International Seminar on Resources, Tribes & State

THE GOLD CURSE OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA

By Sabine Jell-Bahlsen and Georg Jell

To be presented at the International Seminar on Resources, Tribes and State organized by ARUNACHAL INSTITUTE OF TRIBAL STUDIES (AITS) at the RAJIV GANDHI UNIVERSITY, RONO HILLS, ITANAGAR, Arunachal Pradesh, India, February13-15, 2012.

Papua New Guinea is the independent part of the world’s second largest island, located in the Pacific Ocean just North of Australia, and known as “a mountain of gold in a sea of oil.” Our paper is based on research that began during our year-long residency at the country’s only Technical University in Lae. We are discussing several issues related to the nation’s gold resources and their exploitation: varied mining technologies and locations, the environmental impact, economics, human cost and gender issues, indigenous culture versus international corporate culture, state interferences, and urban development. One example is the industrial port city of Lae, founded during the gold rush of the 1920ies that inaugurated rapid urban development. Once gloriously known as the “Pearl of the Pacific”, the town experienced administrative expansion and suffered from the subsequent exhaustion of nearby gold mines entailing a reverse development.