The Grasberg Mine, A joint venture between Rio Tinto and Freeport-McMoRan is one of the world’s largest single producers of both copper and gold, and contains the largest recoverable reserves of copper and the largest single gold reserve in the world. For over 40 years the mine at Freeport in West Papua has caused massive ecological destruction and inflicted appalling human rights abuses, ignoring the rights of the lands of the Amungme and Komoro peoples whose land it has plundered.

Some of the human rights violations on the local communities include:
– violation of the right to self-determination;
– violation of the right to life;
– disappearances, torture, execution and arbitrary arrest;
– violation of the right to be free of fear; and
– violation of children’s right to protection.

Some of the ecological destruction include:
– At least five mountains have been mined;
– the dumping of over 230,000 tonnes of tailings (toxic waste) into the Akjwa River each day which has damaged thousands of hectares of mangrove and sago forest;
– dangerous acid mine drainage; and
– will leave a legacy of over 2.7 billion tonnes of waste.

Both the New Zealand, Norwegian and Swedish Pension Funds have all divested from the Freeport McMoRan mine

Other info:
http://www.banktrack.org/…/grasberg_gold_and_copper_mine(BankTrack)

http://freewestpapua.org/…/the-envronmental-imacts-of…/(WALHI/Friends of the Earth Indonesia)

Selected articles about the Freeport mine (London Mining Network)
http://londonminingnetwork.org/?s=Freeport