Ba Provincial Council chairman Ratu Meli Tora has urged the government to impose stricter conditions and firm timeframes on prospecting licences after recounting how exploration approvals in the province were repeatedly extended beyond their original terms. Speaking this week, Ratu Meli said current practices leave native land and the environment exposed to ongoing disruption and called for stronger regulation and a rethink of who ultimately owns mineral resources found on customary land.
“I remember there was a prospecting licence given to a company here in the Ba Province and they were given 30 days to conduct the exploration works,” Ratu Meli told provincial leaders. “After the 30 days expired, they requested another 30 days, and it kept on extending.” He said such open-ended extensions should not be permitted and that regulators must set clear limits on how long exploration activities can continue.
Ratu Meli framed the demand for tighter controls around protection of native land, water and other natural resources. “My concern is the protection of our environment and the amount of damage these types of work will do to it. So we have to ensure these are protected,” he said, arguing that temporary licences that become de facto long-term incursions place undue strain on communities and ecosystems.
In a further push on landowner rights, Ratu Meli joined other Ba Province landowners in calling for ownership of minerals to be returned to the resource owners — the native landowners themselves. “They were found on native land and so the landowners should be involved in any of the discussions related to these minerals,” he said, underscoring a view held by some customary landholders across Fiji that the present legal framework does not adequately recognise their stake.
That legal framework is set out in the Mining Act 1965, which vests ownership of all minerals in the State (the Crown) regardless of who owns the surface land. The Act has long been understood to give the government ultimate control over mineral exploration and exploitation, a principle the State says is intended to manage resources for the national benefit. Ratu Meli’s comments, however, underscore growing pressure from provincial and landowning leaders for greater local input, firmer environmental safeguards and potential legislative change.
His demands come against a backdrop of other initiatives aimed at balancing land use and conservation. The iTaukei Land Trust Board has been advancing plans to formalise conservation areas and improve land-use planning, measures proponents say could help protect biodiversity and cultural values from unregulated activities. For Ba Province, Ratu Meli’s call marks the latest development in a simmering debate over how exploration and mining should be regulated on native land, and who should benefit from any mineral discoveries.
Any shift toward returning mineral ownership to landowners or imposing binding nationwide time limits on prospecting licences would require amendments to the Mining Act and engagement between landowner groups, provincial authorities and national ministries. For now, Ratu Meli has placed the issue squarely on the public agenda in Ba, demanding regulatory clarity to prevent what he described as incremental and unchecked damage to native land and resources.
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