Like, how was all of that?

What an exciting but also a journey of disagreements, and lots of conversation to get it right to where it is today.

We started filming in 2019, so it's a long, long road.

I think one of the other reason too was we were hoping that in the short five years we'd be able to win that battle, you know? So it's like, yay, there's a victory at the end.

But it just carried on because we were also operating always on a shoestring budget.

So whenever there's funding available, they fly off to WeWork.

The guys are fantastic.

But look, tell us a bit about Project SIPC's role in supporting some of the local communities there, but also advocacy work.

That's why I am going to go back and say my present in the Pacific because what led to Bougainville conflict was the, is worst, like in the Pacific post-World War II, and it is a good story to keep reminding the conference and any humanity who live on land [laughs] that my present is your future if we don't take care of the environment.

The question of who gets to, uh, give consent or who gets to decide, um, is really up for contention.

There are lots of people with interest, um- The company has its own interest, members of parliament have their own interest, the government, as opposed to the members of parliament, have their own interest.

Other proponents of the mine have their own interest.

Maybe one or two people, uh, in villages s- in within the area of the mine have their own interest.

But ultimately, um, I think when everybody gets together and it's a collective concern about the possibilities of, uh, danger, the possibilities of the threats that are real, for instance, um, the possibility of the dam to break and destroy, uh, annihilate entire river system, um, life forms, those collective concerns and threats gives power to whether to say yes or no.

And it's ultimately clear in, in the case for the people of Sepik River and their river, they continue to resist and say, "We do not want this." And I don't think a scientist in Australia or a scientist in Germany, uh, can come up with, "Oh, we can do deep sea tailings placement, and it, it, um, it safeguards, uh, the tailings and leakage into the river," or any other scientist, an oceanographer or, or someone who knows about volcanic, um, and earthquake can, can say, "Look, this is based on science." Because we heard yesterday that science are facts and science are real.

Manu?

What are the major concerns around that?

Our first and foremost concern was the possibility of the dam to break given where we are on the Ring of Fire and how it's one of the most seismically active places in the world.

We were also surprised and we also knew about corporate tactics and corporate bully because when the company submitted the environmental impact statement, It chose not to include the environmental, the dam break analysis.

And it has to take us more than four years to argue, even using the Organization for Economic Cooperation's conflict or mediation process through the Australian government's NCP, the National Contact Point, to demand and get them to release the dam break analysis.

That says so much about the company and so much about the risks.

Why would they hide the document or tactically exclude the document to make it public? And even to this date, not a lot of people have seen that document.

That would be the main risk would be the possibility of the dam break, which is highly likely.

So just as we wind towards the close, can you tell us a bit more about the Sukundimi Declaration?

Mm-hmm.

Why would they hide the document or, um, tactically exclude the document to make it public? And even to this date, not a lot of people have seen that document.

That would be the main, uh, risk would be the possibility of the dam break, which is highly likely.

Uh, number two would be even before any kind of infrastructure is built, they have to clear the place.

Um, the overburden, all of those, the trees, the, the soil, the rocks, where will it go? It will displace the water, and so we won't have a river.

We will just have a, a, uh, a floodplain.

It's just massive water all over the place.

So, uh, just as we wind towards the close, can you tell us a bit more about the Sukundimi Declaration?