Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta [VKS]).Footnote 5 However, national frameworks in PNG, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu still offer little by way of enforceable legislative protection and even less in the form of financial assistance to such grassroots initiatives.Footnote 6 Ultimately we find that the success and longevity of these programs is dependent on continuing financial and institutional support.
Colonial rule, the introduction of Christianity, and increasing engagement with global markets have all presented significant challenges for many Melanesian communities as they seek to maintain their cultural heritage. Invariably these difficulties are compounded in the context of large-scale resource extraction. In PNG, resource development has precipitated profound environmental, social, economic, political, and cultural transformations.Footnote 7 In these contexts local cultural heritage is often exposed to substantial transformation and, in the case of material culture and physical sites, damage, alteration, and destruction. Although most large-scale resource projects have developed protocols for social and environmental impact monitoring, cultural heritage often receives limited attention or protection. While this results in part from the inability of the national government to adequately enforce protective legislation, it also reflects historically minimal standards within the resource industry relating to the management of cultural heritage, together with limited community capacity to pursue such endeavors or secure company support.
In PNG the overwhelming majority of land remains under customary forms of ownership, which has often ensured that landowners are heavily involved in decisions over the use of their land and the economic benefits to be derived from resource projects.Footnote 8 Indeed, for many Melanesian communities, large-scale resource extraction is now considered the principal avenue for delivery of a desired level of development and modernity.Footnote 9 However, the emphasis on securing economic benefits has often been at the expense of local cultural heritage. While there are cases where landowners have forced a company to reroute a pipeline or avoid mining particular sites of cultural significance, more usually, negotiations revolve around the scale of compensation for destruction of such sites. Ultimately economic imperatives ensure that cultural heritage is only addressed in the narrowest of forms. By the time operations are under way, host communities find themselves struggling against the tide of social change, and while people might lament the attendant cultural shifts or contemplate the future of their cultural heritage, they may simultaneously find these particular concerns are overwhelmed by a multitude of broader challenges.
At the heart of this article are questions regarding what future role Melanesian communities envision for their history and cultural heritage more generally, particularly within situations of rapid industry-led transformation. Furthermore, we are interested in the part to be played by researchers in this future of the past—especially in the scope for novel collaborations that might be forged with communities, companies, and national organizations. While resource extraction generates major challenges, we argue that it also presents significant possibilities for establishing long-term and well-resourced cultural heritage programs based on meaningful partnerships.
In this article we describe some of the challenges and opportunities associated with our recent involvement in a collaborative partnership with the community of the Lihir Islands of PNG's New Ireland Province, which is seeking to establish, inform, and resource its own formal cultural heritage management program. In this particular instance, the processes of collaboration and the development of a cultural heritage management strategy have been strongly shaped by the presence of a large-scale gold-mining project, operated by Lihir Gold Limited (LGL). The funding available to such a project, either directly from the mining company or from the community's share of royalty and other mine-related sources of income, offers an opportunity for Lihirians to realize a vision of their cultural future that would be beyond the reach of most Melanesian communities. But the pressures on Lihirian society and on the transmission of local cultural heritage are also correspondingly greater, and the need to involve the mining company at numerous points of the collaborative process, along with representatives of local and national institutions, introduces a further element of complexity to the relationship.
At a point when many of the major mining companies rhetorically espouse the benefits of “going beyond compliance” with minimum legal obligations and existing regulatory instruments for social and environmental performance,Footnote 10 many companies, including LGL, are still grappling with the challenge of fully understanding, developing, and implementing programs and management systems that can actually achieve compliance with the international standards of best practice and voluntary codes to which they subscribe. We shall discuss some of the initial strategies adopted by LGL that have the potential to achieve new industry benchmarks for the region through the development of a values-based best practice cultural heritage management program.
The general approach to this collaborative venture involves the application of a specific development tool, the Stepping Stones for Cultural Heritage program, developed by consultant Nicholas Hall from Stepwise Heritage and Tourism and employed by a local stakeholder group, the Lihir Cultural Heritage Committee (hereinafter the Committee), together with a team of external researchers (anthropologist Nick Bainton, historian Chris Ballard, and ethnomusicologist Kirsty Gillespie). The central feature of the application of the Stepping Stones program on Lihir was the facilitation of a weeklong workshop designed to assist the Committee in building its own capacity to develop a long-term cultural heritage management plan. We discuss some of the preliminary results of this collaborative program, including the generation of the Lihir Cultural Heritage Management Plan, and some of the initial pilot projects, particularly the production of a CD of Lihirian songs recorded in 1908 and 2008.
We argue that these consultative processes are highly innovative in both Melanesia and mining contexts. However, we also believe that these novel approaches have a much broader application beyond Melanesia and the resource extraction industry for cultural heritage practitioners. Therefore, rather than primarily concentrate on the details of Lihirian cultural change (much of which is documented elsewhereFootnote 11), we have considered the sorts of policy-related drivers that can inform practitioners, and draw on selected ethnographic material to illustrate the breadth of cultural heritage work that can be addressed through this consultative process. We also outline previous and existing approaches to Lihirian cultural heritage management, and the range of risks and complications associated with either addressing or ignoring cultural heritage in such dynamic environments.
INDIGENOUS CONSERVATION PRACTICES AND CULTURAL HERITAGE IN MELANESIA
Melanesia has a long history of social movements directed toward some form of cultural preservation. Often these activities arose in response to colonial and postcolonial experiences and were commonly articulated around an emerging discourse of custom, or kastom as it is expressed in neo-Melanesian.Footnote 12 While some movements were couched in broader terms of social and political control or unity, or cultural standardization, and all varied in terms of scale, duration, and success, most were guided by similar concerns and ideologies, and attempted forms of documentation, recording, and cultural education.
