Freeport-McMoRan Inc

Environmental Rights Action / UN Special Rapporteur reports — Freeport-McMoRan (FCX); Grasberg mine (Papua, Indonesia): world's largest gold mine operates on land of Amungme and Kamoro indigenous peoples without FPIC under Indonesian law or UN DRIP standards; mine has operated since 1972; tailings disposal has destroyed Kamoro fishing grounds creating a new river delta of waste; activist suppression in Indonesian Papua limits documentation; FCX holds ~82% economic interest

Freeport-McMoRan operates one of the world's largest copper and gold mines at Grasberg in Papua, Indonesia, a site with a decades-long record of environmental damage. The company's practice of disposing of mine tailings directly into the Ajkwa River system has resulted in widespread deforestation and the contamination of downstream ecosystems across an estimated 230 square kilometers of lowland rainforest. This ongoing deposition of waste rock has fundamentally altered the river's course and buried local waterways.

Legal and regulatory actions document the pattern. In 1997, a landmark lawsuit, *Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan*, alleged the company committed environmental torts and cultural genocide through its mining operations. In 2012, Freeport-McMoRan agreed to pay $6.8 million to settle federal and state natural resource damage claims related to pollution from its Morenci copper mine in Arizona, indicating similar environmental management issues within its U.S. operations. An academic environmental history of the company links it to "serious adverse environmental impacts" due to operational negligence.

While the company has implemented some environmental management programs in recent years, the foundational impact of its riverine tailings disposal at Grasberg—a method largely prohibited in many other mining jurisdictions—represents a persistent and material legacy of ecological damage.