## 7.4 Devising an Autonomous Pathway for the Future of Waste Governance

We have shown how the modes and levels of waste governance have rapidly evolved in New Caledonia and how European models have influenced them. Nonetheless, the question remains whether these methods, especially if only marginally adapted to the local reality, can contribute to New Caledonia's waste management improvement. We believe that these management models tend to neglect specific issues unique to New Caledonia, which we will discuss. These factors should also be taken into account when issuing a call for future research.

### 7.4.1 Better Understanding Social Practices and Waste Practices

The social norms regarding waste and waste materials in New Caledonia, briefly mentioned above, remain poorly documented. Research in discard studies has established that waste is a relational reality: one person's waste is another's resource. This does not translate into New Caledonia's regulations and technical practices, which tend to ignore the complex social practices surrounding waste for the local population. As a consequence, they suggest a uniformly gloomy waste situation in Kanak communities and in the rural and island municipalities that tend to have the highest percentages of Kanak populations (Belep, Île des Pins, Ouvéa, Lifou, Houaïlou, Poya and so on).

New Caledonia is characterised by a culture of scarcity. This is partly due to it being an archipelago and partly to the impoverishment of a segment of its population, the effects of which are visible right across the territory. In reality, this culture governs the possibility of implementing sensible waste policies. There are seemingly endless examples of this, and we will consider but a few. The fact that New Caledonia is an island territory distant from part of the international exchange of goods means that spare parts for the repair and maintenance of technical objects are often lacking. One way to deal with this is to conserve anything that could potentially serve as a spare part. This applies to all kinds of manufactured products, especially more expensive ones, such as vehicles. The result of this double shortage is that the landscape is peppered with scrap vehicles. It can also lead to conflict when technicians attempt to remove these objects, which they consider to be sources of chemical pollution as well as health challenges (they serve as mosquito nests) and visual hazards. Such conflicts exemplify conflicting conceptions of waste. On the one hand, there are practices that reflect a socioeconomic reality in which all objects are potentially useful; on the other hand, there is an environmental technical logic according to which every object must be in its rightful place.

Implicitly, these are items absent from both waste collection and household spaces because they are reused despite the risks associated with them. Even though plastic packaging is ubiquitous in consumer goods, it is absent from waste collection in tribal regions. However, a part of this packaging gets reused. Plastic bottles are used as ice packs in freezers, which the materially poor use to conserve food from hunting, fishing and gardening. Other types of packaging are used to start and maintain domestic and agricultural fires: for example, tyres are used in crop burning on wild yam [bambounias] plantations. Plastic in all forms is highly appreciated in the rainy season, but it is flammable in all conditions. Although technicians generally encourage reuse practices, they condemn burning because of the health and environmental impacts. The technicians' response is partly aimed at spreading awareness of the dangers of such practices for oneself and one's family. However, because this response is not a long-term solution to resource shortages, provinces and municipalities are looking for other options. The North Province is currently considering making impounds open to the public so that people can salvage items that have been adequately treated against pollution and will not serve as a breeding ground for mosquitos.

These examples demonstrate a purely technical approach to waste, which does not account for the variety of long-standing local practices and is destined to present entirely logical practices as irrational or retrograde behaviours.

### 7.4.2 Re-politicising Waste Governance

These questions are significant because contemporary waste governance in New Caledonia is marked by a technical, modernising rationality that is presented as apolitical. It informs the normalisation process occurring in waste management, visible in the relationship between New Caledonia and metropolitan France. France imposes a management model on New Caledonia through technical and organisation engineering. Infrastructural solutions (such as landfills and civic amenity sites) and institutional and financial ones (like inter-municipality associations and recycling chains) are very similar to the French model, including the words used to qualify the various infrastructures and services. This kind of normalisation process occurs within New Caledonia as well: the policies of the South Province not only generate momentum with respect to the other provinces but also provide a normative framework for them. Although these normalisation practices are not inherently problematic, they perpetuate forms of domination – such as through technical expertise. They also naturalise waste management practices. At the same time, certain assumed norms are not questioned. In the following, we discuss two examples.
First, actors in waste management systematically distinguish between consumption and waste, as though they were not fundamentally connected. Is all consumption of food, electronic goods, etc. legitimate in New Caledonia? Is all its waste ethically justifiable? These questions are not posed, even though the import economy makes it possible for the territory to be very selective regarding the products it chooses to import. This has resulted in a preference for generic instruments that have framing effects on the management and social existence of wastes. These instruments are always “end-of-pipe” solutions, which do not address the issue of prevention. In these solutions, waste is presented as a certainty to be addressed using technical fixes.

As for the second example, the focus on household waste overlooks the enormous amount of residual waste generated by nickel mining and processing, which is relatively absent from the public debate. It is widely known that nickel scoria has been and continues to be used in levelling and landscaping work. Nouméa is largely built on these vast expanses of waste, which have been used to extend land into the ocean and to fill in mangroves. Nevertheless, this fact rarely features in public debate, just like any discussion of mining waste itself. This is not to mention that these materials are hazardous but merely to express surprise at the lack of a debate about them.

This surprise is probably timely. There is reason to believe that the politics of waste are changing in the context of the broader debate over New Caledonia's future. For example, in 2019, the Congress of New Caledonia passed a law intended to prohibit various plastic products from being brought to market. Among those prohibited from being produced or imported are plastic bags, disposable tableware, cotton swabs and takeout food trays. This law points to the tension between consumption and environmental protection. Images of turtles wounded by plastic straws, or fish that have suffocated after mistaking plastic bags for jellyfish, have done much, even at the margins, to focus political discussions on waste, both in New Caledonia and the South Pacific more broadly.

### 7.4.3 Waste Beyond the Borders of New Caledonia

The consideration given to plastics at the regional level demonstrates, for the first time, an agreement on the issue of waste. Above all, it repositions the issue beyond the borders of New Caledonia and, more broadly, in the Pacific.

Regional cooperation in the South Pacific has generated reflection on the issue of waste, which is a common point of concern among the islands of Oceania. Since the quantity of residuals (mainly plastic) first rang alarm bells washing up on their coastlines and by the problems resulting from cruise

tourism, island territories have grown increasingly concerned about the issue of waste (Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility 2018). All of these territories face the conundrum of coping with residual materials produced from modern modes of consumption and having difficulty reclaiming and recycling secondary materials because the small amounts produced pose a barrier to their integration in recycling chains. The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the main intergovernmental organisation for environmental cooperation in the Pacific Islands region, has begun to include – in addition to the issues of biodiversity, climate change and pollution – the issue of waste on its agenda. SPREP's Clean Pacific Roundtable, held in Suva in 2016 and Fiji in 2018, is set to take place in New Caledonia in 2020. The organisation of this roundtable indicates that waste is being recognised as a subject of regional interest that calls for new forms of cooperation and intervention. SPREP works to finance action plans on hazardous waste – the PacWaste Project (Pacific Hazardous Waste Management Programme) and PacWastePlus – and to adopt strategic management frameworks, such as Cleaner Pacific 2025. In addition, SPREP pushes countries in the Pacific Islands region to ratify the Basel and Waigani Conventions, thereby taking on a governance role and working with countries to solidify a regional waste regulatory framework.

New Caledonia occupies a somewhat paradoxical position in this context. We have discussed the fact that the territory is not able to manage its waste locally. Hazardous waste is shipped to Australia and New Zealand, and there are challenges to integrating reusables in the globalised recycling economy. Secure waste management and recycling thus play out in part beyond New Caledonia's borders. The circular economy cannot be entirely conceptualised at the territory scale as restricted as that of New Caledonia. Instead, it must consider itself within the context of a globalised waste system structured by the large Asian (Chinese and Japanese) and Oceanian economies.

In comparison with the region's other countries (not including New Zealand and Australia), New Caledonia's waste management is considered technically sophisticated and marked by French expertise and technical and institutional engineering. At the same time, however, its attachment to France (with a particular legal status and governance, language barriers and a higher level of wealth) distances the country from regional organisations. For example, as a French territory, New Caledonia is not eligible for ACP (Organisation of African, Caribbean and the Pacific States) financing from the European Union nor can it participate in the Cleaner Pacific 2025 programme. Thus, New Caledonia is confronted with broader issues related to the problems posed by its political status for its ability to develop strong regional agreements.
## 7.5 Conclusion

Our analysis of waste governance in New Caledonia is not exhaustive, but specific points have been clearly established. Waste management is a multi-tiered process that involves multiple levels of power. It is essentially the provinces and municipalities and their affiliated groups that bear primary responsibility for waste management. The importance of the territorial level cannot be overstated in two ways. It organises environmental and pollution policy, resulting in the creation of a de facto national environmental policy.

In New Caledonia, waste management is still characterised by a lack of consistency at all levels of government. Is the time suitable for developing the “right” degree of governance to handle waste or making recommendations to improve waste management, planning and coordination of regulation? Analysing governance responsibilities reveals that waste concerns are frequently addressed and defined by default in the context of health, pollution or international law, particularly when it comes to hazardous waste. To solve this, perhaps the objective should be better to understand waste’s social presence in New Caledonia, define it openly and establish ethical and innovative management methods. To do so, we must first have a deeper understanding of the forces at work in what is said or kept unsaid regarding garbage in New Caledonia, and then utilise that understanding to uncover the social, political and economic mechanisms that would otherwise remain concealed.

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<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>
# Conflicts and Legitimacy of Environmental Organisations Facing Mining Projects in New Caledonia-Kanaky

Matthias Kowasch and Julien Merlin

## Abstract

This chapter deals with conflicts and the legitimacy of environmental associations in conflict with, or holding to account, recent nickel projects in New Caledonia-Kanaky – Goro Nickel in the South and Koniambo in the North. Based on the concepts of environmental justice and resource conflicts, and on environmental management provisions, we discuss how environmental associations dealing with mining impacts raise their voice, gain legitimacy and intervene in environmental monitoring. The organisations CEK/Environord, ŒIL, CCCE and Rhéébù Nùù pursue different approaches and strategies. CEK was internal to the mining company KNS (Koniambo Nickel SAS) before becoming more “independent” under the label “Environord” (despite continuing financing from KNS). Rhéébù Nùù aimed to fight against the Goro Nickel project in the South before signing a pact with the Brazilian group Vale, with royalties and community benefits. ŒIL is advised by an independent scientific committee which gives it broader legitimacy. Its environmental monitoring allows it some participation in the project, but decision-making remains with the mining operators. Despite the important actions of these NGOs, the independence party FLNKS and the upheavals in 2020 around the selling of the Goro Nickel smelter show that political authorities in New Caledonia-Kanaky are trying to obtain greater control over nickel extraction, processing and exportation themselves.

## Keywords

Environmental monitoring · Environmental impacts · Nickel production · Conflict · Indigenous rights · Legitimacy

## 8.1 Introduction

Large-scale mining projects have been shown to lead to extensive environmental damage, social upheavals and widening economic disparities (Bebbington et al. 2018; Dunlap 2019; Kowasch 2018). Landscape modifications introduced by mining include pits, waste piles, built structures (e.g. motorways, bridges) and geomorphological phenomena (e.g. debris fans and turbid rivers) (Bridge 2004).

Major environmental impacts include metal-mining wastes, and UNESCAP (1992) divides these into physical and chemical forms. Physical pollution results from the egress of particulates into the atmosphere, into water or onto land. However, chemical pollutants (such as chrome, mercury or cyanide) are the primary focus of objections to mining activities. According to Horowitz et al. (2018, p. 4), “the environmental legacies of decades of un-regulated mining and the need for long-term monitoring of post-mining landscapes have only recently come into focus”. Widespread environmental impacts often disproportionately affect the land-based livelihoods of nearby communities (Downing et al. 2002; Horowitz et al. 2018). Indigenous communities rarely benefit from large-scale mining operations, and the social arena of the projects can be described as inherently unequal. Mostly layered on centuries of exploitation, mining companies usually fail to invest benefits locally (Bebbington et al. 2008, 2018; Yeh and Bryan 2015). Therefore, local peoples living close to mine sites are often victims of major environmental and social impacts (Freudenburg and Wilson 2002; Sachs and Warner 1995). Generally, an analysis reveals the historical reasons for this process of becoming vulnera-

M. Kowasch (✉)
University College of Teacher Education Styria, Graz, Austria

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Hamar, Norway
e-mail: matthias.kowasch@phst.at

J. Merlin
UMR PACTE, French National Centre for Scientific
Research (CNRS), Grenoble, France
e-mail: julien.merlin@outlook.com
ble or why people become “victims” of environmental dam-
age (Füssel 2006; Porto 2012). Vulnerability refers to uneven
power relations of actors involved in resource extraction,
sometimes leading to what Harvey (2003) called “accumula-
tion by dispossession”. By expelling a resident population to
create a landless proletariat, land is released “into a privatized
mainstream of capital accumulation” by (private) companies
(*ibid*, p. 149).

Transnational mining companies have identified achiev-
ing a “(social) license to operate”, that is, gaining social
acceptance, as a major risk to their businesses (EY 2018).
The industry is under tremendous pressure to improve its
social and environmental performance (IIED 2019) and
“social and environmental corporate responsibility”, but the
definition of responsibility is itself controversial (Dahlsrud
2008). The mining sector considers local economic stability
and environmental protection as requirements for making
non-renewable resource extraction more sustainable (Bridge
2004; Esteves 2012). But as Bebbington et al. (2018, p. 1)
highlight, definitions “…differ based on the degree to which
analysts emphasise goals of poverty and income inequality,
environmental justice, gender equity, or human and citizen-
ship rights”.

Companies have, of course, invested in new technologies
aiming to improve ecological and economic efficiency, but
dialogue and the development of “partnerships” with civil
society groups have no straightforward templates or a guar-
antee of success (Zhouri 2015; Zhouri and Laschefski 2010).
The International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM)
was founded by the mining sector in 2001. The council
brings together 25 of the world’s leading miners and metal
processors, comprising Glencore, Vale and other multina-
tionals. It is a sort of “club” of self-styled responsible mining
companies (Bebbington et al. 2008; Kowasch 2018) that
requires a commitment to ten principles that include the inte-
gration of sustainable development in corporate strategy
(principle 2) and the improvement in environmental perfor-
mance issues (principle 6). The principles of ICMM give the
extractive industry sector a coat of green paint, so that much
of the discussion regarding how to manage mining more
effectively and with less environmentally destructive tech-
niques has emphasised the importance of institutions and
better governance (Karl 2007; Humphreys et al. 2007;
Bebbington et al. 2018). The ICMM can be seen as a step to
promote Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the
resource sector. However, there is no external independent
control of the measures and rules established by the council.
Critical scholars such as Schwartz (2011) and Brock and
Dunlap (2018) argue that CSR has to be contextualised
within a neoliberal toolbox designed to increase profits so
long as the activities stay within the rules of the game. By
taking the example of the Hambach coal mine in operated by

the German energy company RWE, Brock and Dunlap
(2018, p. 36) say the company tries to “maintain legitimacy
and ‘pacify’ opposition” around the mine.

Many authors have shown that science and expertise are
also political issues (e.g. Callon et al. 2009). Controversial
techno-scientific practices, and their development, raise
questions about democracy. In this chapter, we focus on min-
ing companies that take on the role of experts to measure the
effects of their own activities. They deploy a set of studies
and measurement devices and report on their environmental
impacts and their local dialogue with state administrations
and local populations. Hence, we want to ask – in the light of
the abundant negative characteristics of mining operations
and the profit orientation of multinational companies
(MCs) – can environmental organisations be locally legiti-
mate when they are funded by the company they are moni-
toring? Our broader objective is to discuss how mining
companies deal with controversial issues such as deforesta-
tion or toxic leakages and how they are involved in environ-
mental politics together with or against local associations.

As other chapters in this book show (see Chap. 9 by
Demmer and Chap. 2 by Rodary for example), New
Caledonia-Kanaky possesses around a quarter of worldwide
nickel reserves, and two major nickel processing plants were
built in the last 20 years: Goro Nickel and Koniambo. We
will explore how the two mining projects define the links
between their environmental impacts, their responsibilities
and political and democratic issues. The mining sector is at
the core of the decolonisation process and of claims by the
Kanak independence movement so that political questions
have to be raised within this chapter. Political issues are also
linked to environmental aspects of governance. We start with
a discussion of environmental justice approaches and a pre-
sentation of our methods used, before giving a short history
of the Goro Nickel and Koniambo projects and their environ-
mental monitoring. The chapter finishes with a discussion of
critical voices, scientific engagement in environmental mon-
itoring and the impacts of the decolonisation process on min-
ing politics.