In the spirit of enthusiasm surrounding independence, the National Cultural Council of PNG, set up in 1973, worked toward the “development and preservation of all aspects of culture and the arts in Papua New Guinea,” and the establishment of national district and local cultural institutions.Footnote 13 As cultural programs languished, there was an unsuccessful attempt to combine tourism and culture under the 1990 Tourism Development Act.Footnote 14 In 1994 an Act of Parliament replaced the Council with the National Cultural Commission (NCC), which has been instrumental in promoting national cultural festivals. Yet limited institutional and financial support for grassroots efforts has continually rendered these activities highly fragile. Even where communities have been involved with forms of cultural tourism, quite often their capacity for self-determining engagement is contingent on arbitrary external processes, many of which are beyond their control, such as government policies, the prerogatives of tour operators, or fluctuating travel prices.Footnote 15
Some of the principal considerations of this article are framed by contributions to a recent volume on indigenous museums of the southwest Pacific, edited by Nick Stanley.Footnote 16 The collection is inspired by the seminal 1983 essay by Sidney Moko Mead, who mapped what he regarded as a number of criteria that distinguished indigenous from Western museums (or “hospitals for art”), that is, indigenous museums have known “publics,” usually relatively small in scale and restricted in range; a different manner of contemplation of the museum's contents; a privileged role for oral traditions in exegesis; and a focus on the transmission of traditions rather than display and conservation. Several of the contributors place particular emphasis on the additional element of “contemporaneity” in indigenous museums—their particular attention to the present salience of the cultural past, especially in relation to new social issues. For Christina Kreps,Footnote 17 a leading scholar of Southeast Asian museums, the Pacific currently lies at the cutting edge of developments in cultural heritage theory, particularly through the elaboration of concepts of intangible heritage.
The recognition of noninstitutional forms of cultural heritage management, or indigenous museological processes, has marked a critical advance in appreciating the conditions for success of indigenous museums in the region. For example, through a contrast between Western museums and the practice of funeral rituals among the Lak in Southern New Ireland, Sean Kingston argues that in the production and use of New Ireland funerary items, such as malaggan or tumbuan, heritage is processed in ways that can be understood as an indigenous form of “museological behaviour.”Footnote 18 In addition to comprehending the social effects of these processes, Kingston points to the need for a more dialectical engagement: what are the implications for these noninstitutional forms of heritage “management” when Western museological or management processes are established in these cultures? Kingston suggests that the presence of a cultural center, indigenous or otherwise, would undermine the culturally preservative effect found in the “absent” museum of the Lak tumbuan ritual.Footnote 19 While this does not necessarily negate the value of more formalized cultural heritage management processes, it provides grounds for carefully considering such programs and how they might unfold in local contexts.
A striking refrain in Stanley's edited volume is the role in the success of particular indigenous museums, such as the Vanuatu Cultural Center, of strong networks and links—both internally to communities within their regional or national constituency and externally to other institutions and scholars. It may be that the “post-museum” envisaged by Kreps will take the form of new museological networks rather than novel sites, reflecting the priority of conversation over conservation at indigenous museums, and the ever-expanding scope of those conversations. The success of an indigenous museum may best be gauged by the extent to which it is regarded simultaneously as indigenous by outsiders, and as a portal to the outside by its indigenous constituents, while serving local needs for cultural preservation through strong community participation. In the context of large-scale resource development, the possibilities afforded to local communities through access to resources, new communicative technologies, and wider external networks may signal the potential to realize such ends.
PNG LEGISLATION AND INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
In PNG, the trustees of the National Museum are responsible for the management of cultural property, under the National Cultural Property (Preservation) Act.Footnote 20 This Act covers “any property, moveable or immovable, of particular importance to the cultural heritage of the country,” and “any object, natural or artificial, used for, or made or adapted for use for, any purposes connected with traditional cultural life of any the peoples of the country, past or present.” The Act identifies a number of offenses concerning the damage or removal of national cultural property. It also states that any person (or in the case of mining, the developer) who discovers items of national cultural heritage is required to report this discovery to the National Museum. Items may include: caves or other places with ancient human remains; carvings, paintings or other representations in rock art; deposits of ancient pottery or historical remains; and places used in former times as ceremonial or burial grounds. While the Act was conceived largely with tangible heritage in mind, it may now be applied with equal vigor to intangible forms of heritage; revisions to the Act are currently being prepared to accommodate these new understandings.
