• Communities in Papua New Guinea filed a lawsuit asking for a review of an environmental permit awarded in 2020 to companies for the Wafi-Golpu copper and gold mine. But a decision from the country’s Supreme Court had been delayed several times, before happening on June 12, even as other officials have signaled the government’s apparent support for the project.
• The villages are located near the outflow of a proposed pipeline that would carry mining waste, or tailings, from the mine and into the Huon Gulf.
• The companies say the method, known as deep-sea tailings placement (DSTP), would release the waste deep in the water column, below the layer of ocean most important for the fish and other sea life on which many of the Huon Gulf’s people rely.
• But community members are concerned this sediment and the potentially toxic chemicals it carries could foul the gulf — risks they say they were not adequately informed of.

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