8.2 Resource Governance and Conflicts

In their book on *Governing Extractive Industries*, Bebbington et al. (2018) analyse the contemporary politics of resource governance in Peru, Bolivia, Ghana and Zambia. They caution against seeing too much convergence across their case studies but conclude that some key elements of transnational couplings hinge around: “colonialism and post-colonialism; global commodity prices and domestic political and economic dynamics; state capitalism and neoliberalism; and corporate strategy and new investors” (Bebbington et al.
2018, p. 200). The authors highlight that in all four countries, resource extraction is still associated with the exercise of colonial power and conflicts, which was also the case in New Caledonia-Kanaky until the construction of the Koniambo smelter in the North.

A number of concepts link resources and conflicts, such as “resource wars” and the “resource curse” (Bridge 2004; Le Billon 2012, 2015; Watts 2004). Cooper (2006) argues that resource war narratives fade out the sociopolitical history and context of conflicts, which is shaped and overlaid by religious, environmental, political and/or social tensions. However, mining can be a catalyst and a driver for conflicts shaped by (capital) accumulation by dispossession and uneven benefit distribution. We suggest that resource conflicts can enhance, revive, intermingle with and/or shape (existing) tensions over land, customary issues, identity and religion. Conflicts are often driven by issues of social and environmental (in)justice, by marginalisation, and different perceptions of nature. According to Escobar (2006, p. 9), “many communities in the world signify their natural environment, and then use it, in ways that markedly contrast with the more commonly accepted way of seeing nature as a resource external to humans and which humans can appropriate in any way they see fit” (cited in Le Billon 2015). An appropriation of nature includes forms of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey 2003) through “land grabs” by globalised corporations for resource extraction, extensive cattle farming or conservation. There are parallels between contemporary reports on “accumulation by dispossession” and historical enclosures under earlier phases of capitalism (Glassman 2006). Capitalism, just like neoliberalism, is inherently an environmental project. The hybrid “socio-natural” character of resources themselves reveals the complexity of conflicts.

A complex (post)colonial context in New Caledonia-Kanaky influenced mining development in the North of the country. Le Billon (2015, p. 182) defines “the idea that people in general will ‘naturally’ fight over resources rather than find cooperative solutions” as a “pathologization of social conduct in relation to resource control”. Major struggles emerge over resources because the transformation of uneven power relations is at stake (Bryant and Bailey 1997). In New Caledonia-Kanaky, we will show that “resistance” to mining and smelting, sometimes violent, has helped negotiation and rethinking of some aspects of projects. Resistance and violent opposition often emerge when local people are not respected, or the way in which the negotiations are conducted is unsatisfactory for local communities. The Goro Nickel example shows how (violent) opposition can turn into negotiation and cooperation, which does not mean that conflicts are avoided or that uneven power relations no longer remain.

Many Indigenous people in the world claim their rights to the land of ancestors impacted by mining and other eco-

nomic projects. The Goro Nickel project is also an example where Indigenous Kanak people used the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2007 as a bargaining tool, since in Article 28.1:

(...) indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that can include restitution or, when this is not possible, just, fair and equitable compensation, for the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed consent. (UN 2008, p. 10)

## 8.3 Environmental Justice and Management

Historical processes of environmental degradation and resource dispossession are a component of environmental injustice (Le Billon and Duffy 2018; Pellow et al. 2001). New Caledonia-Kanaky was mined from the 1860s onwards (Bencivengo 2014), and for decades, “Société Le Nickel” (SLN) – a French company founded in 1880 (Filer and Le Meur 2017) and today a subsidiary of the multinational group Eramet – had a monopoly on nickel processing. Its smelter, Doniambo, was inaugurated in 1910 as the only processing plant until the construction of Goro Nickel and Koniambo around a hundred years later. The Indigenous Kanak were excluded from working in the nickel sector for many decades. Only after World War II did they get jobs, for example, as truckdrivers. In addition, subcontracting arrangements for Kanak enterprises have grown since the 1990s, with the development of more mines in the North Province (Le Meur et al. 2012).

Environmental justice (EJ) goes to back to Robert D. Bullard who campaigned against environmental racism in the USA. Bullard et al. (1997, p. 65) highlighted that the EJ framework rests “on an ethical analysis of strategies to eliminate unfair, unjust, and unequitable conditions, and decisions”. An unequal distribution of burdens and benefits often applies to the extractive industries. While private and state mining companies seek highly profitable growth, Indigenous and other local peoples have been especially susceptible to marginalisation and the destruction of livelihoods (O’Faircheallaigh 2013). Indigenous communities, who often lack political influence because of their small numbers combined with discrimination and social disadvantage, rely heavily on land and natural resources affected by mining activities. Moreover, they are vulnerable to the settlement of immigrant populations.

Distributive justice has not favoured Kanak communities (Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020). According to Schlosberg (2004), distributive justice is one of three core elements of radical environmental justice (EJ)—together with recognition-
based and procedural justice (see also Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020). There are (unequal) distribution of burdens and (financial) benefits related to environmental interventions, including extractive operations. Distributive justice includes principles such as vulnerability, need and responsibility. Originators of environmental destruction should take responsibility for their actions and fix the problem and/or compensate those who have endured the burdens (Walker 2012).

In general, the balancing of costs and burdens of mining development against opportunities (jobs, subcontracting, royalties, etc.) has rarely been balanced. Indigenous people often lack capacity to influence and set the terms under which mining operations occur on their lands. O'Faircheallaigh (2018) has developed criteria for evaluating agreements that have emerged from negotiations between Aboriginal peoples and mining companies in Australia. The criteria, which can be applied elsewhere, include the dimensions of environmental management, cultural heritage protection, rights and interests in land, financial payments, employment and training and business development. The dimension of environmental management is particularly interesting for this chapter. For assessing environmental management provisions, O'Faircheallaigh (2018) sets up eight criteria from -1 to +6. The worst case are provisions that limit existing rights of Indigenous and local people. In the best case, Indigenous people have the capacity to act unilaterally to deal with environmental issues associated with the mining project (Table 8.1).

According to Wang (2015), criteria 4, 5 and 6 may represent an opportunity for Indigenous communities to redress long-standing grievances and to gain customary legitimacy among their members. Local (traditional) knowledge and experience should form part of sustainable environmental management, in which case Indigenous people

can become active environmental agents, “contributing to surveillance of protected areas and their own communities through self-disciplining” (Wang 2015, p. 326). Empowerment and inclusion can amount to a reaffirmation of the otherness of Indigenous peoples (Wilder 1997). It can also play a critical role in reducing vulnerability of local communities that are “victims” of environmental impacts. From the perspective of multinational companies, environmental monitoring can be entrusted, in part, to local Indigenous communities to benefit from their knowledge but also to pacify tensions and conflicts. Companies can also strengthen customary and land legitimacy of Indigenous clans. But Indigenous communities often have no option to disengage. They do not have the option to move elsewhere since land is imbued with cultural identity and emotional significance (Horowitz et al. 2018). Thus, they may face the choice between resisting or negotiating some (financial and economic) benefits, perhaps with cooperation in environmental monitoring.

In the following section, we will see how claims and negotiations on environmental justice and monitoring, decolonisation and equal benefit sharing articulate in New Caledonia-Kanaky in the two large-scale nickel projects over the last 20 years.

## 8.4 Methods and Engagement

We carried out interviews between 2008 and 2022 with representatives of the environmental organisations (EIL (Observatoire de l'environnement Nouvelle Calédonie), CCCE (Comité Consultatif Coutumier Environnemental) and CEK (Comité Environment Koniambo)/Environord, with members of the customary committee “Rhéébù Nùù” and with representatives of the mining companies Vale and KNS (Koniambo Nickel SAS, a joint-venture between the Indigenous Kanak-driven company SMSP and Glencore). The number of interviewees was balanced between the different actors involved with a slight bias towards customary and NGO representatives (Environord, Rhéébù Nùù) and to Kanak people working in the mining sector. We posed questions on environmental impacts and monitoring, conflicts and benefit sharing. Most of the interviews were not recorded, because of their sensitivity. In addition to interviews, we conducted participatory observations at meetings and conferences including at the mines, with NGOs (such as Environord) and with politicians and customary representatives.

We both conducted our PhD research on mining governance in New Caledonia, including several months of fieldwork. In addition, one of the authors worked as a postdoc at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) in Nouméa and as a lecturer at University

<table><caption>**Table 8.1** Criteria for assessing environmental management provisions according to O'Faircheallaigh (2018) (modified)</caption><tr><td>-1</td><td>Provisions that limit existing rights</td></tr><tr><td>0</td><td>No provisions</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>Mining company commits to indigenous communities to comply with environmental legislation</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Company undertakes to consult with affected indigenous people</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Indigenous communities have a right to access, and independently evaluate, information on environmental management systems and issues</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Indigenous communities may suggest ways of enhancing environmental management systems, and mining operator must address their suggestions</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Joint decision-making on some or all environmental management issues</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Indigenous communities have the capacity to act unilaterally to deal with environmental concerns or problems associated with the project</td></tr></table>
of New Caledonia. He also lived for 2 years in the community of Baco in the neighbourhood of the Koniambo project, welcomed by a Kanak family. Over time, social relations have become real friendships, with many repeated visits (Kowasch 2014). This position raises challenges: it contributes to critical engagement (Fisher 2008) and a state of “between-ness” (Nast 1994), but care is needed when conducting ethno-graphic fieldwork and or consultancy (Kirsch 2018).

One author did do a consultancy study for KNS (see Rosner et al. 2016). He did not experience any restrictions in expressing his opinion in the final report and used the information for other research projects and publications without KNS's prior approval. KNS is keen to use the Koniambo project for economic and political emancipation and to engage with scientists. Having access to mining companies can provide a better understanding of their socio-environmental and political impacts. Some information is included in this chapter, and following Batterbury (2019) and Baird (2014), we both agree that engaged academic research can be useful.

## 8.5 Contextualisation of Two Major Nickel Projects: Goro Nickel and Koniambo

The nickel sector is the engine of the New Caledonian economy. Although it contributed only 4.1% to the New Caledonian GDP in 2017 (it has fluctuated between 3% and 9% over the last 10 years), the sector represented 91.4% of export values, rising to 93.9% in 2019 (ISEE 2020). An ISEE study on the impacts of nickel (2020) estimated that a quarter of private sector employees depend directly or indirectly on nickel exploitation in New Caledonia-Kanaky. The overall wealth generated by the nickel sector amounts to 1.15 billion euros, that is, 20% of the market wealth created in 2019. This includes activities directly or indirectly linked to the sector, including household consumption.

The extraction of nickel ores (saprolites) began to increase significantly in the 1950s, as Fig. 8.1 clearly shows, and is now at a historic high. However, laterite ores, present to the south of Noumea and fuelling the Goro Nickel project, were only exploited from the 1990s.

Figure 8.2 shows the ten largest producers of nickel ores worldwide and their production in the time span between 2017 and 2021. In 2017, New Caledonia-Kanaky was the fourth largest producer of nickel ores; in 2021, the Pacific archipelago is still at the fourth place, behind Indonesia (whose production is rapidly increasing), the Philippines and Russia. In 2022, New Caledonia-Kanaky produced 190,000 tons of nickel ores, compared to 186,284 in 2021 (Garside 2022; Reichl and Schatz 2023).

Ferronickel, which contains approximately 35% nickel and 65% iron, is the most important refined nickel product

from the territory. New Caledonia-Kanaky is the second largest producer of ferronickel worldwide, with a production share of 9.31%, but far behind Indonesia (53.3%). In 2019, 75% of metals exported were ferronickel, 16% NiO (nickel oxide), 7% NHC (nickel hydroxide cake) and 2% $CoCO_3$ (cobalt carbonate) (ISEE 2022). While the Koniambo smelter produces ferronickel (as does the old Doniambo processing plant in Nouméa), Goro Nickel's final products are NiO, NHC and $CoCO_3$.

### 8.5.1 Goro Nickel

In 2003, the Canadian mining company Inco (later to become Vale, which is the largest company worldwide based on 2017 production totals) started to build a processing plant in the South of New Caledonia on the Goro plateau, with a future annual production output of 60,000 t of nickel and 4500 t of cobalt (Fig. 8.4). The mine, with an area of approximately 21 ha, had a life expectancy of 29 years. It is open cast, and laterite ores are dug to a depth of 50–60 m (Mining Technology 2019). Nickel (oxide and hydroxide cake) and cobalt are delivered by a conveyor to the Prony Port, from where 4500 containers can be exported annually. After substantial delays during the construction, the processing plant and the mine opened in 2010. The shareholding was Vale (95%), and SPMSC (Société de Participation Minière du Sud Calédonien), a public mining holding company supported by the three provinces of New Caledonia-Kanaky, had 5% (Fig. 8.3).

The hydrometallurgical process of the Goro Nickel project means a discharge of wastewaters (36,000 m³ per day) including manganese and chrome into the New Caledonian fringing lagoon via a 24-km-long pipeline lying on the sea floor at a depth of 35 m. The wastewaters were a major reason why the project attracted violent protests by local Kanak clans and environmental organisations during its construction phase. To reduce environmental impacts, Vale Nouvelle-Calédonie declared that the group has invested about € 850 million for environmental monitoring and repairs or 21% of the total investment of the company (Vale 2016). But the most dangerous impact has been almost entirely ignored. According to Horowitz (2019), mercury used in the coal-fired power plant will contaminate seafood, upon which local communities depend for subsistence.

Several environmental incidents occurred and even led to suspending metal production for 6 months in 2012 following spills. Other environmental impacts include the damage of an oak forest located near the smelter in 2011 (particularly gum oaks, an endemic species) and the leak of an acid process solution in May 2014 in the creek of the North Bay, because of a human error: thousands of fish and shellfish died. In February 2019, the Nouméa Court ordered Vale to pay around
<figure><img src="image_35.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 8.1** Extraction of nickel ores from 1875 to 2020 in wet tons. (Sources: ISEE and DIMENC, adapted by Bouard (cited in Bencivengo and Bouard 2021))</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 8.2** Major countries in worldwide nickel ores production in metric tons from 2017 to 2022. (Source: Reichl and Schatz 2023)</figcaption></figure>

€ 92,000 to an environmental association for the moral and ecological damage suffered in two separate episodes (NC la 1ère 2019). This legal conviction was not the first one for Vale related to environmental damage. In practice, Vale never fully mastered the high-pressure-acid-lead (HPAL) technology used to convert ore to nickel oxides (Reuters 2018).

Despite the troubled history of the Goro Nickel project, the processing plant (Fig. 8.4) produced 2780 t of cobalt and 40,300 t of nickel in 2017, its sixth year of operation (Vale 2018; Reuters 2018). According to Eduardo Bartolomeo, the head of the company's base metals division, Vale commissioned a “very detailed study to know exactly why we can't
<figure><img src="image_37.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 8.3** Nickel mines and smelters in New Caledonia-Kanaky in 2020. (Source: https://georep.nc/, cartography: Kowasch 2020)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 8.4** Goro Nickel smelter. (Credit: Kowasch 2009)</figcaption></figure>
achieve our nameplate capacity” (Reuters 2018). The goal became to invest $500 million for the period 2019–2022 to get the plant operating at 50,000 t per year of nickel products (ibid. 2018; Horowitz 2019). The real incentive was the coming “electric vehicle revolution” (EVR), to turn its nickel division around. Indeed, nickel is vital to lithium batteries, in part at the expense of cobalt on price and supply stability grounds. Five years ago, however, this seemed to lie in the future, because batteries only accounted for approximately 5% of total nickel demand (ibid. 2018). Vale found big investment in the EVR to be risky at the time, although more recent events after they sold the mine proved them wrong.

In November 2019, between the first two referendums on political independence (in 2018 and 2020) (see Chap. 18 by Fisher in this book), Vale announced it would close the nickel refinery due to technical and financial problems. “We are unable to produce sufficient nickel. It is therefore better to limit the damage and close the processing plant with approximately 90 jobs than the entire operation in New Caledonia and leave 1,300 people on the street”, said Pierre Tuiteala, the manager of the Soenc-Nickel (employees and workers union in New Caledonia). Vale planned to maintain cobalt production, increase the amount of NHC (low-grade nickel) and export crude ores. Representatives of the Brazilian company presented their strategy to the New Caledonian parliament and explained that the planned exports of raw ores should be around two million tons per year. However, exporting raw ore is a complex political issue, with several interests wishing to see it processed before export. The approval process was difficult and needed an amendment to the mining law (Outremers 360° 2019).

