The Dhupuma Plateau in Northern Australia – a sprawling escarpment of red dirt and stringybark trees – is steeped in history. It’s where legendary Yolngu ancestor Ganbulapula looked up into the treetops, in search of native honeybees. It’s where Europeans built a space tracking station, where many prime ministers have visited, and where the Garma Festival is held. And it’s where the world’s first Indigenous bauxite mining company was born.
Why Indigenous mining matters
Australia is one of the world’s largest producers of bauxite ore, the blood-red raw material that goes into producing aluminium, a key component in spacecraft, renewable energy technologies and a huge range of everyday household uses.
Bauxite was discovered in Eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory in 1952 and today, the Gulkula Mining Company, founded and owned by the Gumatj Corporation, produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bauxite a year and has a mining training centre for local Aboriginal people. It also hosts a bustling native nursery for rehabilitating the landscape.
The company’s mining trucks, driven by Indigenous people, are emblazoned with the crocodile totem of the Gumatj clan – with the skills and economic benefits staying in the community.
A new report by researchers at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI), collaborating with Gumatj Corporation, documents the decades-long journey focusing on the Indigenous perspectives and experiences that come from an Indigenous-owned mine.
Principal author Rodger Barnes, from SMI’s Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, (CSRM) explained that the report contributes to broader research on Indigenous equity and ownership in mining projects, as well as the risks and opportunities for promoting self-determination.
“This transition from grappling at the margins of the mining economy to leading their own company is both a historical reckoning and a model for Indigenous empowerment elsewhere,” he said, “From a social responsibility in mining perspective, the Gulkula case highlights the outcomes possible when innovative approaches to Indigenous landowner participation are pursued in industrial operations.”
The report outlines how Dr G Yunupingu, the late visionary Yolngu leader and Australian of the Year, eventually spearheaded the formation of the world’s first Indigenous bauxite mining company – after living through the dark days when the Australian government carved out mining leases from the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve; seeing his fathers send the Yirrkala Bark Petitions to parliament; and participating in the first native title litigation in Australian history.
“I am trying to light the fire in our young men and women… we are setting fires to our own lives as we really should and the flame will burn and intensify, an immense smoke cloud-like and black will arise, which will send off a signal and remind people that we the Gumatj people are the people of the fire.”
Dr G Yunupingu.
Gumatj Corporation CEO Klaus Helms explained that collaborating with the researchers helped to cement the lessons learned along the way.
“Having the researcher keeping everything on paper, you have facts that were researched and tested, rather than just us saying ‘this is what we did’, and now you’ve got documentation on how it was done,” he said.
“I believe other mines should look at this as an example: Australian companies should look at joint venture partnerships or shareholding, so it doesn’t just turn into handouts.”
In the case of Gulkula Mining, the area had already been disturbed by previous construction work and timber operations and does not contain sacred sites.
Helms explained that the ownership over the process gives the Yolngu landowners the ability to rehabilitate in a meaningful way.
“It’s not just putting in what you took out, but enhancing that,” he said.
A former Gulkula company employee, anonymously quoted in the report, said that having Gulkula up and running was like a “flame had been lit” which has engaged all the community members and stakeholders.
“I think it's important that we, the new generation—people like myself— look back to how it all came about, where it started to where we are now, and what are the outcomes and achievements,” she said.
Local community working with global mining company Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto’s General Manager Gove Shannon Price explained the company’s long involvement with the evolution of Gulkula, including seed funding for the research done by CSRM.
“In 2011, Rio Tinto had signed the Gove Traditional Owners Agreement with the Gumatj, Rirratjingu and Galpu Traditional Owners before, through subsequent engagement with Gumatj, becoming a customer of the Gulkula mine in 2018,” she said, “In May 2018, senior Traditional Owners of the Gumatj clan witnessed the first shipment of their bauxite to China from Rio Tinto’s export wharf at Gove.”
Rio Tinto buys bauxite from Gulkula and exports it nationally and internationally. Building on the relationship and trust established, in October 2024, Rio Tinto signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Gulkula to contract mine the remaining bauxite resources on Rio Tinto’s nearby mine site.
Looking to the future
“We spend approximately A$94 million each year on a wide range of goods and services provided by local Indigenous businesses including earthworks and construction, fencing, maintenance, waste management, heritage services and environmental and land rehabilitation services,” Price said.
Each year, the Yolngu collect more than 400 kilograms of native seeds, and more than 15,000 native plants are grown in Rio Tinto’s regeneration nursery.
Looking to the future, the Gumatj Corporation has established the Gulkula Regional Training Centre with funding support from Rio Tinto, and the Australian and Northern Territory governments, which allows local Indigenous people to receive on-the-job training to build careers in mining and other related industries.
Outgoing Chief Executive Australia Kellie Parker at Rio Tinto, speaking at Garma Festival in 2024, explained that even as mining on the peninsula comes to a close, there will be new opportunities for the local community to grow, deepen, and prosper beyond our presence.
“We share and support this community's vision: to see the local region rejuvenated as a business and service hub for all of (Eastern) Arnhem Land… partnership will be critical to making this happen, and I truly believe that we’re all committed and united towards a common purpose,” she said.
Even as bauxite mining begins to wind down in the region, the impact of Gulkula Mining will continue reclaiming a sense of agency, restoring land, and lighting the fire of opportunity for future generations.
For more on SMI’s research
Working with indigenous communities: https://smi.uq.edu.au/article/2025/04/bringing-cultural-heritage-management-focus-top-end
Knowledge exchange around mine closure: https://www.csrm.uq.edu.au/publications/a-day-in-the-life-of-nabarlek-mine-rehabilitation-report-on-1-june-2023-visit-to-madjawarr-land-2
Rehabilitating red mud sites: https://smi.uq.edu.au/article/2025/07/smi-scientists-secure-over-1m-red-mud-research