The international climate regulating the management of cultural heritage in the context of large-scale resource development has transformed dramatically since the 1980s, when many of the current resource extraction projects in PNG first commenced operations. At an international level, standards of compliance and reporting that were valid during the late 1980s and early 1990s are no longer considered acceptable. Multinational companies are increasingly engaging with notions of corporate social responsibility (CSR), reflecting not only the emergence of an audit culture,Footnote 21 but also the realization that maintaining a social license to operate requires greater levels of transparency and accountability and the delivery of more tangible economic and social benefits to host communities.Footnote 22
Resource companies operating in PNG are now expected to incorporate provisions for the socially and financially sustainable management of cultural heritage throughout and beyond the life of the project. The issue of cultural heritage is specifically addressed in new international codes for social and environmental performance, such as the voluntary principles of the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM), or the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards, which apply to companies seeking loans from the IFC or related financial institutions.Footnote 23 These standards provide opportunities for companies operating in PNG and elsewhere to aspire to a wider range of possible objectives, or even to set new benchmarks for regional best practice. IFC Performance Standard 8 currently provides the most comprehensive guidelines for best practice in cultural heritage management.Footnote 24 Performance Standard 8 adopts and modifies the World Bank and UNESCO definition of cultural property, identifying cultural heritage as all
tangible forms of cultural heritage, such as tangible property and sites having archaeological (prehistoric), paleontological, historical, cultural, artistic, and religious values, as well as unique natural environmental features that embody cultural values, such as sacred grovesFootnote 25 … [and] intangible forms of culture, such as cultural knowledge, innovations and practices of communities embodying traditional lifestyles.Footnote 26
The requirements of Performance Standard 8 extend to the protection and maintenance of cultural heritage by “undertaking internationally recognised practices for the protection, field-based study, and documentation of cultural heritageFootnote 27 … [and] siting and designing a project to avoid significant damage to cultural heritage.”Footnote 28 Strong emphasis is similarly placed on consultation with affected communities.Footnote 29 However the last part of Performance Standard 8, paragraph 3 is perhaps the most pertinent for existing operations, as it states that the IFC Performance Standard 8 will “apply to cultural heritage regardless of whether or not it has been legally protected or previously disturbed.”
Future refinement of these standards will almost certainly place further emphasis on these intangible forms of cultural heritage, such as oral traditions, ephemeral art, dance, music and other forms of performance, social practices, rituals and festive events such as feasts, traditional craftsmanship, worldviews and cosmological beliefs, and genealogical knowledge. This last point has particular relevance for resource companies required to identify those individuals and groups with customary “connections” to the land likely to be used by the project. As John Burton argues, the collection of genealogical knowledge raises new challenges in respect to intellectual property rights, and the need for a “cultural heritage duty of care” in the preservation and safeguarding against the improper use of such information.Footnote 30
The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage,Footnote 31 which came into force in 2006, has already inscribed a number of intangible forms of cultural heritage on its list, including (in the Pacific region) Vanuatu's sand drawings. Communities, responsible government agencies, and resource companies will need to keep abreast of developments in this field, which is fast-growing and covers a considerably wider range of forms of cultural heritage, many potentially under threat from large-scale resource projects. While CSR rhetoric and public commitment to sustainable principles is not always converted into meaningful action, these higher-level developments have been instrumental in placing cultural heritage management on the corporate agenda, forcing companies to engage with a broader understanding of development and their relationship to host communities.
CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MINING IN THE LIHIR ISLANDS
The Lihir Islands are located off the northeast coast of New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago. Prior to mining exploration on the main island of Aniolam in the 1980s, Lihirians were only marginally involved with the colonial administration and the plantation economy.Footnote 32 Operations began in 1995 after an agreement was reached between the community, the government, and the Lihir Management Company (LMC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto. Lihir has since been massively transformed through rapid industrialization, the unequal distribution of mine-derived wealth, and a steady population increase from some 7000 people in 1995, to nearly 14,000 Lihirians together with an estimated 4000 non-Lihirians by 2009. In 2005, the Rio Tinto agreement ceased, and the project is now owned and operated by Lihir Gold Limited (LGL). Current estimates indicate that mining activities will continue until at least 2034.
While the documentation of Lihirian cultural heritage has not been as comprehensive as that for the neighboring areas of the Tabar Islands, Tanga Islands, or central mainland New Ireland,Footnote 33 a substantial body of historical, archival, and artifactual material is located throughout PNG, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Cultural heritage documentation and collection during the period of mining activity on Lihir has been sporadic, uncoordinated, and limited in its spatial and topical extent. Prior to mining operations, preliminary baseline surveys of archaeology and material culture were conducted by the National Museum of PNG in 1984 and by consultants Sullivan and Hughes in 1987 as part of the mine's environmental baseline assessment, while cultural heritage issues more broadly were briefly addressed as part of the social impact studies conducted by Smalley in 1985, and Filer and Jackson in 1986 and 1989.Footnote 34 During mining operations, two long-term anthropological studies were conducted,Footnote 35 and annual social impact reports were produced by MacintyreFootnote 36 and Macintyre and Foale,Footnote 37 though none of these endeavors attempted to comprehensively map Lihirian cultural heritage. The only in-depth cultural heritage surveys conducted in relation to the mine were Filer's comprehensive, albeit incomplete, audit of traditional men's houses,Footnote 38 Burton's related genealogical census,Footnote 39 and Foale's study of traditional fishing technology.Footnote 40
The original integrated benefits package (IBP) that was signed in 1995, which effectively outlined how Lihirians would benefit from the mine and the roles and responsibilities of the company and the government,Footnote 41 does not contain any overarching commitments to the preservation and sustainable management of Lihirian cultural heritage. However, the IBP does state that “LMC will use its best endeavours to avoid disturbing any burial grounds located within the Affected Land [the mining lease zone].” It also contains provisions for compensation for any damage or destruction of graves, sacred sites, or culturally significant resources, such as deposits of red clay used for ceremonial decoration. The emphasis is clearly on compensation for damage or loss, rather than strategies for monitoring, managing, or preserving cultural heritage. This largely reflects the relational foundations between Lihirians and the company and overriding concerns among prominent Lihirian leaders about obtaining benefits and maximizing opportunities for economic development.