In April 2020, SOFINOR, a public investment company of the North Province, expressed interest in acquiring the Goro plant, in partnership with Korea Zinc, a leading global metal producer. Under the bid, the three provinces would jointly get a majority stake in the new company and control of the smelter. But conservative politicians in Nouméa opposed SOFINOR’s influence in the South Province, because it is governed by an anti-independence party. Negotiations between Vale and the Australian company New Century Resources were also suspended in September 2020 after local opposition. At the end of October, Antonin Beurrier, the CEO of Vale Nouvelle-Calédonie, surprisingly announced the creation of a new company “Prony Resources Nouvelle-Calédonie”. Over half of the shares in the future Goro Nickel project would be held by New Caledonian interests, while the Swiss commodities trader Trafigura would hold another quarter. The independence movement disagreed that Trafigura should be given preference over the SOFINOR/Korea Zinc offer. They said Trafigura was only interested in buying the smelter and mining titles to sell on when the market for nickel was more active, in order to maximise profits. Violent protests against Trafigura disrupted the New Caledonian economy, but

Korea Zinc formally withdrew its bid on 7th December. A day later, Vale accepted the offer of Prony Resources and Trafigura.

The deal was signed in March 2021 and provided a 30% shareholding by the SPMSC. Another 21% went to the company's employees and the local population, bringing New Caledonia's share in Goro Nickel to 51%. The newly founded finance company Prony Resources (founded by Antonin Beurrier) will get 30% of the shares, and only 19% go to Trafigura. The participation of Trafigura was contested throughout by two local initiatives, the “Usine du Sud = Usine Pays” (Plant of the South = Plant of the Country) and “Instance Coutumière Autochtone de Négociation” (ICAN) (Indigenous Customary Negotiating Body), composed of eight senior chiefs of the Djubea-Kapumë customary area, the Drubéa-Kapumë customary council and the Rhéébù Nùù committee. They finally accepted that the 51% shareholding belonging to local interests was sufficient. The contract also included clauses about environmental protection. But end of 2023, Goro Nickel is in financial difficulties again, and the smelter is placed under conciliation proceedings.

Most of the workers at Goro Nickel live in Nouméa and commute to the plant, approximately 70–80 km away. The Kanak communities in the vicinity of the mine (Goro, Touaourou, Waho and Unia) and the smelter have not experienced strong in-migration and economic development from the mining project. The capital city profits economically, and the South Province government has always supported the project, against local (environmental and customary) opposition.

Vale has engaged in various participatory and environmental monitoring initiatives. Those initiatives are internal or externally led, but continuing environmental and customary conflicts have given rise to new political identities composed of Indigenous groups presenting themselves as environmental activists, which we will analyse in the next section.

## 8.5.2 Koniambo

The Koniambo project (Figs. 8.3 and 8.5) has a powerful symbolic importance for the Kanak independence movement that governs the North Province of New Caledonia-Kanaky (Fisher 2013; Pitoiset and Wéry 2008; Kowasch 2010, 2018; Kowasch et al. 2015). In the 1990s, political leaders of the North Province and the small mining company SMSP (owned by the North Province) began a search for an industrial partner to build a nickel processing plant in the province. This was part of the “rebalancing” goals established by the Matignon-Oudinot Accords in 1988. Since then, three-quarters of the finance released in French development contracts has gone to the North Province and the Province of Loyalty Islands and only one-quarter to the South Province (based on the budget of 1988) (Kowasch 2012a), where 74.4% of the total population
<figure><img src="image_39.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 8.5** Koniambo smelter.
(Credit: Kowasch 2009)</figcaption></figure>

live (Census 2014; ISEE 2016). The North Province, where 70% of the population are Kanak (ISEE 2016), lags significantly behind the South in economic terms (Kowasch 2018). Overall, three out of four jobs are located in Greater Nouméa (David et al. 1999; ISEE 2016; Kowasch 2012a, 2018), and a large majority of enterprises are located in the South Province (74.9%), where 33% of the population is European and “only” 26% are Kanak (ISEE 2016).

The political authorities of the North Province long argued for localising the nickel industry in the North, using it to drive an urban growth pole close to a processing plant. The Bercy agreement in 1998 fixed an exchange of mining titles between the Poum massif (in the ownership of SMSP) and the Koniambo massif (in the ownership of SLN) (see Chap. 9 by Demmer in this book). This allowed the Koniambo project to proceed with an industrial partner, which was initially Falconbridge (49% of the shares) and the local SMSP (51%). While Falconbridge brought financial means and technical know-how into the new joint venture, SMSP yielded the mining titles and had the support of the local population. After the signature of the Bercy agreement, the construction of a nickel smelter started in 2006. Some months later, in August 2006, the Swiss group Xstrata took over Falconbridge and became the new partner of the Kanak-driven SMSP. In 2014, the Koniambo nickel smelter was finally inaugurated, in the presence of the French president François Hollande.

Typical for the fast-changing mining sector, in 2013, ownership changed again, when the British-Swiss commodity trading and mining company Glencore completed the takeover of Xstrata and acquired the 49% shareholding. The composition of the project did not change, but other Glencore

operations were exposed for violating human rights, having working conditions resembling slavery, corruption and poor environmental performance. These claims apply variously to the Kolwezi cobalt mines in DR Congo, the McArthur River Mine in Australia and the Tintaya and Antapaccay mines in Peru. In addition, between 2017 and 2019, the company spent “millions bankrolling a secret, globally coordinated campaign to prop up coal demand by undermining environmental activists, influencing politicians and spreading sophisticated pro-coal messaging on social media” (The Guardian 2019). Due to weak nickel market conditions and to unprofitable operations, Glencore decided on 12 February 2024 to sell its 49% stake in Koniambo, leading to a six-month period in which the smelter’s furnaces will remain hot to maintain the viability of the site (Reuters 2024; pers. information, 2024). Both companies, SMSP and Glencore, assure they will look for a new industrial partner for KNS.

The Koniambo project in northern New Caledonia includes the Koniambo mountaintop mine, a large processing plant using a pyrometallurgical process, a deep-water port and a coal-fired power plant on Vavouto peninsula (Fig. 8.5). The urban growth pole project has advanced over the last 15 years, and the population has risen to about 11,000 people in the three nearby municipalities Voh, Koné and Pouembout (VKP). The Indigenous communities living in the vicinity of the smelter mostly support the project (Kowasch 2010; Rosner et al. 2016), but it is conflictual for many people to dig up the rugged mountains that constitute ancestral land, while developing Western-style shopping and hotels, modern housing and new public facilities like a swimming pool, a movie theatre and bike tracks (Batterbury et al. 2020).
## 8.6 Environmental Monitoring at Goro Nickel and Koniambo

We now return to the crucial issue of the environmental performance of these two projects and how they should be monitored. Local communities in New Caledonia have long-term experience with environmental impacts resulting from mining activities since nickel deposits were discovered in 1876. Environmental impacts are a major concern for both projects. The following section thus discusses how environmental conflicts and monitoring were negotiated.

### 8.6.1 Goro Nickel

In 2002, Indigenous communities in Yaté, the most southerly municipality of New Caledonia, formed “Rhéébù Nùù” (which means “eye of the country”), a customary association, in order to start discussions about the Goro Nickel project and to monitor its (future) environmental impacts. Rhéébù Nùù was initially strongly opposed to the scale and to the location of the project and organised blockades of the construction site, engaged in acts of vandalism and initiated legal action against the mining company. The customary association accused Inco of ignoring international environmental norms and disrupting sacred and taboo places. Moreover, Rhéébù Nùù worried that the pollution might have implications for human health. Horowitz describes the most violent acts by members of the association that occurred in October 2006: “Destroying equipment and infrastructure, they [the activists] dug trenches and set up barriers made of cars and burning tires, blocking access to the site”. The next day, they “were joined by 100 more activists as well as 200 gendarmes who released teargas on the activists and fired on a pick-up truck that was charging at them” (2009, p. 248). She pointed out that Rhéébù Nùù members not only “destroy company equipment; they also targeted fellow community members” (2009, p. 256), who did not agree with the violent acts against the mining project.

To resolve the conflict, the provincial government created a Committee for Information, Consultation and Environmental Monitoring (CICS) in 2004 (Horowitz 2011). This committee was intended to bring the mining company, Caledonian politicians, public services, local communities and (scientific) experts to the table. One major role was to answer the questions raised about manganese discharge into the lagoon. With support of environmental associations, Rhéébù Nùù showed that no viable studies could determine the impact of the wastewater. CICS discussed the choice of experts and what measures should be taken to control environmental impacts of the mining operations. At the first CICS meetings, Rhéébù Nùù was then considered as a misinformed actor, and their concerns about environmental impacts were minimised. Their

demands did not seem legitimate to the others involved. But at the following meetings, the customary association assumed a role as “non-specialist counter-expert” (Interview, 2014). They were able to discuss technical, political or ethical uncertainties about the scientific studies of wastewater and were recognised as a legitimate actor in environmental monitoring (Merlin 2014). The last meeting of CICS aimed to concretise an agreement with Vale, the “Pact for Sustainable Development of the Big South”, and to create a new environmental monitoring association, called “ŒIL”. Despite the violent opposition to the project in its early years, Rhéébù Nùù signed the pact in September 2008 – after winning the council election in Yaté. Through this IBA, the mining company committed the following:

(a) To an extensive reforestation programme

(b) To create a Consultative Customary Environmental Committee (CCCE)

(c) To create a Corporate Foundation to finance local development initiatives (educational, economic and sociocultural) (Vale et al. 2008)

The support from Vale was for three programmes with € 14 million (CCCE), € 45.56 million (foundation) and € 20.1 million (reforestation programme) over a period of 30 years (Vale 2013). In exchange for Vale's commitment, Rhéébù Nùù renounced violent or illegal actions (Vale et al. 2008). Thus, all protests were extinguished. By their about-face on the project, Rhéébù Nùù members sought to gain (back) legitimacy and power, because the association became a principal representative of local Indigenous communities. The declaration of Rhéébù Nùù to transform into a political party and to compete in council elections in the municipality of Yaté – and win the elections – was a key part of their campaign. However, the committee still continued fighting for environmental justice, but benefit sharing and gaining (customary) legitimacy were officially recognised, although they had existed already.

Financed by Vale, the CCCE recruited and trained seven “environmental technicians” and an engineer, integrated into Vale's environment department. The aim was to ensure the participation of customary authorities in environmental monitoring and the consideration of traditional Kanak knowledge. It has published a monthly environmental monitoring newsletter. The December 2018 issue, the most recent on the homepage as of December 2022, indicates that the effluent into the lagoon was 100% in accordance with norms (CCCE 2019a). Two minor incidents were detected related to the environmental performance of the smelter and the mine. The CCCE also (co)finances and publishes reports and studies realised by scientists of IRD based in Nouméa or other research institutions and engineering companies. In 2017 and 2018 for example, CCCE published four reports, two of them together with
ŒIL (CCCE 2019b): (a) a study of maritime traffic in the South Grand Lagoon in order to assess the risk of collision and disturbance for the humpback whale population of New Caledonia (Bourgogne et al. 2018); (b) a synthesis of studies on humpback whale distribution dynamics in southern New Caledonia (Derville and Garrigue 2017); (c) data acquisition from a network of reference stations in freshwater environments: physical chemistry and benthic macro-invertebrates (Mary 2017); and (d) participatory monitoring of the reefs of the Great South (Job 2017). In addition, the committee has published annual reports of its activities. There has, however, been no output since the end of 2018.

Vale (co)financed this research through the intermediary of the CCCE. The committee is partly involved in environmental monitoring, even if this work does not always directly concern the mining project (e.g. the studies of humpback whales).

One year after the signature of the “Pact for Sustainable Development of the Big South”, in 2009, the South Province decided to establish ŒIL. Unlike the CCCE, the association appears to be independent vis-à-vis the mining company, even if the latter participates in its financing. ŒIL, which is composed of members, voluntary experts and a secretariat whose employees earn wages, is a “hybrid forum” (Callon et al. 2001). Public and private participation mingles and members include six different groups: (public) institutions, municipalities (Yaté and Mont-Dore), representatives of locale communities, environmental associations, the private sector (the mining company) and a consortium of economic actors. The objective of ŒIL, which is still functioning, is to produce environmental indicators to monitor the impact of Goro Nickel. Since 2013, for example, it has coordinated the Acropora project, part of the New Caledonia Coral Reef Observation Network (RORC, initiated in 1997). In 2019, six out of nine coral reefs close to the plant were in good health, two were satisfactory and one mediocre. Over time, reef health has been maintained for eight of the nine. The indicators include coral cover, invertebrate and fish density, coral breakage and necrosis and presence of rubbish and fishing gear (ŒIL 2020).

ŒIL continued its work after the smelter and mine were sold in 2021. The CCCE was affected when members of the committee participated in sometimes violent demonstrations about mine ownership in 2020 ("Usine du Sud = Usine Pays"). In December, there was property damage at the smelter, and the French High Commission in Nouméa ordered protests be broken up, echoing the law-and-order rhetoric of the South Province leadership (Maclellan 2020). In response, French anti-independence proponents armed with hunting rifles mounted roadblocks, at least until the transport of weapons was banned. "Usine du Sud = Usine Pays" and ICAN argued Vale was selling the project while leaving behind a big environmental mess. The various movements, including those

involved in environmental monitoring, wanted New Caledonian control of the business, rather than another multinational player. This was finally obtained, even if the Swiss trader Trafigura remains a partner in the new consortium.

There is a very different pattern of participation and environmental monitoring around the Koniambo project. Local communities are more invested in it economically, and the question of environmental impacts is raised differently.

### 8.6.2 Koniambo

On 14 February 2007, the North Province and the mining company KNS signed a voluntary environmental charter concerning the minimisation of environmental harms from Koniambo. An environmental committee was created to assess the various mining impacts across the region, including environmental quality and subsistence activities like agriculture, hunting and fishing. The "Comité Environnemental Koniambo" (CEK) also had watershed protection as an aim and monitors the effects of mountaintop mining on plants and animals. The environmental charter mandated the gradual restoration of mine sites with endemic species during the operation phase. The aims of CEK can be summarised as follows (CEK 2010a; Kowasch 2010):

* To implement the environmental charter

* To contribute to the consultation and information process based on the results of the environmental monitoring programme of KNS

* To provide stakeholders in the North Province with information about environmental policies and measures

* To deal with any environmental issues related to the Koniambo project

* To bring elements of analysis and reflection to the mining company

* To communicate on the techniques and studies concerning environmental protection

The CEK, whose chair was Jacques Loquet, a former mine worker, had 18 members and could set up working groups. It included representatives from the mining company, the French state, the provincial government, public institutions (mostly Kanak in this region), the municipalities, customary representatives (one became the president) and environmental associations. Meetings required the presence of at least three-quarters of the members. The work of the members was voluntary, but compensation was provided for their function or mandate. KNS helped with secretarial support.

While the structure of CEK looked to be representative, they were forced to reflect on their structure and ability to communicate. An information hub was not developed, due to a lack of financial resources. While environmental associa-
tions regularly attended the meetings, customary authorities
did not, lacking transport or having overlapping commit-
ments (with customary affairs in particular). They also felt
that environmental measures in the field were insufficient,
lacking enough communication, consultation and investiga-
tion. According to the committee, the environmental moni-
toring method was not effective, and the tasks were performed
anarchically, without developing any significant indicators
of project performance. Loquet proposed four solutions
(Kowasch 2010):

(a) The CEK leaves the mining company KNS to carry out its actions and work independently.

(b) The CEK remains within KNS but is given the means to carry out its mission properly.

(c) The CEK accepts a solution recommended by KNS: the creation of a legal entity.

(d) The CEK develops a different internal/external strategy.

The choice to leave the company required (a) creating a new (independent) environmental association or joining an existing one. As Rhéébù Nùù's experience in the South demonstrated, the environmental struggle is best fought external to company control. New members could be recruited, although probably hostile to the Koniambo project. The disadvantage would be the lack of access to mining operator documents, and the committee wanted to retain an element of neutrality in the face of public scrutiny of its actions.

