I'm a draftsman that works for a construction company that builds a lot of the infrastructure for these mines. Recently I was looking at some maps with a civil draftee, and I asked him what all the red dots were all over the map. He said they were all Aboriginal heritage sites. There was a lot of them, scattered everywhere. It was like the map had chicken-pox.

So whilst I think it is important to protect this history, some of it can't be that important. I imagine that is what the traditional owners also thought when they signed the agreements. The article mentions "significant cumulative loss", which would become a problem when you sign away the rights to the lot.

But in the case of the cave that Rio Tinto destroyed, surely that was significant enough to protect and work around. I know that it wouldn't take long to design around such a requirement, which makes the outcome even more disappointing.