Central to Lihirian cultural heritage is the sacred Ailaya rock pinnacle and an associated complex of ritual sites. In Lihirian cosmology the Ailaya is both the origin and end point for the spiritual world. Spirits known as tandal, or masalai in Tok Pisin,Footnote 42 which play a foundational role in mythical origins of each of the Lihir clans, are believed to have emerged from the Ailaya site complex. When humans die, it is also believed that their souls return to the Ailaya, which acts as a portal to the afterlife.Footnote 43 However, this site is complicated by virtue of its central location within the actual mining area, and the divisive political struggles between various Lihirian clans over the compensation paid by the company for damages to the Ailaya rock.Footnote 44 During mine construction a road was built across the base of the rock, and mineral stockpiles around the rock have since obliterated the surrounding sites. In the IBP agreement LMC agreed to establish a multistakeholder committee to oversee the restoration of the Ailaya; however, internal politics have precluded any meaningful action, and the company has continued to entertain plans to mine the area. Over the years concerns about the Ailaya have shifted from being confined to a small number of elderly men in the early 1990s to being embraced by younger educated people and the general population. The Ailaya is now reified in terms of cultural heritage values and stands as a political symbol of Lihirian identity. Moreover, while specific mythical and cosmological knowledge about the Ailaya remains widely distributed among elderly men and women across the Lihir islands, these shifting values have created greater consensus among Lihirians on the more fundamental aspects of this sacred geography.
In 1998 the company established the Lihir Cultural Information Office within the Community Liaison department, which has been run by Lihirian Luke Kabariu, with assistance from Lihirian and graduate anthropologist Patrick Turuan. Together they have attempted to fill some of the gaps in documentation by recording sacred sites and key customary feasts, and organizing several small cultural festivals. However, their efforts have long been marginalized by wider community relations challenges. Despite consistent recommendations in the early social impact reports to develop cultural heritage management strategies, under the Rio Tinto management there was minimal investment in proposed programs and the allocation of resources and personnel for the Lihir Cultural Information Office.
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
Parallel to company activities, Lihirians were also mobilizing resources for programs that they hoped would strongim kastom (strengthen custom). In the early 1990s, as mining loomed large, local leaders formulated strategies to manage the anticipated social changes, in what became known as the Society Reform program. The broad aims of the program were to strengthen Christian and customary values and practices and to ensure that all Lihirians could engage in new opportunities for economic development.Footnote 45 Leaders from the landowners association sought assistance from University of PNG anthropologist Colin Filer, who recommended specific documentation and recording projects.Footnote 46 His advice was never implemented, and the Society Reform program was eventually disbanded in the late 1990s, partly due to mismanagement of the company grant. While the company provided financial support, the lack of local capacity contributed substantially to the ultimate failure of this venture. Nevertheless, the program's aspirations reflected emerging conceptions about the role of tradition within a modern Lihir society.
As mining development unfolded, considerable wealth from wages, royalties, and compensation payments quickly circulated around Lihir. Much of this has been ploughed back into the customary feasting and exchange cycle, generating an efflorescence of kastom activities.Footnote 47 Lihirians soon faced a remarkable paradox: More kastom did not necessarily ensure the preservation of cultural heritage. The expansion of ceremonial exchange masked knowledge loss, symbolic transformations, and altered practices. Many Lihirians find these changes distressing, but feel powerless to address the course of events, particularly as kastom has become more politically competitive and dependent on the incorporation of mining wealth.
In the early 2000s, as Lihirians began renegotiating the IBP agreement with the company, earlier social development themes were restored to the agenda. In addition to various economic programs,Footnote 48 these plans included the codification of customary practices and laws as part of a broader desire to create a modern Lihirian society. In 2002, Lihirian Peter Toelinkanut, a fully qualified aircraft engineer, who had earlier returned to Lihir, began considering the challenges to local culture and commenced a major study of Lihir kastom, producing a draft book of codified practices and laws. His work was guided and supported by local leaders engaged in the review of the benefits package. This work was conducted in isolation from the company's Lihir Cultural Information Office, partly reflecting the tense relationship between the company and local leaders, and the belief that any program run by the company, whether or not Lihirians were involved, would be corrupted by corporate interests. In recent years the local level government and the Petztorme Women's Association have also appointed designated cultural officers, but there has been no framework that would allow or enable all of these committed individuals to harness their collective strengths and skills. Despite a strong public discourse of kastom and widespread concerns over the future of Lihirian cultural heritage, the efforts of the Lihir Cultural Information Office and other individuals and groups have remained uncoordinated and have achieved limited results.
CORPORATE IMPERATIVES
With the transition in mine management from LMC to LGL in 2005, there have been numerous organization and policy challenges for the mine's operators, several of which directly relate to the management of cultural heritage. As a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, LMC was able to rely on the depth and experience of Rio Tinto corporate policies and procedures. As a comparatively young company, LGL has been required to develop its own systems and procedures and an identity and outlook appropriate to its new context. Part of this process is an internal commitment to the development of an integrated management system (IMS) based on a body of corporate standards and operating procedures that define and determine the way the company functions. Crucially, through the development of these corporate standards, which includes a standard on cultural heritage management, this process aims to further integrate CSR commitments and community relations functions throughout the operation.Footnote 49
LGL has also become a signatory to the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM), which entails becoming a signatory to the ICMM's 10 principles of sustainability.Footnote 50 These principles are far-reaching, and address financial, environmental, and social accountability as well as labor, health, and safety. They constitute a moral and a business code for the organization. As a signatory to the ICMM principles, LGL is required to “[r]espect the culture and heritage of local communities, including indigenous peoples.”Footnote 51 While these principles could be perceived as an onerous commitment, there appears to be recognition on the part of the board and senior management that accountability is necessary if the company is to project an image of international best practice. At the corporate level this has been translated into a promising statement of commitment to protect and sustainably manage the Lihirian social environment, including cultural heritage, whereby LGL will
[u]phold fundamental human rights and respect cultures, customs and values in dealings with employees and others who are affected by our activities … [and] Contribute to the social, economic and institutional development of the communities in which we operate.Footnote 52
However, despite these positive corporate advancements, real challenges exist at the operational level as management seeks ways to embody and implement these CSR values.