Choice b included the risk of being an organisation denounced as too closely aligned with KNS, without a legal framework or its own budget. KNS would have to provide the means for its operation. Nonetheless, it would have access to data and internal information.

The creation of a legal entity (choice c), an association with
its own operating resources and budget, had advantages for the
mining company, because it would not have to deal with the
budget and the activities of the committee. The question of
who would appoint the president and how customary repre-
sentatives could be integrated into the CEK remained.

As for a dual internal/external strategy (choice d), questions
would be raised about regulating disagreements and separating
environmental analysis from implementation. A dual strategy
would make it possible to put pressure on the ground but only if
the committee has the means and power. Independent scientists
could be funded to carry out impact studies, which would
increase credibility in the eyes of the local population.

Events came to a head when CEK organised a visit to the
future smelter for “opponents” from the proximate Kanak
community of Oundjo, thus leading to accusations from
other more supportive clans that the committee had lost cred-
ibility. At the end of September 2008, KNS proposed that
CEK worked from outside [option a or c]. For Loquet, this
was telling, suggesting KNS wanted: “to get rid of a baby

who is becoming too cumbersome and too greedy because
he/she wants to grow up” (CEK 2008). Loquet complained
that the work of the committee was little understood by the
local population. At a meeting in the Kanak village of
Temala, an Oundjo fisherman confirmed: “We know you
exist but we don’t know what you are doing” (CEK 2010b,
p. 2). The CEK’s room for manoeuvre remained narrow. The
committee was not integrated into the environmental moni-
toring meetings of the project and therefore did not partici-
pate in KNS’s environmental decisions. They continued for a
few years, but an external evaluation of the CEK in 2016
revealed that the committee was again regarded as an organ-
isation under control of the mining company.

In 2017, CEK finally left KNS to form an independent
environmental association, called “Environord” (Interview
Loquet, 16/8/2019). KNS supplied financing of the new asso-
ciation for its first years. Environord now organises monthly
meetings that are attended by KNS representatives (from the
company environment department and/or its small community
relations team; interview, October 2022), environmental and
citizen associations and customary representatives. But the
association has only two employees, one is permanent and the
other one fixed-term. Environord now has responsibility for
air quality monitoring, which shows a degree of confidence of
KNS towards the association. Nevertheless, it remains a chal-
lenge to find qualified local people to undertake such studies
(Interview Loquet, 16/8/2019). Environord seeks to collabo-
rate with other actors in environmental research projects but
still lacks financial means.

**8.7 Discussion: Positioning and Legitimacy**

**8.7.1 Colonialism and Postcolonialism**

As other chapters show (e.g. by Batterbury et al.), the inde-
pendence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou (murdered in 1988)
transformed Kanak senses of self and identity, when he asked
“Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we
going?” (Tjibaou 2005, cited in Fisher 2014, p. 1–2). Since
then, Kanak political leaders have “increasingly talked about
‘recognition of identity’, ‘decolonisation’ and ‘full accession
to sovereignty’ rather more than independence” (ibid. 2014,
p. 10). Their involvement in the nickel sector is a crucial
element for most Kanak political leaders to accede to eco-
nomic and political sovereignty. In 1995, the economist Jean
Freyss noted that “the battle for development becomes the
instrument of Kanak combat” (1995, p. 59; see also Demmer
2002; Mokaddem 2010; Kowasch 2012b). The strategy of
the independence party FLNKS is to build economic and
political independence, using nickel processing to create
added value (Demmer 2007). The real purpose is not profit-
making but a political goal, differing somewhat from Rhéébù Nùù's discourse which was about Indigenous rights nested within their environmental protest against Goro Nickel. Their claim was that Indigenous peoples are closer to nature, work with less advanced and polluting technologies and defend biodiversity as knowledgeable users of natural resources. But the broader independence movement, led by its signature Koniambo project in the North, has taken a different view and pursued an industrial strategy to support rights and recognition.

FLNKS independence leaders have very rarely been defenders of a fetishised tradition and identity politics that seeks recognition in law (Demmer and Salomon 2013). The FLNKS wants to use the mining sector as an instrument for economic and political emancipation, and this explained the great support that neighbouring Indigenous communities gave to the Koniambo project. They still perceive Koniambo to be “their project” in order to generate employment and services and “development” (Kowasch 2018). To a certain extent, this has muted criticism against the project among Indigenous communities close by, and can make Environord’s role somewhat delicate. Environmental justice is an integral part of Kanak culture, but environmental impacts of mining projects are often described as the “price to pay” for new jobs and political emancipation (ibid. 2018).

The discourse of Rhéébù Nùù also changed in recent times, approaching or even agreeing to the FLNKS strategy. Many members of the committee integrated the newly founded initiatives ICAN (Indigenous Customary Negotiating Body) and “Usine du Sud – Usine Pays”, which both supported a majority shareholding of SOFINOR/Korea Zinc in the Goro Nickel project (applying the 51/49% model known from Koniambo). But anti-independence politicians were opposed to an expansion of SOFINOR to the South. Sonia Backès, the leader of the anti-independence coalition “Avenir en Confiance” and president of the South Province, argued that “those who are proposing this want to economically colonise the Southern Province” (Maclellan 2020). Backès, who supported Emmanuel Macron for the French presidential elections in 2022, is strongly opposed to an independent New Caledonia-Kanaky. Known for her reactions to critical journalists, she told the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation that in New Caledonia, there are no longer any colonised peoples (NC 1ère 2021). After difficult negotiations, the final compromise for control of the Goro Nickel project was a 51% shareholding for the “country” including SPMSC (30%), company employees and local communities (21%). Although not a shareholder, the American electric car giant Tesla has joined as a technical advisor to improve the industrial process, since it needs the “ethical nickel”. The mining titles of the Goro deposit will be held by the South Province (via PromoSud) and will give rise to royalties. Backès says the agreement is a new model based

on control, development of wealth and environmental protection. But it is still a huge and quite destructive nickel mine. Mining companies such as KNS acknowledge that (opencast) mining must reduce its (massive) environmental damage. In the next section, we discuss in more general terms the role of local organisations in this huge challenge.

## 8.7.2 Legitimacy and Critical Voices

Local communities in New Caledonia-Kanaky wonder if CCCE, ŒIL, Rhéébù Nùù and Environord can monitor mining companies effectively and importantly, actually hold them to account. If they can, it is a source of hope for other local battles with mining companies worldwide. But how can organisations and association have legitimacy and acceptance when they are funded by the company they are monitoring?

In the South, the Pact has negated the “ability to protest” (Horowitz 2014, p. 98). Some of the Rhéébù Nùù members expressed regret about signing it and wondered whether they had “signed too quickly” (ibid. 2014, p. 98). In the North, the former CEK president of Environord regretted the lack of finance and operational support, constraining its freedom. Both mining companies, Vale and KNS, benefit from New Caledonia’s neoliberalised regulatory and fiscal policy environments (Horowitz et al. 2018). Switches of tactics have been evident. In the South, Vale faced informal regulatory challenges from Rhéébù Nùù (ibid. 2018). Activists based their legitimacy on ties to customary authority. However, when protests became more violent, customary authorities felt uncomfortable supporting the committee and Vale and then switched tactics and brought customary authorities to the negotiating table in order to destabilize Rhéébù Nùù’s claims and legitimacy (Horowitz et al. 2018). The committee needed to ensure customary legitimacy so it accepted the Pact that its lawyer, and Vale’s lawyers, had negotiated. This seems an odd about-face; Rhéébù Nùù was defending Indigenous legitimacy, which was unfortunately controlled by Vale by that stage. The mining company wanted the “social license to operate” (Fisher et al. 1985), which was also the purpose of the “Pact”. Nonetheless, Rhéébù Nùù did not have support from all families and clans in the communities, and some customary authorities and villagers taunted the committee as being corrupted by the mining operator. The committee had accepted a degree of effluent flowing into the Caledonian lagoon, while getting financial compensation and support for onshore development projects. Therefore, customary legitimacy dropped away with the signature of the Pact with Vale. Rhéébù Nùù members – and the CCCE as well – were not perceived as legitimate representatives of all Kanak communities in the South. On the other side, the Pact shows that Rhéébù Nùù prioritised recognition (as partner
for negotiation with Vale) over their environmental and economic concerns (Horowitz 2014). While ŒIL follows a scientific approach, the representational strategy of Rhéébù Nùù is symbolic-historical-political in nature, too quickly coopted, and thus it ceased to be accepted by local communities as a legitimate representative.

The recently founded initiatives “Usine du Sud – Usine Pays” and ICAN do not want to be “neutral”. They defend a political position that meets the claims of the independence movement FLNKS: the control of natural resources by the territory. Environmental monitoring is one of their issues, largely organised and supported by Kanak independence activists. Nonetheless, it is embedded in their social-political claims for resource sovereignty, expressed as territorial majority shareholding in the project and greater benefit-sharing.

The Kanak band Humaa-gué is based in the Touaourou community, close to the Goro Nickel plant, and they have denounced environmental destruction in the neighbourhood of the Goro Nickel project (fieldwork, 2022). They are mostly in favour of the FLNKS approach to economic participation and political emancipation. Their Kaneka<fnref n="1" /> song “Terre du sud” (Land of the South) addresses the issue. Here are the original and translated lyrics:

<table><thead><tr><td>Terre du sud (2012)</td><td>Land of the south (2012)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Oh toi, l'industriel actif à deux pas de chez moi<br>Regarde tout près de toi en contrebas dans ces vallées<br>Tous ces gens-là qui vivent de cette eau venant de la terre<br>Imagine un instant que tes enfants sont là parmi eux</td><td>Oh you, the mining company operating just a stone's throw from my house<br>Look very close to you, below in the valleys<br>All these people who live from this water that comes from the earth<br>Imagine for a moment that your children are there among them</td></tr><tr><td>Si cette terre du sud est l'avenir, Elle n'est pas le cobay de l'avenir industriel<br>Si cette terre du sud est l'avenir, Elle n'est pas le cobay de l'avenir industriel<br>Unissons-nous main dans la main<br>Et travaillons pour un avenir meilleur</td><td>If this southern land is the future,<br>It is not the testing ground of the mining operator<br>If this southern land is the future,<br>It is not the testing ground of the mining operator<br>Let us unite hand in hand<br>And let's work for a better future</td></tr><tr><td>Si de nos jours encore, l'avenir dépend de cette cause<br>Alors, dis-moi pourquoi cette science nous est encore occulte<br>Si de nos jours encore, l'avenir dépend de cette cause<br>Alors pourquoi occultes-tu le droit à nos valeurs</td><td>If even today, the future depends on this cause<br>So, tell me why this science is still hidden to us<br>If even today, the future depends on this cause<br>Then why do you hide the right to our values</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><td>Terre du sud (2012)</td><td>Land of the south (2012)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Si cette terre du sud est l'avenir, Elle n'est pas le cobay de l'avenir industriel<br>Si cette terre du sud est l'avenir, Elle n'est pas le cobay de l'avenir industriel<br>Unissons-nous main dans la main<br>Et travaillons pour un avenir meilleur</td><td>If this southern land is the future,<br>It is not the testing ground of the mining operator<br>If this southern land is the future,<br>It is not the testing ground of the mining operator<br>Let us unite hand in hand<br>And let's work for a better future</td></tr></tbody></table>

In the North, Environord is still an ally of KNS. As highlighted, the purpose of the former CEK was to communicate the techniques and studies of KNS concerning environmental protection. Since the creation of Environord, the association has gained in self-awareness and “legitimacy” and acceptance, even though it still depends on KNS financially. Based on the model of ŒIL (which is also co-financed by a mining company), the association aims to conduct scientific studies or to award them to look for partners. In contrast to Rhéébù Nùù or ICAN, different actors of society are members, including public institutions, the local (provincial) government, the mining company and all local communities of the (VKP) region represented by customary representatives. KNS participates in (nearly) all meetings of the committee – in contrast to public institutions and the local government.

We argue that “participation” in an environmental association (here Environord, CCCE or ŒIL) is in fact another means of social control and discipline exercised by a mining operator, as Saldi et al. (2014) show for a case in Argentina. As this book shows, the question of local input into environmental monitoring is part of “a dispute between (individual) parties each with their own specific interests” (Zhouri 2015, p. 454), which is based on the existence and persistence of dissent (Mouffe 1999). ŒIL, CCCE and Environord play their part, but they are not totally distanced from the organisation they are monitoring. In the same way, land claims and conflicts between different Kanak clans in New Caledonia also instrumentalize economic projects such as mining to gain (customary) legitimacy and influence (Kowasch 2012b).

Referring back to O’Faircheallaigh’s (2018) criteria for assessing environmental management provisions (Table 8.1), using the capacity to act unilaterally to deal with environmental concerns or problems associated with the project is not really happening, because of the company support through funding. In contrast to the CCCE, ŒIL appears to be more independent from the mining company, although it does have some corporate financing. As a “hybrid forum” (Callon et al. 2001), ŒIL has an independent scientific committee and can conduct environmental studies without company consultation. However, the association cannot force the company to take certain measures or decisions. Since Environord is no longer an integrative component of KNS, the committee can independently evaluate environmental

<footnote n="1">¹Kaneka music fuses traditional styles with pop, world music and most notably reggae.</footnote>
management systems and issues. It may also suggest ways of enhancing environmental management systems, but KNS is not obliged to address their suggestions. Moreover, Environord is too small to have all of its own finance. It is a tool to federate different actors from civil society to communicate about environmental protection measures. But negotiation with customary authorities has to occur directly, in the communities and at conferences with clan representatives and customary authorities.

KNS has a double perspective. Glencore (which currently withdraws from New Caledonia-Kanaky) has a profit motive and sees Environord as an instrument for environmental monitoring and communication. But in their 2020 sustainability report, reflecting the changing language of the times, the company wants to be an active and valued participant "in all the communities that host us" (Glencore 2020, p. 59). They also highlight that they pay "all relevant taxes, royalties and levies required by local and national regulation in our host countries" (ibid, p. 65). These are, however, quite favourable in New Caledonia-Kanaky.

## 8.8 Conclusion

According to O'Faircheallaigh (2018), environmental management provisions intermingle with social and political claims for benefit sharing and legitimacy, especially in a context of decolonisation. Questions of environmental and social justice (Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020) thus play a key role in negotiations between local communities, environmental organisations and mining companies. The crucial challenges for mining companies, outside their responsibilities to shareholders, include reducing their environmental impacts, integrating local communities and demonstrating legitimacy in their environmental monitoring.

We have shown that Goro Nickel and Koniambo have different social-political contexts, dating back to the administrative division into three provinces in 1988 – one governed by an anti-independence party and two supporting independence. The Koniambo project in the North therefore had a completely different political independence strategy behind it, explaining its greater acceptance by the local Kanak people. Resistance against the mining project was muted and restrained. Rhéébù Nùù, by contrast, used environmental claims to raise customary legitimacy concerns in the South, initially with outright protest. ICAN, including Rhéébù Nùù members, later aligned their claims for the control of mining resources, similar to the FLNKS strategy in the North and also highlighted environmental damage.

By studying these environmental associations and committees, we have shown that “legitimacy” is always negotiated. The Koniambo project involves local businesspeople, urban planners and Kanak communities. It is an economic

project with political intentions, which is very visible when traversing the growing urban agglomeration that has grown up alongside it. Since the beginning, the participation and inclusion of Kanak communities have been considered vital. Therefore, CEK and later Environord – despite its financial funding by KNS – benefit from broad legitimacy, whereas Rhéébù Nùù and ICAN in the South lack this.

In the efforts to hold both projects to account for any environmental damage, independent scientific studies seem to be better accepted. Greater legitimacy is given to studies that are financed by public services than by private companies, and Environord wants more public institutions such as the provincial government to co-finance its staff and scientific work. Environord has sought greater impartiality, based on the model of CEIL in the South, but needs this to be financed. ICAN and Rhéébù Nùù took another path. From the viewpoint of its detractors, the latter sold its soul by signing an agreement with Vale after fighting against Goro Nickel, according to local opponents to the committee (various interviews between 2008 and 2014). CCCE is still not recognised by all Indigenous communities in the South. The acceptance of the latest deal in 2021 giving 51% of the Vale project to local actors will need strong evaluation after some years of operation, on social and environmental grounds.

