As a Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland, Dr John Burton collected many documents relating to mining and areas of Papua New Guinea affected by mining. His primary research interests include social mapping and land ownership in Melanesia; development in the Pacific; social impacts of mining; governance and traditional politics in Papua New Guinea; Native Title research in Torres Strait and among rainforest Aboriginal groups in North Queensland; genealogy in Australia and Melanesia.