The ambiguities of environmental conflict: Insights from the Tolukuma Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea

In this article we propose that environmental conflicts in developing countries are caused not so much by environmental degradation - as suggested in much of the literature on environmental security - but by the unequal distribution of outcomes arising from environmental degradation and the processes that cause it. We then seek to inform this theoretical proposition through a review of research on conflicts surrounding mining in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and through a case study of socioenvironmental impacts of, and local responses to, the Tolukuma Gold Mine (TGM) in PNG. We show that the unequal distribution of environmental impacts and compensation payments caused by the mine has created conflicts between landowners and the mine, and among landowners. These conflicts are at present largely nonviolent. The case broadly supports the proposition that inequality is a critical factor in ostensibly "environmental" conflicts.