Associations and committees can be instrumentalised by mining companies. We know that the involvement of Indigenous people is sometimes used by mining operators as a marketing façade. Even when they are trusted, the communication of scientific results remains problematic, especially when feeding back to local communities. New Caledonia-Kanaky has good levels of formal education, but scientific papers – if written in French – are often not distributed in villages and communities, and presentations mostly occur in the cities. Customary representatives sometimes do not attend meetings and participation, always recommended for any form on impact assessment, is a challenge for mining companies. Discussions have to take place on an equal footing. Of course, where the oral tradition is still present as in New Caledonia-Kanaky, the word will always reach the rest of the local community. But to change power relations between mining companies and local communities, a “swap” of (or at least participation in) decision-making concerning environmental monitoring and mining operations in general will be necessary.

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<figure><img src="image_40.png" /></figure>
# The Decolonisation Process Without Independence in the Light of Changes in the Nickel Sector in New Caledonia

9

Christine Demmer

**Abstract**

From the Matignon-Oudinot Accords of 1988 onwards, the pro-independence parties agreed to play the economic development game proposed by the State in order to reduce the glaring inequalities between Indigenous Kanaks and non-Kanaks. The FLNKS (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste) took up the challenge in two of the three provinces, where Kanak people were in the majority, and the pro-independence coalition tried to establish a form of economic sovereignty by claiming partial public control of the “country’s” main resource, nickel. The story of the stages of this mining nationalism, which enabled the pro-independence movement to gain a foothold in a reconfigured nickel sector (despite encountering opposition both in the economic and the local political arena), aims to measure the road still to be travelled by FLNKS to achieve decolonisation. This could be in harmony with the foundation of a new national community of citizens, one that would be more autonomous vis-à-vis metropolitan France and in which the Kanaks would be fully included.

**Keywords**

Decolonisation · Economic struggle · Nickel sector · Nationalisation · Mining policy · Ethnic equality · National economic community

**9.1 Introduction**

Nickel is the main mineral resource of New Caledonia. Depending on the year, it represents up to 90% of the territory's exports and 10% of its GDP (Morvannou 2015). This chapter focuses on the strategy deployed by pro-independence parties gathered in the *Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste* (FLNKS) to control nickel in order to build a sovereign country. The study of Kanak economic nationalism and its vagaries is in fact a pretext for measuring the extent and forms of decolonisation in New Caledonia. If it is a question of grasping the progress of the archipelago's economic sovereignty, it is also a question of reflecting on the extent of the construction of a “common destiny” between different ethnic groups in this former settler colony. It may seem surprising to try to measure the sharing of socio-economic citizenship – which can be defined by free access to employment, education or health – that would complement the sharing of the same citizenship marked by common political rights and duties. However, we shall see that the entry of Kanak independentists into the nickel industry at the end of the 1980s was perceived as much by the State as by FLNKS itself as an opportunity to participate in the reduction of inequalities that mainly affect Indigenous Kanak people. From this period onwards, the issue of social justice – well as of Kanak cultural recognition – became a permanent part of the definition of decolonisation in New Caledonia.<fnref n="1" /> More precisely, nickel was invited into politics as a lever to reduce the strong territorial inequalities between the North of the main island Grande Terre, mainly populated by Kanaks, and the South where wealth is concentrated and where most of non-Kanaks live. This multiculturalist perspective was an imperfect response to the pro-independence movement's desire to create a nation (in the sense of a

<footnote>C. Demmer (✉)
French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Centre
Norbert Elias, Marseille, France
e-mail: christine.demmer@univ-amu.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹See Frazer (2011) on the link between recognition and redistribution and Trepied (2021) on decolonisation from the post-war period to the 1970s.</footnote>
national community of citizens), moving beyond being rec-
ognised as a national minority.

In order to trace the history of Kanak mining nationalism
and to provide food for thought on the two main aspects of
the economic decolonisation of New Caledonia (strengthen-
ing the productive fabric and reducing inter-ethnic inequali-
ties), I begin by recalling how nickel became central to the
Kanak discourse on emancipation, before evoking the Kanak
strategy for attempting to control it for the benefit of the
“country”. In a second step, I expose the obstacles encoun-
tered in this process of nationalisation, which will be an
opportunity to reflect on the limits of the decolonisation
process still underway (see Chaps. 17 and 18 by Gagné and
Fisher in this book).<fnref n="2" />

## 9.2 Economic Nationalism as a Response to State Developmentalism

In addition to the establishment of a penal colony and the
spoliation of Kanak land for the benefit of cattle-breeding
colonists, the colonial history of the archipelago is marked by
nickel mining. For more than a century, the French company
Société le Nickel (SLN), managed between 1888 and 1974 by
the Rothschild family, ruled over the mining sector with no
real competition from the smaller mining companies mainly
run by New Caledonian families (Bencivengo 2014). From the
end of the nineteenth century, these companies called on
forced labour, from the New Hebrides (today the independent
state of Vanuatu), from French Indochina and the Dutch East
Indies (today the independent states of Vietnam and Indonesia),
but also hired labour (particularly Japanese workers), because
the Indigenous Kanak were requisitioned for other works in
the French colony (Muckle 2015).

Although the Defferre's Framework Law of 1956 offered
some political autonomy to the archipelago, the State's
desire to control nickel resources, the so-called green gold,
put an end to this in the 1960s. Placing the French Overseas
Territories under the Ministry of Overseas France encour-
aged new immigration from metropolitan France. Due to the
boom of the nickel sector between 1967 and 1972, immigra-
tion to New Caledonia increased so that the Kanaks became
a minority in their own country. Encouraged by a group of

Kanak students defending anti-colonial theories, who
returned to New Caledonia after studying in metropolitan
France, some Kanaks then began to challenge the French
presence. From 1981 onwards, several pro-independence
parties merged in the *Front Indépendantiste* (FI) before
founding FLNKS in 1984 (Chappell 2013/2017). The cre-
ation of FLNKS, asserting itself in a break with political
institutions, also marked the reinforcement of a struggle with
the State to achieve independence. At least 80% of Kanaks
(representing over 41% of the total population today) want
independence. At the beginning of the fight, activists high-
lighted the fate of Kanak people during the “dark years” of
the exceptional legal regime of the *Code l’indigénat* (between
1887 and 1946), which opposed citizens and Indigenous
people because of their cultural difference (Merle and
Muckle 2019). The pro-independence movement stressed the
reality that Kanak people were pushed into reserves, based
on legal segregation, deprived from freedom of movement
and compelled into forced labour. They observed that the
equality of political rights, acquired at the time of the French
Union, after the abolition of the *indigénat* regime and after
World War II, was slow to be established. The movement also
denounced the inequality of treatment that remained, with
Kanaks occupying poorly paid and precarious jobs. The first
decade of the independence movement thus saw demands for
the restitution of their land.

After violent and deadly confrontations between descen-
dants of (European) settlers and Kanak people, the agree-
ments negotiated with the French Government and the
anti-independence camp to restore peace in the mid-1980s
opened a political dialogue centred on development of Kanak
livelihoods, territories and recognition of identity. With the
Matignon-Oudinot Accords, signed in 1988, the French State
tried to favour the economic development of the Kanak-
majority regions in the hope of weakening the independence
claim. This decolonisation path, without independence, was
named “within the French Republic”, by the former French
Prime Minister Michel Rocard (Mohamed-Gaillard 2020).
To this end, three provinces (North, South and Loyalty
Islands) were created, considering the ethnic distribution of
the population, which allowed the independentists to manage
two of them.<fnref n="3" /> Moreover, the Accords provided a referendum
on self-determination after a ten year period. With this power
conferred, the independentists had to demonstrate their
capacity to eventually govern a country. With the establish-
ment of this multicultural perspective, the French Government
took care to favour the North and the Islands in the distribu-

<footnote n="2">²A first referendum on self-determination took place on 4 November, 2018; 56.4% of eligible voters were against independence. The second referendum on 4 October, 2020, saw an increase in the proportion of pro-independence votes to 46.7% (53.3% against). The third vote was due to take place on 12 December, 2021. The independentists demanded the postponement of the third referendum to respect the mourning of the Kanak people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. They were not successful. With less than 10,000 votes separating them from a “yes” vote in 2020, the call to stay at home allowed the “no” to win hands down.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³In 1989, 78.7% of the total population in the North Province was Kanaks against 15.7% of Europeans and 5.6% of other ethnic groups; the Loyalty Islands were home to 98.1% Kanaks and 1.3% Europeans at that time. As for the South Province, where the capital Nouméa is located, Europeans were in the majority with 44.3% of the total population against 25.8% of Kanaks (Gilbert et al. 1999).</footnote>
tion of budgets and investments, although the South Province was by far the most populated. With the help of state-province contracts that promised to train 400 Kanak managers, the Accords aimed at a growth policy in these areas and a more equitable redistribution of benefits across the territory. However, in line with the new orientations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), local elected representatives were asked to take responsibility for the development of the archipelago (Blanchet 1999). New negotiations in 1998 led to the Nouméa Accord, which pursued the objective of rebalancing between ethnic groups while seeking to strengthen the autonomy of the archipelago – in particular with the transfer of political competences, except sovereign powers (see Chap. 18 by Fisher in this book). It also tried to bring the different ethnic groups together around a New Caledonian citizenship based on the creation of a restricted electorate for local (provincial) elections (see Chap. 20 by Roberston in this book). This mandate has also used for a local employment preference policy. Within this new political framework, “New Caledonia-Kanaky” became an “overseas territory” (*pays d’outre-mer*).

From 1988 onwards FLNKS, which was now in charge of two of the three provinces, deployed an economic nationalism strategy aiming, through the reappropriation of the territory's main mineral resource, to get New Caledonia out of a situation of dependence (Freyss 1995). Shortly before this, the independence leaders promoted entrepreneurship in Kanak rural areas to shift the economy from domestic agricultural activities still practised on Kanak lands. After the rejection of a political solution proposed by the French State and the execution by the elite group of the national gendarmerie of Eloi Machoro, the leader of a Kanak revolt, the State proposed, in 1985, a first development plan by regions, inviting FLNKS to be involved. Due to the lack of resources to wage an armed struggle against the coloniser, and aware of their numerical inferiority, the independentists returned to economic nationalism. FLNKS seized upon the regions it was able to run before provincialisation, in the hope of “building Kanaky” (Demmer 2016). Leaders particularly encouraged a form of nationalisation of the economy “from below”, in order to enter the market for goods and services and also, to a lesser extent, the labour market, from which the Kanak had largely been excluded. The Matignon-Oudinot Accords, through their concern for “economic rebalancing” between Kanak and non-Kanak populations and the creation of decentralised governance through elected representatives, allowed the independence movement to enter the nickel industry (Pitoiset 2015). Under pressure from Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the president of FLNKS, who wanted the Kanaks to have access to the main economic levers of the territory, and with financial assistance from the French State, the local mining company Société Minière du

*Pacifique Sud* (SMSP), subcontractor of SLN, was purchased by the Société de Financement et d’Investissement de la Province Nord (SOFINOR), the investment company of the North Province. It is governed by the independence movement. The unprofitable company was bought from the loyalist politician Jacques Lafleur, former owner of SMSP. That is why it remains a symbol of the ethnic rebalancing process, even though Lafleur’s supporters (predominantly white) voted massively against the Accords.

Through public control of resources, and by being the main shareholder of SMSP, FLNKS also promoted nationalisation of the economy “from above” despite also soliciting the private sector and seeking alliances with multinationals. FLNKS was (and still is) aiming to create wealth and an economic basis for future independence. The SMSP became a leading mining company in New Caledonia in a short timeframe. From the FLNKS point of view, other nationalisations of nickel enterprises should follow. To strengthen the added value of the mining sector, FLNKS argued in 1992 at its national conventions in favour of the progressive cessation of raw ore exports, which provide less profit than the sale of processed ore. The pro-independence leaders then promoted the creation of a nickel smelter in the North, in addition to the SLN smelter in the suburbs of Nouméa. After numerous blockades of mine sites, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin agreed to the pro-independence leaders’ wish to build a nickel smelter which was backed by the supply of ore from the Koniambo massif. The Bercy Protocol (named after the location of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance in Paris), which was signed on 1 February 1998, formalised the agreement and was a prerequisite for discussions on a new political status for the archipelago. These negotiations resulted in the Nouméa Accord, signed on 5 May, of the same year, extending the decolonisation process by 20 years.

It is now time to explain in more detail the stages of this nickel independence conquest and its obstacles.

## 9.3 The Stages of Mining Nationalism, Focused on Companies in the Nickel Sector

With the “Regions status” back in 1985/86, the preparation for independence involved cooperatives and “economic interest groups” imbued with an utopian idea of liberation by action. In the following phases, this utopian or millenarian dimension evaporated. What remained from the Kanak national liberation struggle was the more pragmatic idea of an investment in the market economy, as described above. Now in possession of the mining company SMSP, the question of rural Kanak entrepreneurship (often of a collective form) has arisen again, but the pro-independence leaders are also promoting subcontracting companies, located in the
<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 9.1** Shareholding of the mining companies SMSP, SLN and Prony Resources. (Source: Burton and Levacher 2021)</figcaption></figure>

neighbourhood of the mines and, later, of new smelters in the North and also in the South (see Chap. 8 by Kowasch and Merlin in this book), based on the model of so-called people's shareholding enterprises (see Fig. 9.1). These shareholding companies involve Kanak clans or communities ("tribes" or *tribu* in French) on former reserves that have become customary land (see Chap. 10 by Batterbury et al. in this book). Other small non-Kanak mining contractors have also been encouraged to participate in local economic development. In 2001, people's shareholdings included approximately 15% of the adult population of the North Province, of which 49% were selected to represent clans (Pitoiset 2002). For example, in the neighbourhood of the Koniambo project, local enterprises are gathered in a "simplified shareholding company" (*SAS Vavouto Koniambo*) whose shareholders were four civil participation companies,<fnref n="4" /> three of them representing customary actors and one of them individual Kanak and non-Kanak shareholders (Kowasch 2010; Le Meur et al. 2012). Advocating the development of entrepreneurship — again without excluding the presence of small non-Kanak operators — was perceived as a condition for clan members to retake control of an economy that was dominated by colonial settlers and largely dependent on transfers from the French State. Raphaël Pidjot, the first general manager of SMSP and later its CEO, has particularly encouraged this model of nationalisation from below, which means ownership of the resource by the citizens (Mauss 2018).

The recognition of a form of local sovereignty over the resource does not obscure the national dimension of mining heritage. Jean-Marie Tjibaou, FLNKS leader and signatory

of the Matignon-Oudinot Accords, along with other leaders, considered the takeover of SMSP as a step in the Kanak reconquest of the nickel sector, and more broadly of the territorial economy, from above. He perceived it as an opportunity to allow local people to really benefit from the spin-offs of resource exploitation. The State, for its part, encouraged the assumption of responsibility for development by the provinces created in 1988. Each province was to have an investment company (half private and half public) for this purpose. In the South, 68% of PROMOSUD (the local Development and Investment Corporation) was financed by the provincial budget. The investment company in the Loyalty Islands Province, which does not possess nickel resources, was financed to a level of 79.5% by public funds. In the North, 75% (now 85%) of SOFINOR was financed from the provincial budget.<fnref n="5" /> SOFINOR became the majority shareholder of SMSP, with 87% of the shares, while the *Société de Développement et d'Investissement des Iles* (SODIL) has 5% and 8% are held by other shareholders (see Fig. 9.1). Therefore, pro-independence representatives, who have a majority in the North Province assembly, were integrated into the SMSP board of directors.

Control of a mining company through financial investment by the North Province was seen as a major economic development tool (see also Chap. 8 by Kowasch and Merlin in this book). It was innovative, using local semi-public companies, so-called *Sociétés d'Economie Mixte locales* (SEML), to invest in the mining sector and to develop socio-economic

<footnote n="4">⁴These companies are made up of at least two partners who show a desire to join together to undertake a business, thus contributing to losses and sharing profits together.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵The remaining 25% of SOFINOR's capital belonged to the *Institut Calédonien de Participation* (Caledonian Participation Institute), split between the *Agence Française de Développement* (the French overseas aid agency), holding 52% of the shares, and the three provinces, each holding 16%.</footnote>
activities. Traditionally, public authorities do not invest public
funds in industry. Here, they use this economic tool to serve
the general interest for the development of facilities or the cre-
ation of social housing. According to the independentists, the
takeover of SMSP, symbol of a Kanak reconquest of the econ-
omy, was also a means of better integrating the Kanak into the
labour market, both as workers and entrepreneurs. Given the
problem of exclusion experienced by Kanak people, the
demand for participation in the nickel industry was to para-
phrase the politician Léon Bourgeois, a claim to build a “soci-
ety of equals”, a nation that (re-)integrates marginalised and
excluded people (Castel 2008). However, while being an act of
partial reconquest of Kanak sovereignty over the nickel
resource, the control of SMSP was tantamount to reappropria-
tion of all of the society called upon to make a nation – Kanaks
and non-Kanaks alike. The semi-public set-up of the company
(the “semi-nationalisation”) in fact signalled a desire to ensure
that a territory, and not just a single ethnic group, benefited
from the spin-offs of the nickel sector. Nickel was presented as
a “national heritage” that should no longer benefit only a few
industrialists but be for “all the people of this country”
(Pidjot 1993).