At the Lihir operation, the revised IBP agreement, signed in 2007 and now known as the Lihir Sustainable Development Plan (LSDP), is one the main avenues through which these CSR commitments will be implemented. This agreement has since presented Lihirians with new possibilities through access to unprecedented resources and more sustained institutional support. The LSDP agreement essentially equates to 107 million kina (approximately US$43 million) to be delivered by LGL over 5 years across a range of community development projects in the areas of health, education, and social infrastructure.Footnote 53 The Lihirian authors of the LSDP agreement refer to this plan as their “road map” for the future, based on what they have termed “stable development.”
To ensure that development in Lihir is stable. This must happen in harmony with the Lihir Society and not destroy and erode the order and culture that existed in the society prior to the operation of the Lihir Gold Project.Footnote 54
These laudable sentiments imply greater bargaining power for Lihirians in the agreement-making process. However, the agreement appears to commit arbitrary amounts of money to various programs, including cultural heritage, with no information on responsibilities, strategies for implementation, or how these programs might connect to new CSR commitments, forms of best practice, monitoring requirements, the LGL Community Liaison department or the Cultural Information Office, or areas that require special attention. The failure to embed any guiding structure has resulted in a lack of direction as to how these resources should be employed.
STEPPING STONES ACROSS BROKEN GROUND
The original impetus for our involvement in the development of a cultural heritage management plan stems partly from the gap between policy and practice. More specifically our engagement emerged from LGL's decision to increase output from the Lihir mine to 1 million ounces of gold per annum, a development that under IFC guidelines has required a new assessment of the mine's environmental and social impacts. Bainton and Ballard were both part of a team that produced a social impact assessment (SIA) in 2007.Footnote 55 As the first formal revision of the original SIAs since the mine was commissioned, these reports had to address new compliance imperatives for extractive industries.
Based on the 2007 SIA recommendations, Bainton approached LGL with a proposal for company assistance for the formation of a cultural heritage committee with the view toward developing a more systematic approach to heritage management. As part of his continuing engagement with LGL through a partnership with the University of Queensland, Bainton set about working with Peter Toelinkanut and Luke Kabariu to assemble an interim committee of 15 people committed to the preservation of Lihirian culture. The intention was to ensure a representation of senior male leaders, women, youth, the church, the local level government, the landowning community, and leaders associated with the LSDP. The Committee and its leadership were soon consolidated: Toelinkanut, Kabariu, Turuan, and Joanne Saet were elected as interim office bearers, while the other members assumed roles based on their interests and skills.
An Australian company with extensive experience of cultural heritage consultation with indigenous communities in Australia, Stepwise Heritage and TourismFootnote 56 run by Nicholas Hall, was contracted by LGL to facilitate a workshop that would enable the committee to develop a draft management plan. Ballard and Gillespie were also contracted to provide guidance and support for the workshop process, and documentation of the outcomes. Under its heritage activities Stepwise uses a 10-step participatory planning process called Stepping Stones for Heritage.
Figure 1. The stepping stones for heritage.
The process adopts the universal motif of a footprint to represent each of the key steps in the strategic planning process for heritage, reflecting internationally recognized heritage standards such as the Burra Charter,Footnote 57 which center on understanding the significance of elements of heritage (step 4) as the basis for determining policies, strategies, and actions for heritage conservation.
The Stepping Stones approach has been used for cultural heritage planning in many different indigenous contexts in northern Australia as well as with local communities in Vanuatu. Rather than simply producing a formulaic refraction of culture, the process is a facilitated activity that uses a range of participatory techniques to prepare a cultural heritage plan, whether a conservation management plan, a plan of management, a cultural heritage strategy or some other outcome that is appropriate. The process enables communities to establish for themselves a cultural heritage plan by working systematically through the 10 steps.
A range of knowledge holders are included in the process, but outside “experts” and consultants are de-centered, and the group participants are charged with the task of generating the plan. The facilitator guides the process and supports the group, with the steps “empty” until the group steps through them, deliberating on each step and making consensual decisions about what should be included. Capacity-building elements and knowledge explication is introduced into the process by the facilitator according to the needs of the group and its individuals. By working through each step in an open workshop context, the community produces a document that is fundamentally owned and understood by the community, greatly increasing the likelihood of the plan being acted on. Through the process, participants are encouraged to start moving from a position of observers to one of more active management of their own cultural heritage knowledge.
A Stepping Stones for Heritage workshop was held over 10 days (8–17 March 2009) on each of the four islands in the Lihir island group. This allowed the workshop team, consisting of the Committee members and consultants, to engage with different communities, spreading awareness of the program but also providing people with an opportunity for their input. The 10 steps were translated into Tok Pisin and printed on large posters for distribution. We presented the plan in full at each new community meeting, before focusing in detail on discussions surrounding the steps to be completed that day. On the first day of formal meetings we were based at the town site of Lihir, Londolovit, where we formally launched the workshop and introduced the plan and worked on steps 1 and 2, allowing Committee members to become familiar with the structure of the Stepping Stones process. The following day we traveled around to the other side of this island, introduced the plan there, and then worked on step 3 of the plan. Thus it continued for the remaining steps of the plan on the islands of Mahur, Masahet, and Malie over the following days, with the Committee members increasingly assuming primary roles in presentation and leading discussion.
