Crunch time for the Kimberley

Dugong Bay, Kimberley WA. Photo: Richard Costin

A perfect storm is gathering over the Kimberley region of northern WA.

Years of neglect and mismanagement have created major environmental problems but even bigger threats are now looming over the region, in the form of plans for large scale gas, mining and agricultural industrialisation of the Kimberley.

The Kimberley region of northern WA is one of the world’s great natural and Indigenous cultural regions.  Its vast savannah landscapes, wild rivers, extensive wetlands, spectacular coast and rich marine environments provide a multitude of habitats that are home to an extraordinary diversity of species.  The amazing wildlife of the region includes the recently discovered snubfin dolphin, humpback whales (which give birth on the Kimberley coast), gouldian finches, northern quoll and the golden bandicoot.

Incredibly, the far north-west Kimberley sub-region is the only part of Western Australia, and one of very few in Australia, that appears to have retained its complete native fauna species diversity without extinction since European settlement.

However, new plans for large-scale industrialisation, together with climate change and the arrival of cane toads (expected 2008/09), raise both the immediacy and scale of threat. They will add to the regional impacts of a hundred years of mismanagement (over-grazing by cattle) and neglect (uncontrolled wildfires, weeds and feral animals).

If these threats are not addressed urgently, the Kimberley is destined to become yet another region of Australia that we have allowed to be degraded from rich diversity to impoverished wasteland.

Priority campaign

The Kimberley coast is significant humpback whale breeding site. Photo: Annabelle Sandes

In view of its global significance and the serious chronic and emerging problems confronting the Kimberley, The Wilderness Society has decided to make the protection of the region’s natural values a high priority.

As always, The Wilderness Society will seek to work closely with the region’s Traditional Owners to ensure that improved conservation outcomes go hand in hand with improved outcomes for Indigenous communities. The wider roll-out in the Kimberley of the successful Indigenous Rangers program on Cape York is one example of a desirable outcome.

Fundamental to the protection of the Kimberley is a commitment from both State and Commonwealth governments to invest the resources needed to address both the existing threatening processes, such as over-grazing, over-fishing, feral animals and uncontrolled wildfires, and the emerging pressures of large scale industrial development.

 
The three key aspects of this government commitment should be:

• science-based regional conservation planning and management using whole-of-landscape principles;
• strong involvement of the Traditional Owners and Indigenous communities in land management and sustainable economy programs; and
• ruling out incompatible large scale industrial activity.

Some proposed forms of industrial activity, such as locating gas processing (LNG) plants in the most remote and unspoiled sections of the Kimberley coast, huge bauxite mines on the Mitchell Plateau, and large-scale irrigated agriculture in the Fitzroy valley, should be ruled out straight away as incompatible, destructive and inherently unsustainable.

Crucially, governments must not be allowed to get away with chronic under-funding of the Kimberley by tying funding for environmental protection to the go-ahead for major destructive industrial projects. The need for this funding has been recognised but ignored for years by government.

Kimberley marine environment at risk

The Kimberley’s clean seas, innumerable islands, coral reefs, mangroves, bays and estuaries are home to an astonishing variety of wildlife including endangered humpback whales and dugong, five species of turtles, crocodiles and rare snubfin dolphins. The Kimberley coast also has outstanding cultural values for the region’s many Indigenous communities.

The region is internationally recognised as one of the last great unspoiled marine and coastal environments in the world. Recent research mapping the world’s oceans confirmed that human impacts have damaged much of the world’s oceans, but placed the Kimberley alongside Antarctica as one of the world’s least impacted marine environments. If the large multinational resource companies have their way however, our pristine Kimberley is all about to change.

The urgent reality is that right now several companies, including Inpex (a Japanese energy company) and Woodside, have submitted proposals to develop the Browse Basin gas field to the State and Commonwealth governments. The impacts of industrialisation on the coastline – including proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants – would destroy a large and remote wilderness area with many ecosystems that are yet to be studied.

The exploitation of the Browse Basin gas field would result in:

• 10 million tonnes per annum of new greenhouse gas emissions (approx 14% of WA’s current GHG emissions);
• Blasting of pristine coral reefs and massive dredging projects for new ports;
• A huge increase in shipping and aircraft movements, causing pollution and potentially interfering with the migration patterns and breeding of humpback whales, turtle nesting and other marine wildlife; and
• Continuous pollution and degradation of the marine environment from drilling, dredging, shipping, and pipelines being laid along the ocean floor.

Both the State and Federal Governments are currently engaged in a process to determine the site for a Browse Basin gas processing ‘hub’, which would serve as a central point for the LNG industry.  Such a hub, if located on the Kimberley coast, would resemble the massive industrial projects on the Burrup Peninsula on WA’s Pilbara coast, with all the environmental and cultural impacts of that development.

The Wilderness Society is keen to develop an alternative vision for the Kimberley – one that protects the area’s conservation values and provides a strong economic future for Indigenous people and local communities.

A vision that extends beyond the current mining boom

Australia, and particularly WA, is currently going through an unprecedented growth in wealth based on the resources ‘boom’.  But what will we really gain from this boom if we lose our last great wild places? Longstanding needs for biodiversity conservation and Indigenous community support should benefit most from this boom, and not be held to ransom in the process of getting even more and bigger projects off the ground.

It is truly the case that the future of the Kimberley will be determined over the next five years. Current governments need a vision that extends beyond the boom. If our governments do not address comprehensively both the current threatening processes and incompatible resource development proposals as a matter of priority, then the fate of the Kimberley will be very bleak indeed.

What you can do to give the Kimberley a future

1. Send a cyberaction: Protect the Kimberley wilderness from industrialistion

2. Please contact WA Premier Alan Carpenter and Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett and ask that they ensure no industrialisation occurs in the most remote and unspoiled sections of the Kimberley coast - and that appropriate funding is directed as a matter of urgency to secure the future of the Kimberley’s outstanding natural and Indigenous cultural values.

 
The Hon Alan Carpenter MLA
Email: wa-government@dpc.wa.gov.au
Mail: Premier Alan Carpenter, 197 St George's Terrace, Perth WA 6000
Phone: (08) 9222 9888 - Premier's Office
Fax: (08) 9322 1213

The Hon Peter Garrett AM MP
Mail: Parliament House, Canberra, ACT 2600
Phone: (02) 6277 7640
Fax: (02) 6273 6101