Australian mine fight reignites Aboriginal heritage tensions

Wiradjuri elder Nyree Reynolds calls her home west of Sydney the valley of the Bilabula, the Indigenous name for its river. The river features in Wiradjuri stories about the creation of their land, she told state planning regulators, "And no one has the right to destroy this."

On her objections, the Australian government in August ordered miner Regis Resources to find a new dam site for a A$1 billion ($685 million) gold project on the grounds its proposed location for storing rock and chemical waste would irreparably harm culture attached to the river.

The decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek under a rarely used Aboriginal heritage protection law has stoked an outcry from mining groups who say Regis followed all legal processes and the decision raises sovereign risk for developers.

The government's action adds to the uncertainty miners have faced since iron ore giant Rio Tinto legally destroyed ancient Aboriginal rock shelters at Juukan Gorge four years ago and raises the urgency to overhaul heritage protection laws.

At least three other resources projects are facing review, like Regis did, under Section 10 of the law that allows Aboriginal people to apply to protect areas important to them when other legal avenues have failed.

"You can get all the state environmental approvals, all the federal environmental approvals and at the end of the process a Section 10, ... essentially a federal minister can ... make your project unviable," said Warren Pearce, CEO of the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies.

"That's the definition of sovereign risk."

While Reynolds objected to Regis' mine, a local Aboriginal group representing Wiradjuri people, authorised by the state to speak for cultural heritage, had concluded that impacts from the project could be managed.

Regis said in August it is considering its legal options after writing down the value of its project by more than $100 million.

The decision on Regis' project was the second by the government in as many months to back Indigenous groups over miners.

ERA, majority owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, is suing the government on procedural fairness grounds after it did not renew the miner's exploration lease on uranium rich land.

Government officials and some investors say developers need to engage earlier and more deeply with Indigenous groups when planning projects, but new laws governing heritage protection that would assist the process are yet to arrive.