SMSP, owner of mining titles, quickly became a major
player in the nickel sector, the largest exporter of nickel ores
in New Caledonia and the second largest producer of oxi-
dised ores in the world. But that was not enough for the inde-
pendence leaders. In accordance with the wishes of former
FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, investment in metallurgy
became the main way to add value to the nickel sector, fol-
lowing the example of other producer nations. In 1995,
SMSP succeeded in convincing the Canadian company
Falconbridge to engage in a metallurgical project with an
unprecedented set-up: SMSP took a 51% stake in the capital
of the future smelter, leaving 49% for the Canadian group. In
return, SMSP would provide the mineral resource. To accom-
plish this, the independentists needed a new nickel deposit.
They proposed an exchange of mining titles with the oldest
of the mining companies in New Caledonia, SLN. They
wanted to swap the Poum massif, less rich in nickel, for that
of Thiébaghi, a richer deposit both located in the North
(Fig. 9.2). SLN, supported by loyalists, refused. Long-term
discussions began: SMSP, supported by FLNKS, negotiated
with SLN and the French State, which held shares in Eramet,
the French parent (then owning 70%) of SLN through a pub-
lic investment group, ERAP.<fnref n="6" /> In the end, through the Bercy
agreement, it was not Thiébaghi that was involved in the
swap but the Koniambo massif, located closely to Koné, the
capital of the North Province. The condition was that SMSP
and its partner Falconbridge had to begin investing before 1

January 2006 (David and Sourisseau 2016; Kowasch 2010). KNS, the joint venture between SMSP and Falconbridge, was then founded to mine the deposit and run the future smelter. After changing partners twice (Falconbridge was acquired by the Swiss group Xstrata, which was then acquired by Glencore), the Koniambo smelter began producing ferronickel, with a fairly high nickel content, in 2013 (see also Chap. 8 by Kowasch and Merlin in this book).

The development of the metal processing strategy, on a
global capitalist market, has continued (see Fig. 9.1). SMSP
joined forces with another industrial corporation, the South
Korean steel group POSCO, on the same unprecedented
51/49% shareholding model. Together, they created a com-
pany called Société du Nickel de Nouvelle-Calédonie et
Corée (SNNC), which since 2008 has been processing
Caledonian ores, with a lower grade compared to Koniambo,
in Gwangyang (South Korea). This alliance marked a new
turning point in the history of SMSP as the company has
become primarily a nickel refiner. Except for Koniambo,
SMSP mines have been spun off to become the property of
the Nickel Mining Company (NMC), a new POSCO (Pohang
Iron and Steel Company)-SMSP joint venture. Since then,
the Korean group has benefited from a regular supply of New
Caledonian nickel ores while the Kanak part of the venture
ensured the sale of its ores. After a period of trial and error,
in March 2018, SMSP signed a Memorandum of Agreement
with the Chinese industrial group Yangzhou Yichuan Nickel
Industry, again on the 51/49% shareholding model, for a
future processing plant in China. According to the strategic
plan of the independentists, the joint venture refineries, in
each of which SMSP has a majority stake, are intended to get
better value from nickel by selling it in refined form. In
October 2015, the SNNC smelter in South Korea, for exam-
ple, was estimated to have returned ten times more than what
would have been received by selling unprocessed ore (SMSP
2015). The North Province, which benefits from these spin-
offs through SOFINOR, seeks to reinvest them in financing
economic projects.<fnref n="7" />

But local development objectives are not the only element
in the Kanak nickel project. FLNKS is also looking to extend
the provincial strategy to New Caledonia as a whole.
According to a second version of the Bercy Agreement in
1999, they obtained the transfer of a parcel of SLN shares to
a New Caledonian public structure co-managed by the three
provinces: the Société Territoriale Calédonienne de
Participations Industrielles (STCPI). From 2007, STCPI has
had a minority interest of 34% with special voting rights.
Eramet (with a quarter of shares held by the French State),
restructured into three groups (nickel, manganese and
alloys), holds 56% of SLN shares, while the Japanese com-

<footnote n="6">⁶In 1985, via ERAP (and Elf Aquitaine), Eramet was 85% owned by the French State. But EU competition laws made the State divest its holdings and it began floating off its shares in 1994.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷For its part, KNS does not pay dividends. It is still repaying its debt, 97% of which is held by Glencore.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 9.2** Nickel smelters and mines in New Caledonia. (Source: https://georep.nc/, cartography: Eibl 2022)</figcaption></figure>

pany Nisshin Steel holds the remaining 10% (see Fig. 9.1). Between 2000 and 2010, SLN paid more than 335 million € in dividends to New Caledonia. The objective (shared by the predominantly white, conservative and autonomist but anti-independence party *Calédonie Ensemble*) is to eventually achieve a 51% majority public share in SLN. This strategy is in line with a broader political vision that focuses on the nationalisation of nickel resources (both raw and processed) by ensuring that the dividends earned by companies benefit New Caledonia rather than the French State or private shareholders. This “nationalisation” of SLN’s capital was an important step in a Kanak logic of control over mineral resources. It is significant because SLN still owns three quarters of New Caledonian nickel reserves and retains more than 50% of the mining titles. The changes to the major shareholders have obliged SLN to refocus its assets towards New Caledonia. The challenge is to “caledonise” local nickel smelters through public-private partnerships and encourage “small” local mining companies to sell the ores they extract to the New Caledonian smelters (including those “offshore” in South Korea or China in the future). The aim is to create more added value and streamline mining activities.

## 9.4 A Changing Nickel Sector

The demands of the Kanak independence leaders – first the acquisition of SMSP and then the construction of a smelter in the North – has changed the New Caledonian mining sector. The SMSP is not only the originator of a local metallurgical project but also of several offshore partnerships, all aimed at making better use of nickel incomes. In addition, Kanak demands have led to a “caledonisation” of processed nickel from the oldest local smelter in New Caledonia, Doniambo, changing the relationship between mining operators in the “country”. In colonial times, from the 1870s to the 1930s, SLN had a hegemonic position, controlled by the French branch of the Rothschild Bank. It ruled over small subcontractor mining companies, run by migrants from France who had established local roots or settlers from other Pacific islands, with a fluctuating number depending on nickel prices, who were only able to export by themselves between the two World Wars. These “small miners” were almost wiped out during World War II, but they rebounded after the war. By the end of the 1960s, thanks to a boom in nickel prices, 15 independent companies were exporting raw
nickel and 6 others were subcontracting for SLN. Today, the “small miners” (now four in number) are no longer linked to SLN (Bouard et al. 2018).

The involvement of the independence movement in the nickel sector (through SMSP) also had an impact on the construction of a third nickel processing plant in the archipelago. When the loyalist leaders of the South Province and the New Caledonian Government realised that the Kanak independentists would succeed in setting up the joint venture between SMSP and Falconbridge, they contacted the Canadian group Inco to initiate another project to exploit low-grade nickel laterites found in the southern region. Launched in 2002, Goro Nickel was acquired by the Brazilian company Vale in 2006. Despite employing a number of Kanak people and engaging with local subcontractors also gathered in an SAS, the mine and processing plant has had a troubled history (Levacher 2016). Initially, the project moved away from a “national vision”; it was essentially privately owned – with only 5% participation by the provinces. Unable to benefit, along with the rest of the inhabitants of the South Province, from the dividends of the plant, the local Kanak communities, in the spirit of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, negotiated a new agreement in 2008, the *Pacte pour un Développement Durable du Grand Sud* (“Pact for Sustainable Development of the Big South”), which allows them to benefit from funds to encourage local socioeconomic development (Levacher 2016; Demmer 2007; Horowitz 2015; see Chap. 8 by Kowasch and Merlin in this book).

In 2020, in the middle of the second referendum on political independence, the departure of Vale has been a game changer. At the end of a major mobilisation on the part of FLNKS, customary authorities and local associations, Goro has also been the subject of public investment (see Fig. 9.1). Prony Resources, a newly created mining company, brings together, in *Compagnie Financière de Prony*, Goro Nickel managers and industrial investors and customers; they have 30% of the shares in the project. The Swiss trading company Trafigura acquired 19%. Moreover, the New Caledonian shareholding company *Société Publique Calédonienne de Participation Minière* (SPMSC), including the three provinces, has 30% of the shares (compared to 5% previously in Vale). The other novelty is that employees of Prony Resources have a 12% stake in the project through the *Fonds Commun de Placement d'Entreprise* (FCPE) and local communities, represented by their customary authorities, and have a 9% stake through the *Fonds de Prévention des Risques Environnementaux et Socioculturels* (FPRESC). Both together therefore have 21% of the shares in the project (represented by Fidel Fiducie; see Fig. 9.1).

The board of directors of the mining company Prony Resources has eight seats: two for SPMSC and two for FCPE and FPRESC, which allows local communities and staff to

play a role in decision-making. In this shareholding scheme, “New Caledonia” exercises a certain control over the project through the provinces (SPMSC) and Kanak groups (clans and chieftancies) represented in the FPRESC. The latter thus got involved in the nickel sector that is far away from the more inclusive vision proposed by FLNKS.

Therefore, with the rise of SMSP under the control of the independentists, it is not so much the company, having become one of the world leaders in nickel exports, that has imposed itself on the New Caledonian industrial landscape but rather the demands of FLNKS for a form of nationalisation of metallurgical companies which does not exclude the recognition of Kanak's localised rights nested within national rights. The three models of shareholding now established on the archipelago all respond to the desire to constitute a public nickel rent. This does not prevent SLN from retaining 53% of the area covered by mining concessions in New Caledonia. By comparison, the mining branch of SMSP (NMC) now owns 13% of this area (acquired in a short time span), while the Koniambo mine has 4%, and *Société des Mines de la Tontouta* (SMT, see Fig. 9.2), owned by “Ballande”, a historic “small miner”, has 16%, making it the second most important owner of mining titles after SLN (Morvannou 2015). Despite being called “small”, such companies have revenues that vary between 8 million and 42 million € (Syndicat des producteurs-exportateurs et exportateurs de minerai 2016).

## 9.5 Searching for a “National” Mining Policy

Through its emancipation struggle focused on (semi-)nationalisation of metallurgical enterprises, FLNKS initiated a refocusing of the mining sector on territorial development aims. In addition to the prospect of nationalisation, Kanak mining nationalism is expressed at the political level by the aim to develop a sustainable mining strategy. This project has accompanied the political dynamics of the Nouméa Accord, which favour greater autonomy for New Caledonia. In its weak sense (for the loyalists), this autonomy should not go beyond the transfer of sovereign powers to New Caledonia; in its strong sense (for most Kanaks but also a portion of non-Kanaks), it should lead to independence in partnership with France. Within the strong politicisation of mining questions, a *Schéma de Mise en Valeur des Richesses Minières* (“Plan for the Development of Mineral Resources”) was established in 2009, accompanied by a new mining code regulating mining activities in New Caledonia. The *Schéma* includes prospects for exploiting mineral deposits in a more environmentally friendly way, gives guidelines for management of non-renewable resources and contains principles for
the export of mining products.<fnref n="8" /> Article 39 of the mining code states that any individual decision taken within the framework of mining regulations must be compatible with the principles and orientations of the *Schéma*. Thus, the struggle led by FLNKS also allowed for stricter regulations on mining to optimise the nickel rent and plan for the ineluctable exit after the next 50 years of this industry based on an unsustainable resource. On the environmental aspect of the *Schéma*, the nationalist leaders have learnt from activists for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples who, in Goro and elsewhere, willingly combine in their discourse the preservation of living areas of local populations with criticism against extractivism (Demmer 2021).

Acting within the *Schéma* does not, however, amount to a well-defined political strategy for nickel. Between October 2010 and February 2012, such orientations were discussed within an Industrial Strategic Committee composed of the signatories to the Nouméa Accord and representatives of local political authorities. The committee of signatories of the Nouméa Accord (which annually brings the political representatives of New Caledonia together in metropolitan France) and the Working Group of Presidents (of New Caledonian provinces) and Signatories, which was created in 2013, have had further discussions. With two expert reports to support them, written by Anne Duthilleul (2012) and by Michel Colin (2016), politicians were able to examine the issues of management and development of mineral resources, the export policy for raw ores, the shareholding structure of metallurgical companies and the contribution of nickel to present and future territorial wealth. After 2016, these questions were deliberately left aside so as not to weigh on the first referendum on political independence which occurred on 4 November 2018. A concerted political strategy on the competences of the Caledonian government therefore remains to be defined (Demmer et al. 2018). As we shall see below, the loyalists reopened the debate in 2020, in a framework that appears to bypass both the previously invited actors and the nationalist approaches.

On the Kanak side, there is a well-defined strategy, called the *doctrine nickel* (“nickel doctrine”). Officially adopted in January 2015 by FLNKS in Kaala-Gomen, it echoes the strategy that started with the Matignon-Oudinot Accords in 1988. In addition to demanding the control of mining titles, it reminds us of the need to process nickel ores in smelters that are more than 50% owned by New Caledonia in order to

maximise profit. In doing so, FLNKS defends the multiplication of processing plants to ensure the processing of ores of different grades, therefore taking into account the progressive depletion of New Caledonian deposits of nickel, the “green gold”. In fact, the doctrine confirmed the historical orientations of the pro-independence movement, which intends to nationalise both the raw resource and its transformation to benefit the “country” rather than private companies. This implies suspending exports of raw ore from the “small miners” with a view to processing them locally and, in the future, processing nickel from elsewhere (especially Indonesia or the Philippines) in New Caledonian smelters. By wanting to create added value by transforming raw ores, FLNKS not only defends the territory’s current development but also hopes that this strategy will make it possible to finance economic diversification and therefore to think about the post-nickel era. More broadly, the nickel doctrine poses the need for the “country” to control the granting of mining titles and extraction permits. The pro-independence movement aspires to transfer mining titles to a New Caledonian public institution capable of deciding when and where to grant mining concessions to extractive companies – a power that currently belongs to provincial administrations.

While the question of authorising the export of unprocessed ores has been particularly debated by the elected representatives, as we shall see below, the prospect of holding three referendums on self-determination between 2018 and 2021 has left other questions relating to the construction of a New Caledonian nickel policy unresolved. These include the question of mining taxation or the creation of a sovereign wealth fund to be financed in whole or in part by nickel, either to implement economic diversification or to build up intergenerational savings. All these issues related to a nickel strategy, although regularly debated, have not yet been decided.

## 9.6 The Difficulty of Imposing a Kanak Nationalist Strategy

Political and economic critics of the doctrine claim that the FLNKS “offshore model” is not equivalent in terms of benefits to a local processing model. It could even lead to the rapid depletion of nickel ores due to the need to honour delivery contracts with multinational smelter partners. These same critics believe that the repayment of debts contracted with private and public partners and the nickel price crisis on the world market between 2015 and 2021, and again in 2023, has not yet enabled the economic take-off expected from the dividends earned. In terms of tax benefits, the situation is not good either, since the current smelters in New Caledonia benefit from exemptions that apply until they become profitable (a decision voted in 2001 and 2002 to

<footnote n="8">⁸In detail, the *Schéma* concerns (1) an assessment of the mineral reserves of New Caledonia, (2) prospects for the exploitation of deposits, (3) guiding principles in terms of environmental protection for the exploitation of deposits, (4) identification of geographical areas subject to special policies, (5) orientations in terms of industrial development necessary for mineral resource exploitation with regard to sustainable development and (6) policy principles for the export of mining products.</footnote>
attract foreign investors). Finally, the exporters of raw ores believe that by demanding the processing of raw ores in local plants, FLNKS is seeking to favour SMSP, of which it is the majority shareholder via SOFINOR, rather than allowing New Caledonia to benefit from nickel revenues. Finally, they invoke freedom of trade principles to counter the nickel doctrine. The scheme established in 2009 guarantees exporters a certain independence from local processors, as it only encourages them to maintain connections with so-called traditional customers.

