Podcast 2 - Extractavism: What Does It Look Like Around The Globe

Beyond Mining Series

MODERATOR: Saruul Tovuusuren is a lawyer who is also the founder and chair of the Board of Representatives of Eco Culture Foundation and Universal Rights and Development NGO. Saruul is a policy researcher and legislator who is interested in strengthening the rights of people and the environment and has been a long-term environmental campaigner in her home country of Mongolia.
PANELISTS
Sukhgerel Dugersuren is the Chair of OT Watch, an NGO formed to monitor compliance of Rio Tinto’s copper-gold-silver mine in Mongolia and other mines with international environmental and human rights standards. She is also active in engaging with the MDBs on human rights and development issues, assisting local communities demand remedy for violations of rights through their grievance mechanisms (IAMs). As part of her human rights work, she engages with the UN mechanisms, international and national level advocacy, including work on a law draft for the protection of HRDs/WHRDs in Mongolia.
Piter Medda Pagawak is a West Papuan activist based in Melbourne who came to Australia as a refugee nine years ago due to his political activism in his home country. In Australia he is involved in the Free West Papua campaign for a free and independent West Papua. This campaign aims to draw global attention to the brutal military occupation of his home country by the Indoneisan government and to highlight the ongoing genocide of its peoples.
Ayesha is a second generation Kashmiri living in Australia who is a human and womens rights activist.
Manal Younus is an Australian based freelance storyteller from Eritrea who believes that language and stories are the very fabric of our existence. Using her writing and performance, Manal explores different aspects of life from perseverance, identity, travel and truth. She speaks on a vast number of issues including youth leadership, gender and female empowerment, faith, blackness, culture, language, migration, displacement, racism and interculturalism.
Porobibi is a West Papuan human rights activist with a deeply rooted connection and understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, being & doing, which greatly informs his work. His involvement in advocacy work mobilises community, intersecting between community development and community organising.
Porobibi’s role as the Creative Director at the United Struggle Project has allowed for Indigenous voices to be amplified within creative spaces through The Change theatre and many different creative projects. Additionally, his work has involved organising and campaigning on the frontline with anti-war organisation Wage Peace. He has also been involved and assisting the direct action which occurred during Blockade IMARC in 2019.
He strongly values the notion of decolonisation and integrating Indigenous knowledge into his organising and honours his motherland of West Papua through his work.