February 1st, 2012
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’
January 31st, 2012
Practise what we preach: father of reconciliation attacks two-faced Australia
Debra Jopson, Phillip Coorey
Patrick Dodson … struggles with hypocrisy.
AUSTRALIAN governments present a different face on the international stage from the one they show when dealing with indigenous people, the ”father of reconciliation” Patrick Dodson said in Sydney last night.
Mahatma Gandhi Inaugural Oration
January 31st, 2012
Rare earth industry developing rapidly
ABC Rural
Babs McHugh
A company drilling for rare earths in north east Western Australia says the industry is rapidly developing.
Kimberley Rare Earths has a project in the Cummins Range, and plans to be a niche supplier of two light rare earths, cerium and lanthanum.
Chairman Ian MacPherson expects the operation to produce about 5,000 tonnes a year.
January 31st, 2012
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.
January 24th, 2012
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
January 24th, 2012
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.
January 20th, 2012
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.
January 20th, 2012
Kimberley partnership protects remnants of ancient rainforest
Science Network WA
Geoff Vivian
ECOLOGISTS are working with Indigenous rangers to develop assessment protocols for the health of monsoon vine thickets.
Project coordinator and Environs Kimberley’s Louise Beames says the thickets, which are a type of dry rainforest that once covered much of Northern and Central Australia, are under threat.
“Monsoon vine thicket plants depend on frugivorous (fruit-eating) birds and bats moving from one patch to the other to eat fruits and spread the seeds,” she says.
December 22nd, 2011
Woodside hit with Browse costs, doubts: report
Business Spectator
Woodside Petroleum Ltd is facing growing doubts about its plans to use the James Price Point location on the Kimberley coast for its Browse liquefied natural gas (LNG) project amid estimates the building cost could rise beyond $US40 billion and a move yesterday by Woodside’s partners in the project to avoid endorsing the choice of James Price Point, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.
December 21st, 2011
Lowering the boom on WA’s biggest 2011 resources bust-ups
SMH
Rania Spooner
1. Shifting sands of the Browse Basin LNG hub
The future of a $35 billion liquefied natural gas hub – originally proposed to sit at James Price Point in the Kimberley – has been shifted so many times that it now looks set to be moved more than 1000 kilometres to Karratha.