In this regard, in 2015, a request to export raw ores to China, a non-traditional client of New Caledonia, led to lively debates that illustrated the reluctance of mining operators but also of most political authorities to adopt a raw ore export strategy in line with the nickel doctrine. This debate spilled over into the political sphere, with a large part of the loyalist camp defending a liberal option against the FLNKS strategy, especially against the parliamentary coalition *Union Nationale pour l'Indépendance* composed of *Parti de Libération Kanak* (PALIKA) and *Union Progressiste en Mélanesie* (UPM) parties. However, the pro-independence party *Union Calédonienne* (UC), also a member of the umbrella party FLNKS, was divided on this issue (Demmer 2017). The dispute that took place between 5 and 28 August 2015, seemed to oppose *ContraKmine*, the union of the subcontractors transporting nickel from the mines, and the New Caledonian Government. With fears for their jobs, the union (representing truck owners, subcontractors of the operators, mostly Kanaks) demonstrated against the prohibition on mining companies selling low-grade ores to China. In this conflict, called in the media *conflit des rouleurs* (hauling conflict), the government wanted to respect the decisions of the Strategic Committee at the time. Therefore, the Committee on Foreign Trade in Mining (CCEM), composed of the president of the New Caledonian Government, the provincial presidents and representatives of miners and metallurgists, initially referred the “small mining companies” back to one of their authorised historical Australian clients, even though the latter was in great difficulty and had decided to freeze the price of its purchases for 5 years. After 2.5 weeks of blockades by subcontractors and truck owners paralysing the main roads in Nouméa, a first protocol of agreement was proposed to the leaders of ContraKmine and the Syndicat des Producteurs et Exportateurs de Minerai de Nickel (SEM), a union representing producers and exporters of nickel ores. The president of the New Caledonian Government committed to reconsider export requests to China and to consult CCEM for possible exports to the Japanese Pacific Metals Company (PAMCO). ContraKmine and the miners only obtained the possibility of a re-examination of their request and support for the harmonisation of contracts with the Australian customer, Queensland Nickel. Judging the guarantees to be insufficient, the movement continued demon-

strating. A fatal crash of a driver at a roadblock and the mediation of the UC president finally brought the dispute to an end, on the basis of a slightly different memorandum of understanding.

The story did not end there. The conflict has led to a softening of the previous view of the mining scheme. Modalities for processing raw ores with less than 1.65% nickel were then examined by the New Caledonian parliament. On 14 October 2015, parliament representatives concluded by 27 votes to 25, with two abstentions, that the Schéma does not prohibit exports to non-traditional customers such as China, in line with the regulation in force before the initial refusal. The result was that “small mining companies” and SLN were allowed to sell less rich nickel ores to Chinese smelters for a limited period, despite the opposition of a “nickel doctrine support committee”. The latter argued that low-grade nickel ores should not be extracted now but preserved for future exploitation. The aim was that such low-grade nickel ores should later be sold to a smelter that will be built in China and that will be run by a Chinese-New Caledonian consortium including SMSP. One interpretation is that the nickel crisis, for pragmatic reasons, has overridden the Kanak nationalists’ desire to control exports. However, the conflict can be considered as an ideological battle between a liberal vision of the sector’s management and a more Keynesian conception compatible with an economic (and political) emancipation sought by FLNKS. In a third interpretation, the conflict can be seen as a mobilisation aiming to destabilise SMSP – and nationalists – and their integrated economic model. To defend the nationalist position, the Union Nationale pour l'Indépendance (UNI) organised conferences throughout 2016 devoted to the SMSP's strategy, explaining the drawbacks of exporting raw ores in the context of a nickel low price crisis and the inadequacy of sustainable management of the nickel sector. Its supporters even launched a legal action in the administrative court to annul a licence granted by the Caledonian government in 2015 (after the conflict) to the Ballande company, to export ores to the (Japanese) Sumitomo smelter (Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes 2016). But nothing changed. Since the conflict, other contracts with Chinese clients have been validated.

By opening up a new export channel, the ContraKmine struggle has thwarted the nickel doctrine. It also modified the philosophy of the Schéma minier, aiming to restrict the authorised export channels. In the appendices to the Schéma, point 15 of paragraph 4 (dealing with the industrial development guidelines for mineral exploitation from a sustainable development perspective) states that mining operators should not be dependent on local smelters. However, point 17 highlights that the conditions for authorising exports depend on future market evolution and other criteria, including those of the preservation of interests and benefits for the miner and also for public authorities. Divergent interpretations have
thus arisen, allowing different responses to this nickel export crisis. While the prevailing interpretation gave the advantage to the mining operators, another interpretation focussed on New Caledonia. In any case, the crisis has shown that the nickel doctrine, with its desire to control nickel ore exports, did not prevail.

In July 2020, Thierry Santa, president of the conservative *Le Rassemblement* party and president of the New Caledonian Government at that time, validated the principle of a new work cycle dedicated to nickel, called “a new nickel for a new world”, which bypassed the historical players. FLNKS personalities such as the president of the North Province, Paul Néaoutyine, have criticised this principle. They argued that a working group with local politicians and the French State on nickel has existed for a long time (15 years) without ever having been able to develop a common strategy (Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes 2020). Santa’s initiative led to bills submitted to the parliament (Congrès) on 4 August 2020 (Projet de loi de pays. Rapport n°46 et projet de délibération n° 48), and 5 November 2021 (Congrès Proposition de loi de pays n°71). The first bills proposed amending the mining code to allow (for a limited period) the export of raw ores from SLN’s Tiébaghi mine and from the Goro mine (Vale NC’s deposit at the time) (see Fig. 9.2), which are normally due to be processed in an ad hoc smelter. The latest bill on 5 November 2021, explicitly states that it is a response to claims based on the Kanak connection to land, with the aim of developing mineral wealth – through local implication. The bill concerns the authorisation of mining exploitation under a sublease (amodiation), a contract allowing the exploitation and sale of ores in return for a royalty payable to the primary lease holder. The ores could therefore be exploited by a company with a majority shareholding of a person under of public law (*personne de droit public*). A mining concession can be assigned to such a company without the need for a “personal mining authorisation” (APM, *Autorisation Personnelle Minière*). This law proposal, extending some discussions related to the Vale conflict (selling of the smelter and mine in March 2021), opens up the possibility for public players, particularly from the South Province, to become involved for the first time, in a different way than in the North Province, in the exploitation of nickel. Indeed, this sublease in exchange for a royalty, which allows the sale of nickel ores, was discussed in detail during the relaunch of the Goro Nickel project with the new consortium. The proposal seems also to be in line with a demand made in middle of 2010 by a group of Kanak subcontractors affiliated to UC, called the Federation of Small Kanak Miners (Demmer 2019). This grouping wanted to see Kanak people, in municipalities near mine sites, to become mining operators recognised in the name of “the connection to land” (with the help of companies made up of shareholders

grouped into clans and chieftainships). The Federation defended the idea that nickel, although a national resource, is first of all a local heritage of specific clans. In the light of this recent mobilisation, the objective of the proposed law becomes clearer. In addition to reinforcing the direct benefits from the nickel sector in the South Province, the bill also encourages the recognition of clan or community societies as mining operators although they have a legal status of customary civil law (in opposition to public law)<fnref n="9" /> – through the Fonds de Prévention des Risques Environnementaux et Sociocul-turels (FPRESC), which can get subleases. This is a new opportunity for companies run by clans or communities (with “people’s shareholding”), as they are generally not able to obtain an APM because they lack the required financial and technical capacity. In any case, it can be seen that the range of Kanak claims to sovereignty over nickel resources are taking increasingly varied forms, more or less supported by a democratic conception of the Kanaky nation.

## 9.7 Unfinished Decolonisation

All of the above casts light on the process of decolonisation. The “caledonisation” of metallurgical companies and the mining *schéma* of 2009 is an achievement of the Kanak struggle for “national” control over mineral resources, but other struggles continue. The independence leaders are not the only actors in the management of New Caledonian mineral resources, either in the nickel sector or in the political arena. They have to deal in particular with “small miners” who defend their own interests. They also must deal with loyalist politicians, generally non-Kanaks, with whom they have agreed to form one people (Demmer 2018). In July 2021, the presidency of the collegial New Caledonian government was for the first time won by a pro-independence leader, Louis Mapou of PALIKA (“Kanak Liberation Party”), after more than 30 years of political agreements. Out of the 54 members of the parliament, 32 seats are allocated to elected representatives from the South Province (mainly loyalists), 15 to those from the North Province and 7 to those from the Loyalty Islands (mainly pro-independence representatives). But for those advocating for *Kanaky-Nouvelle-Calédonie*, the challenge remains to convince non-Kanak citizens to build an independent country with them. FLNKS must continue to assert common interests to

<footnote n="9">⁹Communities (*tribus*) created by the colonial administration with the *cantonment* policy, represented by a chief, are part of customary *distrits* corresponding to larger chiefdoms founded on the territory of municipalities. These Kanak communities are legal persons but are not currently recognised in public law; they instead fall under customary civil law.</footnote>
one day achieve its goals, such as defending mineral resources as national heritage.

The position of the autonomist party *Calédonie Ensemble* in the *conflit des rouleurs* shows that a kind of convergence of perspective is possible. Indeed, while not supporting political independence, *Calédonie Ensemble* joined with FLNKS on the question of economic benefits for the “country” and thinking about some form of common destiny. Since the referendum period, both conservative parties *Le Rassemblement* and *Les Républicains Calédoniens* support in contrast a “hyper-provincialisation”, a kind of autonomy of the provinces that could permit or maintain separate ethnic groups and conserve the benefits acquired since the colonial period by a territory which is now the South Province. The multiculturalist policy developed at the end of the 1980s, based on the promotion of Kanak identity and the reduction of interethnic inequalities, which implied that the richest province had to make more of an effort, is deeply contested. In contrast, some parties composed of non-Kanaks, like *Calédonie Ensemble*, seem less afraid to share economic or political power without going so far as to support the foundation of a new common nation.

For its part, the French government worked for a long time in support of a *rapprochement* between supporters of independence and loyalists, in the hope of establishing a durable peace. It even tried to encourage the emergence of a national sentiment, either to prepare for independence or to strengthen autonomy within the French Republic. It defended the economic empowerment of the “country” by supporting the mining *schéma* annexed to the Nouméa Accord. By supporting the involvement of independentists into the nickel sector, it sought to ensure peace by promoting a sharing of the “nickel cake” while hoping that Kanaks would participate in boosting the territory’s GDP and contribute to lightening the State’s financial burden in New Caledonia. Thereafter, it tried to accommodate each of the opposing parties. Therefore, the 14th meeting of the Committee of Signatories of the Nouméa Accord in February 2016, which devised an economic plan for the mining and metallurgy sectors, enabled both SLN (through financial aid from the State) and the “small miners” to be strengthened by allowing both of them to benefit from the plan. It also helped the latter, by allowing a review of ore exports to China, and SMSP, by inviting other mining operators to support it in supplying the Gwangyang smelter in South Korea so that it can honour its commitments to the Korean manufacturer. However, during the fight led by the independentists for the takeover of Goro Nickel in 2020, Emmanuel Macron’s France was initially much less conciliatory with FLNKS and has since (particularly in 2023) shown clear signs of *rapprochement* with the loyalists (Trépied 2021).

## 9.8 Conclusion

In the complex history of the struggle to reclaim mining resources, FLNKS won a battle with the takeover of SMSP by the North Province. Through SMSP and SOFINOR, FLNKS has taken a place in a sector previously reserved for non-Kanaks, which it has largely helped to transform and revitalise with the aim of building independence. FLNKS is not the master of the New Caledonian nickel game, but it did not seek to be. In wanting to prove itself economically in the circle of miners and industrialists, locally or even globally, the challenge for the coalition was to make the most of it for the “country” and its inhabitants. This is the meaning given to the prospect of nationalisation, which does not necessarily mean, for all members of FLNKS, defending a socialist vision of the economy.

In the absence of independence and ownership of nickel resources, the nationalisation strategy took the form of a (semi-public) appropriation of one mining company. This struggle has borne fruit. After 1998 and more recently in 2020, the idea of provincial participation in the three New Caledonian smelters was accepted. After years of struggle, semi-public ownership of nickel resources – or rather of the companies that exploit and process it – has been strengthened. Yet, if the “mining scheme” was a step forward in control of nickel sector by the New Caledonian political class, according to increased autonomy of New Caledonia in the Nouméa Accord, where the failure seems more bitter, it is in the implementation of a common nickel policy. Already battered since the 2015 *conflit des rouleurs*, it seems to be moving further away after the pro-independence failure in the referendums. A large part of the anti-independence political class does not accept the idea of a centralised control of resources. The freedom of enterprise is presented as sacred, as is the idea that each province in possession of the “green gold” should be able to benefit as much as possible from nickel extraction.

In the past agreements, provincialisation, supporting an ethnically based territorial economic rebalancing, was a difficulty in creating a common destiny for all Caledonians, based on something more than just equity between ethnic groups. Thinking about the reinforcement of a *communauté des citoyens* (community of citizens) (Schnapper 1994), a new Caledonian community based on equality between citizens as FLNKS would prefer is not on the political agenda, except perhaps for some parties which defend an autonomist and non-independent perspective. The policy of equitable development, initiated by Michel Rocard in 1988, now sounds to some (Le Rassemblement or Les Républicains) like a failure that should lead to a reduction in the weight of the government and a strengthening of the power of the provinces. Such conception enshrines a desire to break off dialogue between pro- and
anti-independence parties and even to fragment the “country”. This means that the enactment of social justice between citizens, which involves sharing the same country together, is not the preference of loyalists, especially anxious to challenge the presence in the South of Kanaks from the North and the Islands, who are perceived as parasites on local social assistance. In 2021, even *La Chambre Territoriale des Comptes* (“The Territorial Audit Chamber”) has questioned the legality of the presence of the North and Islands’ provinces in the SPMSC on the grounds that the smelter is not located on their territories, and these two provinces should be required to respect the geographical perimeters in which they exercise their powers (CTC Nouvelle-Calédonie 2021).

Although SOFINOR promoted the development of entrepreneurship in the different municipalities of the North Province, and FLNKS saw it as a way to reduce economic inequalities within the province, the provincial logic of nickel re-appropriation is detrimental to the advancement of interethnic social justice in New Caledonia. More broadly, the process of nickel nationalisation is conducive to the enrichment of the territory but cannot be considered as an effective tool for reducing inequalities. A new community of citizens with equal rights is constructed with the help of other political dynamics. In this respect, the decolonisation of New Caledonia (within the Republic or not) has not yet been achieved. Moreover, it is the persistence of social inequalities that leads to a competition between two different visions for New Caledonia-Kanaky: a nationalist vision and a demand for Indigenous recognition based on ethnic difference (Graff 2012; Demmer and Salomon 2017). The legal proposal to assign a mining concession to a company without the need for a “personal mining authorisation” (APM) that is granted if there is “connection to land” signals this kind of tension between different conceptions of Kanak sovereignty and at least conceptions that envisage nested levels of sovereignty. But, to date, the establishment of distinct community rights (claimed only by a minority of Kanaks and which suits the anti-independence movement because it does not require independence) is still not considered as a satisfactory resolution of the colonial problem by FLNKS. The latter remains attached to a unitary conception of the nation. It promotes a cultural pluralism under private law, attached to a particular personal status called “customary”.

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<figure><img src="image_43.png" /></figure>
Part IV

Land Reform and Urban Development
Land Reform, Conflict and Local
Development on “Grande Terre”

10

Simon P. J. Batterbury, Matthias Kowasch,
and Aurélie Arroyas

Abstract

New Caledonia-Kanaky has operated customary and European models of land tenure in parallel for almost 170 years, since the early days of colonisation when francophone governance was imposed to enable settlement, and Kanak populations on prime agricultural were forcibly displaced onto “reserves”. This “historic dualism” has been at the heart of lengthy political discussion and the demands of the Kanak independence movement to reclaim its land and sovereignty. While debates about the development of customary land continue in times of political uncertainty, since the late 1970s re-allocation of land to Kanak clans by the state, latterly through the *Agence de développement rural et d'aménagement foncier* (ADRAF), has been substantial. We assess this process, offering two examples from the Northern Province where land conflicts remain and where “modern” development has taken place on customary land now controlled by clans, under their stewardship. This partial integration into the market economy has addressed many, but not all, of the problems of “historic dualism”.

