Under the banner of progress a consortium of mega companies spearheaded by Woodside are beginning clearance and development in a beautiful quiet corner of Australia.
The Kimberley region of northern WA is one of the world’s great natural & Indigenous cultural regions. Its vast savannah landscapes, wild rivers, extensive wetlands, spectacular coast & rich marine environments provide a multitude of habitats that are home to an extraordinary diversity of species. Incredibly, the far north-west Kimberley sub-region is the only part of Western Australia, & one of very few in Australia, that appears to have retained its complete native fauna species diversity without extinction since European settlement.
During the last few months there has been severe opposition from local people in the nearby community of Broome and throughout the World at plans to develop this pristine coastal wilderness into a huge industrial site drilling for gas.
If the project goes ahead this beautiful landscape will be transformed by a huge port and processing complex abliterating 3500 hectares of land. The port would require the blasting and dredging of millions of tons of reef and coral in order to make a channel, since the sea bed is quite shallow. Further dredging would have to continue every year, creating sediment plumes that will wreak havoc on the amazing marine life here.
There are a number of threatened marine species in the area like humpback whales, which use a migratory pathway 20km out to sea to a 'nursery' further up the Kimberley coast. This breeding and calving ground is most important for this group of humpbacks (known as the Group IV humpbacks), as it is the fastest recovering humpback population in the world, finally on the road to recovery from the effects of whaling. There are also sea grass beds in the area that are an important habitat for turtles and dugongs. The pressure of the proposed development on the town of Broome is unfathomable at the moment. This idyllic, multicultural pearling town will be impacted by 400 fly-in fly-out workers, ostensibly turning an international tourist destination into a mining town.
What seems to be lost in all of this is that there are alternatives. Gas could be piped down to The Pilbara, which is already heavily industrialised. Indeed, the Port Hedland Shire have very recently voted to have the facility sited at Port Hedland, which is an approved heavy industry site.
Another alternative is that floating platforms for gas processing could be built offshore. Shell is currently working on technology for a floating processing facility and this would most likely be ready at about the same time as all appeals or court cases related to Garrett’s decision on the project had been heard.
