ABSTRACT
Being in a mining resource frontier at the periphery of the world capitalist system, PNG produces for the world market and imports to supply the home market. PNG has since followed a typical mining trajectory where the state takes the subsoil minerals while being vague about indemnifying indigenous peoples against resulting ecological devastations. Mining requirements for capital, labor and food for workers as well as the physical output of its operation integrates surrounding regions into a single socio-ecological sphere. In December 1992 the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) conducted an environmental investigation of OTML. According to ACF, the environmental regulation of the mine is based on monitoring compliance under a narrow range of standards established on the basis of OTML's own research which is insufficient to ensure the ecological viability of the Fly River socioecological region.
