The miners were doing mining surveys for internal use only, the environmentalist were submitting the cultural / environmental surveys as complaints which they’re allowed to do as part of the law the local government made for itself since it was government land that was being leased. It was more of a public consultation process, if no one complained then that’s fine too. The miners already have strict environmental regulations they have to follow regardless of where they build. Having seen these submissions it’s often stuff like, there is a river and since rivers are where people tend to congregate if we were to look we might find some ancient stone age human artifact despite no such thing ever being found within 100s of kms. Also rivers move, especially small ones.