Keywords

Land tenure · ADRAF · Customary land · Territory ·
Kanak · New Caledonia-Kanaky

**10.1 Introduction**

Land is crucial for Indigenous identities. It has deep spiri-
tual, social, material and cultural importance across all of the
Pacific's Indigenous cultures. The Indigenous Kanak leader
Jean-Marie Tjibaou, murdered in 1989, highlighted that for
his people, land is more than material wealth or property: "A
clan, which loses its land, loses its personality" (Tjibaou and
Missotte 1976, p. 60). While it is difficult to make sweeping
assumptions, he therefore identified a big difference with
Western views of private property where "ownership" means
land belongs to someone, others may be excluded from it
(Cohen 1954) and it may also function as a commodity or an
investment opportunity. While there may still be an intimate
personal or familial attachment to privately held land or ter-
ritory, Western norms place less emphasis on whole commu-
nities or the commons. Land as personality and land as
property, in the modern history of New Caledonia-Kanaky,
are two approaches that have rarely been reconciled and have
caused untold conflict.

In the South Pacific, one estimate is that 83–97% of land
remains under customary forms of tenure (Boydell 2010).
Customary lands have been “a source of considerable debate
for decades, and a philosophical and political struggle has
ensued around the value of its development and the opportu-
nities and constraints involved” (Scheyvens et al. 2020,
p. 52). New Caledonia-Kanaky has been central to these dif-
fering perspectives because of its history of settlement, and it
has operated customary and European models of land tenure
in parallel for almost 170 years. Sourisseau et al. (2010) call
this a unique form of “historic dualism”. While this duality
has existed since the early days of colonisation, early efforts

S. P. J. Batterbury (✉)
University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
e-mail: simonpjb@unimelb.edu.au;
http://www.simonbatterbury.net/

M. Kowasch
University College of Teacher Education Styria, Graz, Austria

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Hamar, Norway
e-mail: matthias.kowasch@phst.at

A. Arroyas
Rural Development and Land Management Agency,
Noumea, New Caledonia
e-mail: aurelie.arroyas@adraf.nc
to establish European settlement and economic activities voided a large percentage of customary tenure. Part of the Indigenous population was forcibly displaced onto less “valuable” land. This was a key source of anguish for Kanak clans, and it became a major origin of their later uprisings against France. In recent times, land has been at the heart of political discussions and the demands of the Kanak independence movement to reclaim its sovereignty. In the period since the 1888 Matignon-Oudinot Accords, the balance has swung towards land restitution to Kanak peoples, across the three provinces, as we describe below. But debates about the development of customary land continue to this day and are highly topical given the strong spatial disparities that remain across the territory and uncertainties about the political future of the archipelago.

In this chapter, we focus on contemporary land reform (réforme foncière) – the process of re-allocating and restituting land – from its early origins in the 1970s. To illustrate these trends, we present two cases of reform in the North Province, around Baco and Poum, to illustrate the complexities of customary issues and conflicts over land allocation in societies that combine some modernist development aspirations and projects, including mining, with customary claims to land. We discuss three key questions: How to recognise the legitimacy of claims to land where re-allocation is complex? Secondly, how may socio-economic development and other projects emerging on customary land challenge the “historic dualism” still prevalent across the territory? And, has the contemporary land reform process led to the appeasement, or to the emergence, of more conflicts? We conclude with a discussion of land reform challenges and the role that customary land can play in “inclusive development”.

## 10.2 The History of Land Reform

The need for land reform in New Caledonia goes back to the declarations of Governor Du Bouzet in 1855, who applied imperial French law to assert government control over all land not occupied by the Indigenous population, deemed *tribus sauvages*, with an assumption that this land was “vacant” or unoccupied (Otis 2021; Ward 1982). This land would then constitute the domain of the state, referred to hereafter as state land or domain land. Land that was not actually vacant but used for hunting and as part of bush fallow cycles was also deemed vacant, and its allocation to settlers caused immediate conflict. Du Bouzet’s actions have sometimes been seen as affording at least some land to the original inhabitants of the islands, but in reality, subsequent events meant there was little difference from British colonial edicts elsewhere in the Pacific, which usually seized “all” land for the state. Britain and France’s colonial and trading operations both displaced and alienated Indigenous populations.

In New Caledonia in 1868, reserves were given legal authority by Governor Guillain in a process of “cantonnement” – these reserves were a place for Kanak clans displaced by land takeovers to reside without threats to their land ownership. But this was not always their original land, and French authorities misunderstood customary tenure, which is adjudicated and managed through “first occupant” inhabitants and clan heads, who command respect. Guillain instead allocated land to tribes, a mostly fictional, larger entity that was an approximation of a European concept of an administrative entity (Ward 1982). As “land thereby became a property owned collectively by the tribe”, led by “political” chiefs, rather than the customarily important clan, problems were bound to occur. The rebellion led by Chief Ataï in 1878 against France had much to do with the inequalities of land seizures and displacement (Wadrawane and Gravelat 2021). By that time, reserve boundaries could be modified by the state at any time.

The distinctive French governance system, consisting of hierarchical levels of authority linked to defined territories (i.e. reserves or communities/tribus), was fully instituted from 1898, with district chiefs appointed over village chiefs, again counter to customary norms on the main island Grande Terre although Wadrawane and Gravelat (2021, p. 168) argue that such arrangements were present in the Loyalty Islands. The district Grands Chefs were political appointments with officially assigned administrative duties. This coincided with the imposition of Governor Feillet’s strong, pro-settler politics from 1895, pushed forward with cantonnement and diminishing Indigenous rights. From 1887, the Code de l’indigénat was imposed on Indigenous people, which concretised restrictions on free movement, promoted head taxes to force Kanak into labour to pay them, and it allowed for imprisonment of Kanak without trial (Merle and Muckle 2019). By 1902, the reserves on Grande Terre made up less than one-tenth of the island, and clans were forced together on them (Ward 1982). The official cantonnement process finished in 1903, but reserves extended in size until the Second World War as mining and urban expansion continued (Batterbury et al. 2020). The Code de l’indigénat was not repealed until after the war, when Kanak later gradually obtained full citizenship and voting rights. After the war, reserves became less constraining and were considered by many Kanak as a bastion of their culture. But with rising populations and a shortage of land for traditional farming, demand grew for reserve expansion and also restitution of clan territories (Saussol 1979).

## 10.3 Enter Land Reform

Some 124 years after Bouzet’s declarations, in 1979, the Territorial Assembly adopted a proposal by Paul Dijoud, French Secretary of State for the Overseas Departments and
Territories, to set up a long-term economic and social devel-
opment plan for New Caledonia (Fisher 2013). By this time,
the “settler economy” was dominant, centered on Nouméa
and across several other urban and rural areas, in numerous
mining concessions and mineral processing and export facil-
ities, and on the best agricultural land on the west coast of
Grande Terre, where pastoralism had come to be more profit-
able than crop production. Dijoud’s plan was elaborated in a
difficult political and economic context, with the re-
emergence of the Kanak independence movement, the
polarisation of the political landscape and the end of the
nickel boom leading to widespread unemployment (Tutugoro
2021). The plan was to encourage economic recovery, in par-
ticular to kickstart agricultural production (see Chap. 6 by
Bouard et al. in this book). Another intention of the French
government was to satisfy some of the identity claims of
Kanak people, with the hope that the “land problem” could
be eased by respecting the historical rights of Kanak com-
munities that had been denied in previous decades.

The land reform programme therefore had the dual objec-
tive of first rebalancing spatial disparities created by coloni-
sation, through the redistribution of land parcels bought back
by the state from (mainly) European settlers to Kanak clans.
Second, it imposed a normative goal: to support agricultural
development on Kanak customary land. At the commence-
ment of the reform in 1978, Kanak customary land on Grande
Terre consisted of 176,000 ha of Indigenous Kanak reserves,
increased from 126,614 ha in 1946. The area of land in pri-
vate property had grown to 435,000 ha, and state domain
land (including mines, mountainous terrain and reserves)
had diminished but still extended over 1,020,000 ha
(Fig. 10.1).

The land reform programme was launched, but no one
could foresee the scale it would later achieve. Following the
failure of various agricultural policies and poor market per-
formance, the redistribution began on largely abandoned pri-
vate settler agricultural land and to Kanak communities

(tribus and réserves). Some administrators had mistakenly assumed that many clans had died out, thus limiting the number of claimants: this was not the case. On 22 December 1980, the French newspaper *Le Monde* (1980) noted that land reform was planned to last 10 years, with annual re-allocations of 10,000 hectares. But the reality was different: it became a long-term initiative, redirected or accelerated by political events, resulting in profound territorial changes.

During the first period of the reform, from 1978 to 1988,
land allocations were made mainly on the basis of economic
criteria, combined with customary criteria such as the legiti-
macy of the applicant's land claim. This was the period of
specific arrangements for the development of economic sec-
tors such as the "coffee project" (see Chap. 6 by Bouard et al.
in this book). As this did not meet with great success and
after the Nouméa Accord was signed, a second period, from
1989 onwards, saw customary claims gradually dominating
the programme, and land redistribution became relatively
disconnected from economic and agricultural development
possibilities (Demmer 2010).

Generally, the reform process aims to allow farmers of all
ethnic origins to settle on acquired land, and it gives Kanak
communities the choice of the legal regime for the land allo-
cated, by opting for either the common law or customary law
regime. The choice of customary regime entails, depending
on the local context, a transfer to the benefit of a community
(known as a reserve expansion) or to one or more clans. The
common law regime involves either a free or paid transfer, or
a lease, to an individual or to a group dedicated usually to
agricultural activity. In order to encourage the maintenance
of farmland, the redistributed land was inalienable for
20 years.

To facilitate land allocations, the French National
Assembly passed a law on 7 January 1981, on land develop-
ment and rural settlement in New Caledonia-Kanaky.
The territorial government was then given the rights of
pre-emption or reclamation, against fair payment for

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 10.1** Land distribution over time on Grande Terre. (Source: ADRAF 2019)</figcaption></figure>
uncultivated or insufficiently developed private lands, basically sanctioning expropriation. The scheme was financed by New Caledonian credits from the land redemption fund, supplemented to a large extent by the State through FIDES (Investment Fund for Overseas Economic and Social Development).

Between 1978 and 1986, 40,000 hectares of land, divided into 150 properties, were purchased by the New Caledonian government and the “Land Office”, the New Caledonian agency charged to implement the land reform. During the same period, more than 35,000 ha were redistributed to clans and communities under customary law, with 40 allocations for the direct benefit of clans and 111 for the expansion of reserves, involving 63 reserves out of 139 on Grande Terre. These allocations concerned 24 municipalities of Grande Terre; 15 of them, the majority, were located in the current North Province. Among those with the most numerous and extensive allocations were the municipalities of Hienghène (6700 ha), Canala (4100 ha), Koné (3800 ha), Voh (2700 ha), Houaïlou and Poindimié (more than 2000 ha each) (see Fig. 10.2). In these municipalities, there were numerous private landowners dating from the colonial period. Beginning

in the early 1980s, they were confronted with land claims (or even occupation of their lands) organised by land committees created by the pro-independence political parties.

From 1982 to 1986, the Land Office took over from the New Caledonian government to continue these reforms. Management was directly carried out by the French state. Nearly 50,000 ha more properties, mostly located on the east coast, were acquired. But over the same period, only 2080 ha were allocated, mostly to clans. In a period when tensions between Kanak communities and European settlers had again become extreme and violent, the Land Office aimed to ensure the coexistence of a European land tenure system and a traditional customary system. Within locally defined boundaries, recognition of customary land rights can take several forms. One form, after the purchase of land by the Land Office, is a transfer of ownership to a *Groupement de droit particulier local* (GDPL), a legal entity with customary civil status. These were created in 1981, bringing together one or several clans or a community (see Kowasch et al. 2015). Second, there is the collection of a fee paid by the Land Office to the holders of customary land rights, when acquisition of the property for redistribution is not possible.

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 10.2** Land distribution on Grande Terre in 2020. (Source: ADRAF 2011, 2021)</figcaption></figure>
In 1986, the Land Office was replaced by the *Agence de développement rural et d'aménagement foncier* (Agency for Rural Development and Regional Planning) (ADRAF), aiming to continue the redistribution of lands and to promote the development of rural areas. The responsibility shifted from the French State to New Caledonia's territorial government, and a development discourse was asserted, again encouraging agricultural activities (cattle and deer breeding, rice and coffee growing, arboriculture, etc.). ADRAF agents were in charge of supporting programmes for agricultural development on lands allocated to Kanak clans and communities. As a result, the reform was no longer land-based but agrarian, in a political context that was still fragile and tense. Between 1986 and 1988, a certain number of properties, mainly located in Bourail, Moindou and Pouembout on the west coast (Fig. 10.2), were also allocated on a lease basis to non-Kanak individuals or enterprises, under the condition that they may be used and developed. These lands were legally not considered as customary but as belonging to common law land status ("classic" private property).

In 1988, the legal status of ADRAF was changed again and its missions were adapted to the changed political circumstances. The French State regained control of land reform. Economic development was now entrusted to the New Caledonian provinces, newly created by the Matignon-Oudinot Accords signed in 1988. ADRAF, for its part, focused on new land allocations, especially to clans and communities. The GDPL was chosen to become the main legal structure to receive land allocations, on the assumption that it seemed possible to combine customary life and economic development in such an arrangement. The GDPL composition allows it to traverse the "historical dualism" that has plagued the islands' political history: it must respect customary relationships between clans, even when some clan members reside elsewhere, as is common in New Caledonia. As a legal entity, listed in the commercial register, the GDPL is also adapted to economic activity and able to conduct tourism projects, agricultural development, industrial operations and other activities. GDPLs moved from operating a private property regime managed customarily to a fully customary ownership regime that is well established in Kanak communities. That important shift occurred in 1999, when the organic law resulting from the Nouméa Accord created the category of customary land, alongside private and public land.

The pressure of (peri-)urban development around the major urban centres on Grande Terre, and the fear that land could be sold to private investors has driven the more concrete status afforded to GDPLs. Land allocation to clans has been de-linked from demonstrable economic development outcomes, and ADRAF no longer allocates land according to

economic criteria. The political motivation eventually became to recognise the close relationships of Kanak clans to land, recognising customary land legitimacies. As described by Paul Néaoutyine (1993, p. 140), leader of the independence party PALIKA and president of the North Province: "(...) there is a relationship to the land and it is nuanced according to the historical context and the gestures that have been made". This has been a long journey, however. Ward (1982) argued that France eventually did better at land reform than Anglophone Oceanic dependencies, but only because "they had at their disposal the category of domaine [state] land, ruthlessly acquired by their predecessors" (Ward 1982, p. 13).

Between 1988 and 2019, the work of reallocation continued. ADRAF made nearly 950 allocations, covering an area of more than 130,000 ha, of which 99,000 ha went to GDPLs. Statistically, the distribution of land on Grande Terre is currently around 19% customary land, 18% private property under common law and 63% state land (Figs. 10.1 and 10.2). Some balance has been achieved, although there are still disputes and unresolved claims. ADRAF still has a bank of around hundred properties to allocate, with a total area of about 7400 ha. Some of these date back to the early 1980s, when a lack of local consensus stymied reallocation. These plots often hold memories of disputes, and sometimes even violent conflicts, which must be managed and resolved in the long term.

Despite the historical forced displacements and the current voluntary mobility of the Kanak population, the main challenge of land reform remains to facilitate access to land for those who lack it. For some, land reform is now advanced or even complete, but not all agree. The division here is predictable: conservative politicians consider that the land reform ended with achieving a balance between customary and private land, but pro-independence leaders say more claims need consideration.

Certainly, a clarification of legitimate claims to ownership and control between clans, families and individuals on customary lands is incomplete. Land rights and legitimacies may never be "resolved" on land with complex histories, but there are examples where agreements have led to, for example, a GDPL allocating communal land for housing or commercial development, for the benefit of all in the community, as we describe below, and as certain Native American tribes have done in the United States. With the rapid arrival of more serious climate change, and the commitments being made by the territorial and French governments, environmental questions will join economic ones. Land is central to the development of renewable energy, currently underdeveloped, and there are possibilities for carbon sequestration and credit schemes as well as better biodiversity preservation. The continued efforts to address island food self-sufficiency could