Access to land

Aboriginal Traditional Owners claim native title rights throughout the Pilbara region of Western Australia and Rio Tinto Iron Ore's interests currently affect 12 specific native title claims.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore's approach to native title is to establish mutually beneficial relationships with local Aboriginal communities and negotiate land use agreements consistent with native title legislation.

The approach is guided by Rio Tinto's policy to build relationships with neighbours based on mutual respect, active partnership, and long term commitment.

Establishing individual mines often involves more than one native title claimant group and establishing infrastructure can involve up to five or more groups. We are currently undertaking a large Pilbara expansion programme, including brown field and new mine developments in the Pilbara. This requires approval from native title claimants and provides an opportunity to enter additional agreements with native title parties.

In the Pilbara, RTIO seeks to enter a number of new indigenous land use agreements that will secure the collective rights and interests of all parties involved, while allowing developments to proceed smoothly. The agreements will deliver considerable benefits and opportunities to local communities and will seek to comprehensively address issues of importance.

During 2006, a number of Binding Initial Agreements (BIAs) were entered into between RTIO and some individual claim groups. There are two types of BIAs that have been agreed: claim-wide BIAs, which relate to mine developments across the breadth of a group's country, and project-specific BIAs, which concern the Hope Downs mine.

BIAs have settled an amount of compensation in relation to the company's impacts and make a commitment to progress towards indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs). The final agreements will address Traditional Owners' wider aspirations for the present and the future, as well as sustainability issues affecting the long-term implementation of the agreements.

The making of indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs) under the Native Title Act demonstrates that these agreements can deliver certainty for the company and the prospect of a better future for traditional owners of the land.