Doco explores conflicts of nickel mining in New Caledonia

Transcript

The maker of a documentary that explores conflicts surrounding nickel mining in New Caledonia says he hopes it shows the complexity of the independence issue.

Director Jim Marbrook made the documentary 'Cap Bocage', which follows independence activist Florent Eurisouké as he and the environmental organisation Mèè Rhaari take on the mining company, Ballande, over toxic waste washing into customary fishing grounds.

The film was first shown at the New Zealand International Film Festival in July this year, and was shown again as part of the Pacific Journalism Review Conference last week.

Jim Marbrook spoke with Leilani Momoisea about the documentary, which he began filming in 2008.

JIM MARBROOK: So the main participant in the documentary is Florent Eurisouké, he's a bit of a radical. He's the person that led the movement to clean up a huge mudslide at the Cap Bocage nickel mine on the east coast of New Caledonia. And I think, I mean he's quite a guy, he's quite an interesting guy. He's confronting, he's funny, he's articulate and he's kind off, mostly self taught as well. So he was a very interesting guy that I thought would make a, who would make a good documentary. So I guess that's how it all started and I wanted to follow through his efforts to get the mudslide cleaned up, I mean it became a very complicated place, it became a very complicated situation.

LEILANI MOMOISEA: Through telling the story do you see the division between pro-independents and people wanting to stay with French territory?

JM: I think the idea of the division between those who want independence and those who don't want it. I think what the film tries to show is it's actually quite a complex situation. The idea of independence is also connected with nickel because the Northern Province does have a nickel mine that brings in quite a bit of money. And that may also, kind of, fuels autonomous position for the Northern Province. And of course the independence movement is a kind of uneasy bedfellow in many respects with the kind of environmental movement. Because where there's money there's nickel and there are some pretty stringent controls you've got to take when you are trying to protect the environment from open cast mining. If anything I just wanted to show that dialogue, I wanted to show that dialogue that people are having between staying as a kind of French territory and being independent. Staying with exploitive kind of mining or moving into a kind of more environmental view of protecting the environment. It's all kind of mixed up in New Caledonia. And I think through understanding the case of Cap Bocage we can latch onto a interesting, sometimes confronting character and also get an idea of all those complexities that someone whose just sitting down in a village on the east coast of New Caledonia has to live every day.

LM: What are some of those things that people have to live with as a result?

JM: Well one of the things that people on the coast of New Caledonia have to live with is a build up of silt from the hills. It's a laterite silt, it's red and it fills up a lot of the bays which are the catchments to nickel mining in the hills. The number of species that you get in those bays traditional fishing grounds, have diminished. It's harder to get crabs, it's lovely estuary kind of crabs, really nice to eat, it's harder to get those now. People have told me about disappearing kind of species of marine life as well. So that's a major effect that comes from open cast nickel mining.