Figure 2. Stepping Stones program translated into Tok Pisin.
As we traveled around Lihir, the 10 steps and their discussion points were entered in Tok Pisin in a large bound book of butcher's paper, which slowly grew and took shape as a plan, recognizably capturing community views and embodying local ownership. By visiting different communities we were able to confirm and consolidate the contents of the plan. It soon became clear that there was an emerging consensus among Lihirians about what was important to their cultural heritage, and what should be done to address their concerns. The Committee identified five features that they believe to underpin Lihirian culture: the men's house institution, custom law, language, the matrilineal clan system, and leadership. The Committee developed an image of four house posts, similar to a men's house, with a central post—leadership—on which everything else is dependent; effectively Lihirian culture rests upon these five posts. At each village workshop this framework was reinforced by other community members as additional details were then hung upon these “posts,” signaling community confidence in the objectives of the Committee. For many Lihirians the concept of cultural heritage management was neither novel nor foreign. Many found an immediate Lihirian analogue in the role of men's houses as learning institutions, repositories of ritual items, and sites of cultural and social reproduction. Others drew parallels with the earlier Society Reform program, the growing discourse of kastom, and the past efforts of different individuals and local institutions. What was previously lacking was a larger framework to unite these programs and the necessary support mechanisms to ensure their success.
While cultural heritage management is often equated with forms of cultural tourism, remarkably few Lihirians envisioned tourism as a central component of their immediate cultural heritage aspirations. Some Lihirians, especially local elites, have discussed the possibilities presented by large numbers of expatriates and PNG citizens residing in Lihir as a result of the mine. Yet it appears that most adult Lihirians are less interested in presenting “their culture” to an external audience, and more concerned with finding ways to ensure that it is passed on to future generations. This is partly because Lihirians can access income streams through the mine and are thus not dependent on tourism for significant economic benefit, but also because the unfolding efflorescence of kastom provides more opportunities for cultural expression, continually embedding performance within the political economy of ceremonial exchange.
Inevitably, workshop discussions concentrated on the significance of the landscape, underscoring the inextricable connection between place, being, and cultural expression.Footnote 58 The importance of the Ailaya was often emphasized, along with the need to maintain respect for tandal spirit sites, men's houses and their enclosures, ritual sites, and other areas of significance. The revaluation of the cultural landscape and the sorts of ontological shifts associated with mining and modernity present significant challenges;Footnote 59 but this need not constitute a zero-sum equation. Most Lihirians tend to regard education, Catholicism, the cash economy, and their cultural heritage as somewhat complementary, rather than mutually exclusive, even if this proves difficult to negotiate in daily practice.
On the final day of the workshop, the Committee organized a formal closing ceremony that provided an opportunity to present their draft plan to the wider community, and to launch their first pilot project—a CD of traditional Lihirian songs, Ae Tinil Wen Lir: Music of Lihir—which demonstrated the sorts of tangible outputs that can be pursued through collaborative partnerships. By way of developing external institutional links, Jacob Simet from the National Cultural Commission, Herman Mandui from the National Museum, and Don Niles from the Institute of PNG Studies were invited as special guests to speak with the Committee. As we have argued, enabling local communities to establish links with wider support networks, both official and nonofficial, domestic and international, is crucial for the longevity of these programs, particularly in locations where the all-encompassing politics of development can easily paralyze local initiatives.
While Stepping Stones has been successfully developed for the Australian context, this was the first time that it had been trialed in PNG, let alone within a highly fraught mining context. The suitability and effectiveness of the program was reflected in the exceptional levels of community engagement. But Lihirian enthusiasm also stems from their long-standing concern with the social disarticulation and division that so often accompanies modernity, and their understanding of the symbiotic relationship between social cohesion and the vitality of cultural heritage, particularly as it is manifest through the institution of the men's house.
The Stepping Stones process aims to create space for discussion on the important translations and transformations evident in their cultural heritage. Suitable enabling environments for these discussions may not have been previously available, and there is usually an unmet need for exploring how cultural heritage values can be articulated in a way that might influence political and development processes. Stepping Stones seeks to bring cultural heritage into a contemporary management framework. The Lihir context illustrates why this is needed, where the rapidly changing social environment is creating pressures on cultural transmission, and there are new demands to engage with external “sustainable development” and corporate and resource “management” paradigms.
A PILOT PROJECT
Despite strong community support on Lihir for programs that preserve cultural knowledge and strengthen traditional practices, there remains a degree of ambivalence. For local leaders, particularly the Lihirian authors of the LSDP agreement, traditional culture, as it is expressed through expanding ceremonial exchange and inclusive sociality, is often viewed as an impediment to economic development.Footnote 60 One response has been to isolate traditional culture from the road to development. Peter Toelinkanut's earlier codification project was based on the premise that economic development will require a return to “true kastom practices” that reverse the “wastage” from an inflated ceremonial economy. The challenge for Lihirian leaders has been to find ways to invigorate and preserve customary practices, values and knowledge in ways that complement and advance local economic and social development agendas.
During early meetings with Lihirian leaders in 2008, when Bainton was proposing the development of a cultural heritage plan with the long term view of creating a cultural center, some were worried that this would only amount to a giant archival facility that in no way addressed contemporary needs. Similarly, some LGL managers questioned how this plan would contribute to their CSR commitments. In this context, Lihirian and corporate interests are closely aligned; any interest in cultural heritage is largely directed by current issues. The challenge for us, particularly as researchers, has been to demonstrate to both Lihirians and LGL the scope and potential benefits to be gained from a dynamic cultural heritage management program based on collaborative partnerships. The launching of the music CD provided the Committee and its research consultants with the first opportunity to display the sorts of tangible, future-oriented outcomes that can be generated through such partnerships.
