More than 60 institutional investors, including American giant Fidelity, have written a joint letter to the world's major mining companies suggesting they review the "genuineness" of the consents they have obtained from traditional owners and demanding to know how they are handling cultural heritage risk.

Signed by local industry superannuation giants AustralianSuper, Cbus and HESTA to name a few, the letter was sent in response to Rio Tinto's destruction of prized cultural heritage Juukan Gorge and subsequent revelations about the flaws that existed in Rio's approach to managing that heritage.