Environs Kimberley
Cops set to move on gas hub protest
The West Australian
Flip Prior
UPDATE 3.30pm: About 200 families and activists gathered in Broome this afternoon in Broome to discuss strategies to deal with a growing police presence in the town.
Police started arriving in Broome today in a move widely believed to be a pre-emptive strike against protests at the proposed gas hub at James Price Point.
Environs Kimberley spokesman Martin Pritchard said community members were facing battles on several fronts over the project, including in the courts.
Planning debate over gas hub site
Vanessa Mills
Some 60 people went to a planning policy meeting in Broome on Friday afternoon. Many of them walked out of the public gallery at the Broome Shire office midway through the meeting in a disgruntled mood.
It was a meeting about the James Price Point gas hub proposal.
Broome Shire Council decision ignored in Woodside ruling
Media Release
Environs Kimberley
The Broome Shire Council refused to endorse recommendations to the State’s Development Assessment Panel for a decision on Thursday. The recommendations from Shire staff were to approve an application by Woodside for retrospective and new approvals for work at James Price Point, site of a proposed gas refinery.
The retrospective planning approval was for work undertaken illegally by Woodside in 2011.
A State appointed panel assessed the proposal on Friday and approved the application despite the Shire’s refusal to endorse it.
“The Shire of Broome refused to endorse a report on a Woodside development application to the State Government’s Development Assessment Panel and this decision was completely ignored. The Shire President Graeme Campbell as a member of the panel voted against assessing the application but lost due to the majority vote of three government appointed members.” said Environs Kimberley Director Martin Pritchard.
“This shows how the Development Assessment Panel’s set up by the Liberal National government have been set up to override community and Shire Council decisions, they are undemocratic and the decision makers, flown in from Perth, did not even visit the site of the proposed development site.” Mr Pritchard said.
“The community feels completely disempowered and understandably angry that the wishes of our democratic representatives in local government have been overridden.” said Mr Pritchard.
Media Release: Local Government rolled in Woodside application
Fury as Woodside works approved
Update, 6.10pm Angry scenes erupted in Broome today as the Kimberley Joint Development Assessment Panel voted to give Woodside conditional planning approval for retrospective and future works at James Price Point until December 2013.
The matter was heard by the DAP panel even though Broome Shire councillors had refused to endorse the application at their meeting last night on the grounds there had been insufficient time for community consultation.
In response, several community members threw copies of the 150 page application at the panel as other stormed out of council chambers en masse shouting “shame” and “corruption of process”.
Indigenous vision for Kimberley irks Greens
The Australian
Andrew Burrell
FORMER ALP national president Warren Mundine and wealthy Perth dealmaker John Poynton are behind a plan to promote indigenous investment by building a $600 million port near the Kimberley town of Derby to service the massive offshore oil and gas industry.
Rainforest oasis under threat: fire, feral animals and 4WDs
ABC Kimberley
How can an ant help science? Indigenous rangers and conservationists are using ants to monitor the health of rainforest pockets, scattered along the Dampier Peninsula.
These monsoon vine thickets occur behind ancient dunes, they’re like an oasis in the savannah, rich in bush foods, fresh water, bird life and shady trees.
There are 72 of these remnant rainforest pockets along the Dampier Peninsula north of Broome, covering 2700 hectares and containing 25 per cent of the region’s plant species. These thickets are different to others which occur in Northern Australia, and they’re listed as a Threatened Ecological Community.
But bushfires, four-wheel-driving, weeds and feral animals have degraded some thickets almost to the point of no return.
Bardi Jawi ranger Mark Shadforth and Louise Beames from Environs Kimberley’s West Kimberley Nature Conservation Project, are part of a team monitoring the health of the peninsula’s vine thickets.
Woodside gas hub approvals questioned
AAP, The West Australian
‘Illegal’ Woodside works in 2011 – had no Shire planning approval
An environmental group has accused Woodside Petroleum of trying to bypass legally required approvals for its proposed $30 billion gas hub in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.
But Woodside says it has fulfilled all its requirements and is working with the State Government and the Shire of Broome on the liquified natural gas project.
Environs Kimberley says Woodside did not have shire approval for a laydown area with a fuel tank, transportable accommodation, offices, toilets, fences, gates, a vehicle washdown area and drilling.
Environs Kimberley Media Release Woodside works ‘illegal’
Woodside gas hub approvals questioned
Nine News
An environmental group has accused Woodside Petroleum of trying to bypass legally required approvals for its proposed $30 billion gas hub in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.
But Woodside says it has fulfilled all its requirements and is working with the state government and the Shire of Broome on the liquified natural gas (LNG) project.
Environs Kimberley says Woodside did not have shire approval for a laydown area with a fuel tank, transportable accommodation, offices, toilets, fences, gates, a vehicle washdown area and drilling.
If you’re after the latest news from the Kimberley skip this introduction and scroll down
Welcome to our website. Environs Kimberley (EK) is the only regional conservation group working on the ground in one of the world’s last wilderness areas. Our region’s natural habitats are facing unprecedented threats from too frequent fire, feral animals, weeds, broadscale land-clearing, dams and increasing industrialisation. Our mammals are disappearing.
Our innovative work with Indigenous Ranger Groups through the West Kimberley Nature Project is addressing some of these threats to rare and endangered Kimberley ecosystems (see here).
25,000km² of the Kimberley is being explored for coal, more than 120,000km² explored for shale gas (by the notorious method of ‘fracking’), more than 10,000km² for bauxite (Sydney’s urban area covers 1687km²). The region is also facing exploration for oil, iron ore, copper, diamonds, rare earths, lead, zinc and uranium.
James Price Point, 40km north of Broome on one of the world’s most pristine coastlines, is the proposed site for the largest gas processing plant in the world. If approved, it would open up the floodgates to industrialisation on a scale never seen before in northern Australia. (For more information go here)
We need your help to protect the Kimberley. You can contribute by becoming a member (click here) and taking an active role in our activities or, if you don’t have the time to take part, by making tax deductible monthly donations (click here). $30 a month goes a long way for us.
For latest news on the Kimberley see below
New Gouldian finches found in Kimberley
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
THE RARE AND BEAUTIFUL Gouldian finch is hardly ever seen on the Dampier Peninsula in the western Kimberley, but indigenous rangers have now found a population of the birds breeding there.
The Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae) was once common in the savannah woodlands across northern Australia, but numbers have dwindled in the past 50 years.
The 2500 or so remaining are mostly scattered in the eastern Kimberley around Wyndham, and in parts of the Northern Territory and northern Queensland. But the birds change their breeding and feeding spots from year to year, depending on conditions.
Dampier Peninsula: Rare finches still breeding
Kimberley Page
A Gouldian finch – courtesy Wikimedia
Indigenous rangers have confirmed Gouldian Finches are still present and breeding on the Dampier Peninsula.
The rangers observed the birds while carrying out weed control on monsoon vine thickets.
“It’s exciting to be working with rangers and to find a breeding population of Gouldian finches utilising refuges such as monsoon vine thickets and un-burnt woodland. It shows how important it is to continue to care for land and improve fire management on the Dampier Peninsula,” said Louise Beames, Environs Kimberley Projects Coordinator.