The genesis of the CD project began as the interim Committee was forming, at the end of 2007. Sources indicated that the German ethnologist Otto Schlaginhaufen had made recordings of Lihirian songs on wax cylinders in 1908, when traveling around the Bismarck Archipelago with the Deutsche Marine Expedition. Schlaginhaufen described his experience of recording at the southernmost tip of the island of Niolam:
More than a hundred people had gathered in Leo for the aforementioned festivity of the natives; it was said, as I heard, that my phonograph had in part enticed them, as they had already heard of its miraculous ability to reproduce things spoken and sung. To begin with, one of the many people allowed themselves to be persuaded to sing a song into the phonograph's funnel. Hereupon the people listened with astonishment to the playback of what had been sung, and now the ice was broken; one after another stepped up to the phonograph and supplied a musical contribution, so that eventually I used up the entire stock of phonographic cylinders which I had brought with me to Lir.Footnote 61
Schlaginhaufen's original recordings are held in the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv in Germany, and the collection is documented in Ziegler's book on the cylinder collections housed there.Footnote 62 We were able to assist the Committee to obtain a copy of the 19 cylinders, already digitized by the staff of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv. The condition of the recordings and related documentation is excellent; not only are the songs very clear to the ear, but each song form, performer, and place is carefully introduced by Schlaginhaufen himself on the recording, and he also documents names as well as other information in his notebook (which has been reproduced in Ziegler's volume). This level of detail in Schlaginhaufen's notes enabled us to identify living relatives of some of the singers from 1908.
Certain of the wax cylinder recordings were easily understood and could be translated by members of the Committee, as the songs are in everyday Lihirian language; other songs proved more difficult to understand, and impossible to translate, as they employed an archaic language no longer used in Lihirian conversation, a language that persists only in ritual and expressive formats.Footnote 63 It was soon decided that we would pursue the project of making the first CD of Lihirian music by combining some of these 1908 recordings with recordings to be made by Gillespie in 2008. Gillespie and members of the Committee traveled around each of the 15 local-level government wards in the island group, and as a starting point played back the 1908 recordings to Lihirians for their comment. Young and old, men and women, were keen to hear the recordings, and to find out about the historical information reproduced in Ziegler's book. As they listened, the older people—with those hard of hearing often wearing headphones—smiled and their eyes grew wistful as they looked beyond the horizon. In many cases, listening to the songs inspired people to dance, particularly the older men, emphasizing the integral relationship between Lihirian song and bodily movement.
The 1908 recordings also inspired listeners to sing those Lihirian songs they knew for recording. Though people often sang along to the playback of the earlier recordings (facilitated by the songs' repetitive nature), most of the songs sung for recording in 2008 had different texts to the earlier ones (though of the same genres). After recording 176 tracks, 44 tracks that represented a wide range of song genres were selected for the CD. The final song selection was edited and arranged in genre groupings (on the advice of the Committee). Two wax cylinder recordings appear on the CD, placed at the beginning and the end of the CD, bookending the songs of 2008.
Track 44, recorded by Gillespie, is a direct response to the second wax cylinder recording—a bel by the woman Simbi. The singer, Alois Kokon, remembered and performed the song, despite it being in a largely unknown and untranslatable language. This highlights the sustainability of Lihirian song forms, even when the meaning is no longer comprehended. It also indicates how historical recordings can act as more than simply a mnemonic for oral performance traditions, but can support the transmission of song forms and knowledge into the future. While this project was made possible through company sponsorship, it has proven instrumental in demonstrating to LGL, to local Lihirian leaders, and to the wider community what can be achieved through such partnerships, and helped to reinforce the momentum generated by the workshop and the development of the Committee and their plan.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
A final version of the Lihir Cultural Heritage Plan, A irir wan mamalien a anio Lir (A Plan for Social Stability and Harmony on Lihir) was produced in both English and Tok Pisin in late 2009. The plan opens with a vision statement, agreed on during the initial workshop, which captures the need for this program:
Our cultural heritage must be here, now and in the future. We must strengthen and ensure the future of our cultural heritage.
Our cultural heritage stands on top of the men's house, the clan, our custom law and language. The origin and the base for all Lihirian culture is the Ailaya. We are born, we live and we die within the story of the Ailaya.
We live in a time of accelerating change. For social stability and harmony we need strong culture and strong leadership. For our future, development and custom will go together. Our children will be educated and healthy and also rooted in custom. The future of Lihir rests in their hands.
The plan then elaborates upon those aspects that are important to Lihirian cultural heritage, identifying who can provide assistance to the Committee, and what challenges they can expect to encounter along the way. These challenges vary widely in terms of their potential severity, including the potential reception of the cultural heritage program as an obstacle to development, political and geological instability surrounding the Ailaya, the mine's interest in accessing such sacred sites, but also the threat of early mine closure and a lack of preparedness for such an eventuality, as Lihirians acknowledge it is the mine that will fund a large component of these cultural heritage activities.
