Panguna mine

The mine was run by Bougainville Copper Ltd, controlled by the Rio Tinto group. It began producing in 1972 and by 1989 had yielded 3 million tonnes of copper and 9.3 million ounces of gold: 12% of Papua New Guinea's gross domestic product and over 45% of its exports. The tailings were discharged straight into the Kawerong and Jaba rivers, which carried them down to Empress Augusta Bay.

In 1988 an uprising led by Francis Ona, which grew out of landowners' grievances, halted the mine; it closed on 15 May 1989 and staff were withdrawn in March 1990. The conflict that followed killed more than 20,000 people. Pit, plant, levees and reagent stores were left as they stood. Rio Tinto gave up its shareholding in June 2016.

After a human rights complaint filed in 2020, Rio Tinto funded a two-year study. It found tailings all along the Kawerong-Jaba system, which will not return to its former state for at least a hundred years; two levee sections at risk of failure, with about 80 households exposed; unstable slopes in the pit; abandoned chlorine cylinders and fuel and reagent tanks; and soil contaminated above residential criteria at four locations in Anewa Bay.