A new future for Tabubil: a college town in the clouds

PNG Sustainable Development Program

THE MINING TOWN OF TABUBIL is facing the closure of the nearby Ok Tedi mine with a brave new vision.

Built to support the Ok Tedi mine, Tabubil is in many ways a model town for Papua New Guinea.

In spite of its remote location in the misty Star Mountains, its roads and houses are well-maintained; it has reputable and well-resourced hospital, an international school and small international airport; its utilities are reliable, and security is rarely an issue. There’s even a golf course (although landslides adjust its fairways from time to time).

But how is Tabubil and its 10,000-strong community to be sustained and flourish once its reason for being—the giant Ok Tedi mine—closes, either in 2015 or 2024?

And what of the surrounding communities? About 80% of the workers in the villages surrounding Tabubil also derive their livelihood from the mine.

This pressing question has been the subject of Tabubil Futures, a study commissioned by PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd (PNGSDP) and Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) to determine how the town will survive after the mine’s closure.

Out of this study has arisen a range of strategic initiatives that will see Tabubil transformed from a mining town into a ‘sustainable mixed-economy college town,’ with a broader economic base and, eventually, its own municipal government.

Arguably the most high profile project under this transformation plan is the creation of the Star Mountains Institute of Technology (SMIT), an important supporter of the Crocodile prize national literary contest.

Due to its proximity to the Ok Tedi mine, Tabubil has been a training centre for a range of mine-related skills for some years. SMIT will bring Tabubil’s existing training activities under one banner, and also develop a broader range of courses in such critical areas as business, health, hospitality, agriculture, technology, environmental science and teacher training.

Land for SMIT’s campus in Tabubil has been secured and the building of its environmentally-friendly campus of classrooms, laboratories, student accommodation, theatre, library and conference centre has been put out to tender.

Dr Trevor Davison, SMIT’s chief executive officer, expects the build to take about two years. A proposal for a SMIT campus in nearby Kiunga has also been drafted.

Other parts of the Tabubil Futures plan will see Tabubil’s hospital turned into a teaching hospital under an arrangement with Divine Word University in Madang, and the commercialisation of electricity infrastructure currently owned and operated by OTML.

The latter move will involve the transfer of OTML’s three local power generation assets to PNG Energy Developments Ltd and Western Power, which will for the first time be able to charge commercial rates to users. Also on the agenda is more housing, a town planning framework, and plans to commercialise Tabubil’s small but busy international airport.

With all these initiatives at various stages of execution, it is likely Tabubil will be a very different town a decade from now. It will be hosting academic conferences, managing programs from national and international partner universities, and producing skilled workers not only for the mining and gas projects in the neighbouring Highlands and Papua Basin but also for private and public sector employers across the country.

Professor Ross Garnaut likens the planned transformation of Tabubil to that of Pittsburgh in the United States—a former steel town that overcame the departure of its traditional manufacturing industries in the 1980s and is now one of the United States’ most liveable cities with a strong technology and services sector.

If it can achieve a comparable transformation, Tabubil Futures could well prove a blueprint for post-resources communities across PNG.

Comments

[Barry Craig]

In 1965, as a member of the Australian Star Mountains Expedition, I and my colleagues walked from Telefomin through the valley of the Tifalmin west to the southern side of the Star Mtns, crossing the Ok Tedi just 20 km north of the site of Tabubil.

We set up a base camp 9 km north of the present-day open-cut mine before moving up into the Star Mountains. We had a geologist with us but were upstream of the mother-lode.

We could not have imagined the pace of the trajectory from almost 100% ancestral lifestyle to the modern town that is Tabubil.

With the probability of the Frieda River prospect coming on line, it would seem that there is certainly a bright future for the Star Mtns Institute of Technology. I wish her and all who sail in her the very best.

[Mrs Barbara Short]

In days gone by, if you were really wicked in the Education Department you could expect a sudden transfer to Tabubil.
I guess that today, with all the trouble in PNG towns, Tabubil has a lot to offer.
I wish Dr Trevor Davison the best of luck with SMIT.

[Biango Buia]

The idea is good.

To get to earth:

1. We will need a very clear idea of what is right and what is wrong and have this become the guiding light of this institution.

2. We will need good administrators and managers to run the institute.

3. We will need good teachers, trainers and support staff.

4. And of course we will need good students.

For reasons not clear to educators and the rest good funding and good institutions in PNG are as wide apart as the earth is to the clouds (sky).

[Tony Flynn]

"Town in the clouds" How about heads in the clouds? I recently read that our present POM University is very badly run down. It is located in our capital with excellent communications and social facilities are well developed.

The Madang Campus has an attractive location with fishing, beaches etc. Include the Goroka Uni; all have economies that do not depend on the institutions for survival, all have a developing economy supportive of a viable social structure that ensures that the institutions remain the cream on the cake.

Tabubil appears to me to be a one horse town. All that will happen is to replace a money earning horse with a race horse that may win a race but at what cost?

I sit in Wau on a sunny day with a holiday and nothing to celebrate, I don't know what the holiday is for or what my staff should celebrate.

I would like a Member of Parliament to pass an Act to ensure that the government be forced to fund holiday activities throughout PNG.

This to the value of at least twice the total wages cost of any secular holidays. Maybe Wau would see something more than the breeze in the trees.