An independent audit of Rio’s cultural heritage management,sparked by the Juukan Gorge debacle,found areas where the miner was achieving leading cultural heritage practices but also identified points where it needed to improve its performance.
The audit by international sustainability firm ERM Consulting looked at 37 of Rio’s assets in Australia and around the world and found 81 instances of non-conformance and 60 areas for improvement,providing the company with 144 recommendations which the mining giant said it would adopt in full.
Rio’s blasting of Juukan’s 46,000-year-old rock shelters in May 2020left the land’s traditional owners devastated,prompting international condemnation from key investors and a global outcry that ultimately lead to chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques and two of his deputies stepping down.
The $164 billion ASX-listed miner has apologised and acknowledged the number of failures that caused the destruction of one of Australia’s most significant archeological and cultural sites on the land of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people. Chief executive Jakob Stausholm,who took over in 2021,said in the years since the rock shelters were destroyed,“we have been changing the way we work in every part of our business”.
‘We know we have more work to do and the report gives us areas for further improvement across our global operations,and we will adopt all of its recommendations.’
Kellie Parker,Rio Tinto’s Australia chief executive
The audit found Rio’s efforts to introduce better cultural management at its Australian iro ore assets after the Juukan disaster were not as widespread in other parts of its business.
“Typically,the findings related to gaps in the design and implementation of an asset’s cultural heritage management system,the framework that guides on-ground,day-to-day management of a mine’s cultural heritage,” the audit said.