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Papua New Guinea’s government has upset conservationists, landowners and parliamentarians after amending environmental laws last Friday that will make it harder to prosecute mining projects that damage the environment.

Tiffany Nonggorr, a lawyer representing close to 1,000 landowners, including those opposed to China Metallurgical Group’s US$1.4bn Ramu nickel mine, said the changes meant landowners had lost the right to sue for negligence.

“If they [the miners] did in PNG what BP has done in the Gulf of Mexico, they could escape liability for damaging the environment,” she said. Coastal landowners are particularly worried about the impact on marine life from waste that the Ramu mine will be allowed to dump into the ocean.

Powes Parkop, a PNG parliamentarian, lawyer and conservation advocate said the government had granted itself “almost absolute power” to grant environment permits and assess the standards required of those permit holders.

He said at the same time it had removed the rights of landowners to challenge decisions under civil and statutory law.

Parkop said that once the permit was granted, miners could carry out their work with impunity. “How can we pass a law that takes away our rights and powers while at the same time vest powers on developers?” he asked in a letter to Benny Allan, PNG’s environment and conservation minister.

PNG is one of few countries in the Pacific with substantial natural resources, including gold, copper, nickel, oil and gas. Those reserves have attracted interest from China, the US, UK and Australia but the mining sector’s development has been hampered by rugged terrain, lack of infrastructure, corruption and disputes with landowners.

Nonggorr says China Metallurgical lobbied hard for the government to amend the environmental laws, which could now be applied to every other resources project in the country. But she says the battle between China Metallurgical and the landowners is not over because the matter is already before the courts.

Bertha Somare, a government media advisor and daughter of Sir Michael Somare, the PNG prime minister, says landowners’ rights have not been removed because they can still raise their objections with the authorities.

She said the Ramu nickel mine had met the country’s statutory requirements and there was “no known” environmental impact from mine waste.