Award-winning Kiwi filmmaker exposes New Caledonian mine disaster

Kanak activist Florent Eurisouke wades through toxic sludge on a customary fishing area seven weeks after an accident at a mine on Cap Bocage, New Caledonia. Photo / Jim Marbrook

Entertainment: Film maker Jim Marbrook's new documentary, set to grace our screens next year, will examine the impacts of a mining disaster in New Caledonia.

The documentary, Cap Bocage, follows indigenous Kanak socialist and environmental activist, Florent Eurisouke as he, and environmental organisation Mee Rhaari, bring a private New Caledonian mining company to justice for a marine accident which poisoned a customary fishing area in 2008.

Cap Bocage is the name of a rugged, nickel-rich cape which the Ballande family group have been mining since the 70s . On the 11 kilometre peninsula leading out to the cape, there are 11 open cast pits that drill into the ribbons of nickel running through the hill top.

It was a tailing pond at one of these sites that burst after a slew of heavy rainfall, in early January 2008. Toxic sludge spewed over the cliff and into Kanak customary fishing grounds below, leaving a red chemical cocktail trail that extended for 18 kilometres from the coast. The chemicals that entered the waters included manganese, nickel and cobalt, some of which are extremely toxic to marine life. Fish and crayfish were poisoned and the food basket of locals was ruined.

Arriving six weeks after the disaster, initially to film another project with the Pacific Media Centre, Marbrook said nothing had been done to remedy the impact of the tailings on the marine environment. His documentary, he says, "shows the first scenes of what we saw.'

Five long months of protest began, until the first remedial works finally began. Following that, the mining company and environmentalists became embroiled in a legal battle for the best part of a year. Eurisouke began the campaign with just 50 francs in his pocket.

Tribal elder, Jean 'Jojo' Neporo left his private contracting job at Ballande, losing the equivalent of 15,000 dollars in income to get involved in the struggle. His friends warned him, he said, that he would lose his job if he became involved. "I said, I do this for my children and my grandchildren."

At that time, says Marbrook, mines were governed by a set of archaic laws were drafted in the 1950s to govern the exploitation of minerals in French colonies. "The court-appointed expert told me that he thought the Ballande's Cap Bocage mine was badly managed when the accident happened."

Since the marine spill, new mining laws have been drafted up. Marbrook, however, says environmentalists are sceptical. "If you ask environmentalists if the rules are better, all of them would say yes. All of them would also say that they are rules set up for mining groups rather than environmentalists."

Other shoddy practises carried out by the mine include pushing for a road which cut across the shoreline, jeopardising a cave with 2000-year-old paintings. The road did not go ahead.

Marbrook says that for him the situation invoked the struggles of tangata whenua fighting for land rights. "The struggle to get the clean up done became more of a question of asserting that idea of mana whenua [responsibility over the land] and what I try to do in the film is play out that balance between having a mine and having jobs and having control over one's own lands.

Florent says the behaviour of French colonialists with regard to the mine is "a continuation of what France has done elsewhere in the Pacific, with Muroroa atoll and nuclear testing." He says he is looking forward to seeing the French reaction to the film. Marbrook was unable to interview anyone from the Ballande family, and was forbidden to talk about 'historical issues', including the 2008 marine spill, with other interviewed mine companies. "One thing that is apparent to me is the level of transparency that decisions in New Zealand seem to have is not the same as one would find in New Caledonia."

Florent says his aim is to fight for a better future for the Kanaki people including decolonisation and the safeguarding of their culture and their ways of life, and a future that works with the environment rather than exploits it.

Both Florent and Jojo were in the country last week supporting Jim Marbrook and putting the finishing touches to the film, which is scheduled to be finished early next year, in time for the New Zealand Film Festival. Jim Marbrook's documentary Dark Horse won Best Feature Documentary at the DOCNZ International Documentary Festival in 2005.

A note about nickel

15 per cent of global nickel supplies are found in New Caledonia, and the so-called 'green gold' is widely used in nickel steels, alloys and in electroplating.

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