The plan culminates in a series of action plans that fall under the following headings: the cultural heritage committee; men's houses and custom law; education; language; documentation and research; celebrations and special projects; custom places; the Ailaya; and a cultural center. In the 12 months since the completion of this plan, the Committee has progressed on the implementation of various priority projects, including taking steps to reform and register the Committee as an association (named the Lihir Kalsarel Eritij Asosiesen); the construction of men's houses in every primary school around the Lihir Islands to the strengthen the cultural studies program; the documentation of customary laws, oral histories, and the publication of the piil genre of stories in Lihirian language; and the commencement of a canoe-building project to revive carving skills and seafaring knowledge among younger men accustomed to traveling in motorized dinghies. Other projects include the development of digital archives, audio and visual recording of ritual performances, the repatriation of images of Lihirian artifacts stored in museums around the world, the documentation of sacred sites, involvement or attendance at national and international cultural shows, and further capacity-building programs for members of the Committee. So far many of these projects have been made possible through support from the mining company's Cultural Information Office, which has largely redefined its own programs to work collaboratively with the Committee. Ultimately, as a physical document the plan has proven to have practical and symbolic value for the Committee and represents a key step toward greater self-determination. It has also been instrumental in assisting the company to realign its cultural heritage program to better meet compliance objectives and the needs of local custodians of Lihirian cultural heritage.
CONCLUSION: FUTURE CHALLENGES AND DIRECTIONS
There are two principal challenges for the cultural heritage management process on Lihir. First, resource competition and ideological jealousy among other Lihirian institutions may promote the view of cultural heritage as a competing concept that must be either thwarted or absorbed within their own sphere of influence. Those leaders in control of the LSDP agreement package are the most likely actors in this process. Second, the cultural heritage management process may be suffocated by LGL itself through the tacit withdrawal of resources,Footnote 64 should it become wary of the potential for unacceptable financial risks through exposure to a community discourse about cultural heritage management—especially in relation to the management (or destruction) of sites through mine-associated activity. Ultimately, the emergence of another self-determining local organization will also increase the pressure on both the company and the LSDP agreement process for corporate compliance, transparency, and accountability.
Many resource companies have a tentative and often ambivalent relationship with the concept of cultural heritage and have often seen cultural heritage management as an obstacle to and potential critique of the development process.Footnote 65 Recent research in Australia has demonstrated that even though mining companies operate there within a seemingly stronger system of cultural heritage legislation (at least by comparison with present legislative environments in Melanesian countries), this has not necessarily produced a culture of compliance.Footnote 66 While this is somewhat related to the specific complexities and inconsistency of Native Title legislation and its application, many aboriginal groups entering into agreements with companies also lack sufficient capacity or bargaining power to adequately protect their cultural heritage. Even where communities have negotiated mining agreements that commit to the protection of cultural heritage, the viable management of cultural heritage is still dependent on sufficient and continuing support for activities and processes that go beyond site demarcation in order to promote and enhance the knowledge and practices that render these places meaningful. Where this support is absent, high levels of nominal compliance will fail to deliver “protection on the ground.”Footnote 67
Facilitating a cultural heritage management process that is designed to address corporate commitments and to establish new partnerships has inevitably drawn attention to some of the more problematic and politicized aspects of Lihirian cultural heritage, in particular damage to sacred sites, including the Ailaya. There can be little doubt that a coherent and articulate discourse about the meaning of cultural heritage has the potential to impose new expectations on LGL. At times this may cause delays and additional expenses to elements of the mining project, or perhaps prevent entirely certain elements of the project. It may even be the case that in the short term, cultural heritage issues will reignite old disputes or generate new conflicts and rifts between Lihirians, with LGL, or between other major stakeholders.
However, these risks have to be balanced against three further considerations: the risks to both LGL and to Lihir (and therefore to LGL's reputation) of the collapse of Lihirian cultural integrity, with implications for the social and political stability of the community; the fact that LGL has committed itself through the ICMM principles to respect cultural heritage; and the possibilities for new partnerships that create opportunities for meaningful dialogue, actions, and resolutions that move beyond minimal compliance and the compensation paradigm. The development of such management strategies creates the potential for LGL to enact its own projected image of a respectful and relatively harmonious relationship between project development, social stability and harmony, and cultural integrity. Moreover, even if current generations are willing to “trade” their heritage for development, future generations might not be so sanguine about the cultural changes and losses generated by mining and may well consider the destruction of sacred sites and any lack of investment in management programs as grounds for litigation.
LGL can ultimately extend beyond minimum compliance requirements through the implementation of the Lihir Cultural Heritage Management Plan and by developing the capacity of the Committee to manage their cultural heritage beyond the life of the mine. The significant social capital generated through the cultural heritage workshop is a valuable resource that LGL can use and further mobilize through visible and continuing support for the Committee. This signals the potential for creating spaces for new forms of engagement around cultural heritage, increased dialogue between LGL and other stakeholders (like the landowners association, the church, the women's association, and the local level government), and the opportunity to develop strong partnerships that address issues of concern to both LGL and the wider community.
This process is currently at an early stage, representing the initial steps toward innovative cultural heritage management in Lihir; however, it will require long-term commitment from LGL through the provision of resources, support, and funding. It also needs to be integrated within the broader development vision manifest in the LSDP agreement, which aims to develop Lihirian society through the maximization of mining benefits before mine closure. The development and integration of organizations such as the Committee can play a crucial role in this process. Questions over postmine social and economic sustainability must consider the long-term integrity of Lihirian cultural heritage. The proposed review of the LSDP benefits agreement in late 2010 presents the greatest opportunity to ensure that cultural heritage management is fully embedded within the LSDP program. The LSDP agreement provides a unique platform to foster a mutually beneficial public-private partnership between the company and the Committee, contributing toward wider compliance objectives and long-term support for cultural heritage. Otherwise cultural heritage management will potentially remain on the edge, to be cut loose at any opportunity. Only through an integrated approach will it be possible to reconcile potentially conflicting needs and aspirations, which as O'Faircheallaigh describes for the Australian context, are equally material, cultural, and spiritual.Footnote 68
