Aboriginal Group Take Asbestos Contamination Fight to the UN

The tiny, isolated town of Wittenoom in Western Australia has come before the U.N. Human Rights Council, as Aboriginal traditional owners step up their fight to have the state government clear asbestos contamination from the site. At the foot of a deep gorge 15 hours’ drive northeast of Perth, the Pilbara town is blanketed in the deadliest type of asbestos, crocidolite. Although asbestos mining finished there 60 years ago, asbestos fibres have spread beyond the 46,000-hectare Wittenoom Asbestos Management Area (WAMA), with Banjima elder Tim Parker claiming in 2008 that “it is right across the Hammersley Ranges.” That has earned it the title of the largest contaminated area in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s also been called “the world’s most dangerous town” and “Australia’s Chernobyl.”...