Help Cable Beach turtles survive – send a quick submission in support of a longer beach-safety period

Flatback Turtles only nest on northern Australian beaches and are listed as a threatened species. Only 1 in 1000 hatchlings survive to adulthood.

The Cable Beach turtles face threats such as animals digging up nests and eating the eggs and young - but in addition they also face the threat of vehicles being driven over nests, and tyre-ruts blocking access to the ocean for hatchlings.

You can help here in less than a minute of your time, by submitting a quick submission, before 4pm Friday 30 August 2024, stating your support for extending the vehicle ramp closure through February.

Hatchlings get trapped in tyre-ruts on the beach and fail to make it from the nest to the sea.

If we want the Flatback turtle population to survive, then we need to do all we can to help them, including keeping vehicles off the beach during nesting and hatching times.

A happier hatchling. Photo: Allysha Cartledge.

Instructions:

• Click this link, it will take you to the Shire of Broome's webpage.
• Scroll down.
• Fill in your name and post code (make sure there is not a space at the start of your postcode).
• Fill in your email.
• Select "YES" to the question: "Do you support extending the vehicle ramp closure through February?"
• Add a comment if you wish (optional).
• Click the box next to the words "I'm not a robot".
• Click "Submit".
• Note: If at this point you don't receive a "Submission complete" message and a receipt number for your submission, try scrolling back up to see if it specifies where an error may have occurred, then fix the error.

Environs Kimberley recommends that Cable Beach be closed to vehicles during the whole nesting and hatching season from October to April. On the table right now is a step towards that - the option to expand vehicle restrictions into the month of February.

Flatback Turtle - threatened species. Photo: Dave and Fiona Harvey

If you would like to provide optional comments, here are some points you could include:

• Flatback turtles are a threatened species
• The Flatbacks at Cable Beach hatched there, and feed in Roebuck Bay
• We have a great opportunity to provide more protection by keeping cars off the beach during nesting and hatching times
• There should be a ban on vehicles during nesting and hatching time, from October to April – including all of February
• According to the Shire of Broome’s website, data from Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions compiled from six years of its turtle monitoring program at Cable Beach showed that: “on average, 20 per cent of turtle nests hatch in February and that Cable Beach turtles only nest at Cable Beach. The Council accepted this compiled data as valid scientific evidence to justify extending ramp closures through February until March 1 to protect the unhatched turtle nests after January.”
• Also according to the Shire of Broome’s website, “… the Yawuru Parks Council has requested that the Shire of Broome consider extending the existing December and January closures to include all of February to ensure that the 20 per cent of nests that remain unhatched in February remain protected from vehicles and ruts caused by vehicle tyres.”
• The Shire takes serious reputational risks if it supports vehicles on the beach rather than a threatened species.

First shale gas fracking plan in Australia under Federal Environment Laws released - Faces Staunch Community Opposition in the Kimberley

A new plan to drill and frack six oil and gas wells in the heart of the Kimberley’s National Heritage-listed Martuwarra Fitzroy River catchment will face fierce widespread community opposition in the Kimberley to the environmentally destructive plan. 

The fracking project plans were released on 24th July by Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water for public comment.  

“This is the first shale gas fracking proposal referred under Federal environment laws. It will be the first test of the water trigger since amendments were made to include shale gas in December last year,” said Environs Kimberley Director of Strategy Martin Pritchard. 

Kimberley residents protest the fracking plan in Broome. Pic: Danny Estcourt.

Black Mountain subsidiary Bennett Resources, owned by Texan billionaire Rhett Bennett, plans to turn the Kimberley’s Canning Basin into a US style oil and gas field.

While this proposal is for six wells, the ultimate goal is to develop a global scale oil and gas field using the highly polluting fracking technique pioneered in the 1990s in the US.

“Black Mountain have said they need a pipeline to the Pilbara. If they got such a pipeline they’d need thousands of oil and gas wells to feed it and pay for it. We’d be looking at a landscape industrialised by the oil and gas industry like they have in Texas and across North America,” said Martin Pritchard, Director of Strategy at Broome-based conservation group Environs Kimberley.

“Fracking uses vast quantities of water laced with poisonous chemicals pumped at extreme pressures through wells that pierce groundwater aquifers. Wastewater returned to the surface has been found to contain radioactive materials as well as a legion of carcinogenic compounds. This industry is incompatible with the globally significant natural values of the Kimberley,” Claire McKinnon from Lock the Gate said.

Three wells have been test-fracked in the Kimberley over the past 14 years and all have had problems, including documented well-integrity failures.

Wastewater ponds have overflowed in the monsoon season, spilling onto floodplains and endangering the plants and animals of the Kimberley.

The wells are close to tributaries of the National Heritage-listed Martuwarra Fitzroy River, the last stronghold of the critically endangered Freshwater Sawfish, and is a highly popular Barramundi fishing mecca.

“The community is outraged that this is being inflicted on the Kimberley particularly given the climate crisis we are living in. If we want a safe climate future we know it is vital not to open new oil and gas fields especially at the scale we could see in the Kimberley,” said Yisah Bin Omar from Seed, Australia’s first Indigenous youth-led climate network.

Oil and gas company Woodside abandoned plans to build gas refineries costing $80-billion at James Price Point in 2013 after national protests and community backlash in the Kimberley.

“We don’t want to see a James Price Point situation unfolding again here, The Albanese and Cook Governments must take action now and rule out fracking gasfields in the Kimberley,” said Mr Pritchard.

Photo: Danny Estcourt

As Woodside seeks approval to develop the Browse offshore gas field near Broome, documents obtained by Greenpeace under FOI have revealed that the tourist hotspot was subject to “unbearable” aircraft noise during the last wave of offshore construction.

During the construction phases of the Prelude and Ichthys offshore facilities, a helicopter arrived or departed approximately every twenty minutes during the peak of the activity, with military-style choppers frequently operating outside curfew hours, even on public holidays.

If Woodside’s Browse facility gets approval, Broome can expect far worse.

“Not only is Woodside’s Browse a disaster for our climate and for WA nature, but it will create absolute helicopter hell for residents in Broome,” said Environs Kimberley Director of Strategy Martin Pritchard.

“This is just one more reason why Woodside’s Browse project can’t be allowed to go ahead. We need federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to protect our beautiful Kimberley coast and Broome’s multi-million dollar tourism industry, and to stop Woodside in its tracks.”

Proprietor of the Broome Hire Centre and local tourism operator Don Bacon said Woodside’s helicopters were too damaging for tourism: “Tourists come to Broome for the relaxed holiday feel - why would they holiday here if they are going to be assaulted by a pre-dawn chorus of military style helicopters? This can’t be allowed to happen. The town’s main industry is tourism; industrial noise is not compatible with a thriving visitor economy here. We want Broome to be Broome, not to turn it into Karratha!”

BACKGROUND:

In July 2017, the Prelude FLNG arrived in WA waters, some 475 kms north of Broome. Eighteen months later, on Boxing Day 2018, it became operational. Inpex also started producing at the neighboring Ichthys facility that year.

Construction and mining workers at both of these offshore facilities need to travel there by helicopter from Broome. The initial stages of setting up these facilities are particularly labour intensive and require large numbers of helicopter movements.

“As the offshore facilities are progressively hooked-up and commissioned, the number of workers and vessels required offshore will gradually reduce,” Inpex wrote at the time. “This transition will also see an aligned reduction in the number of helicopter flights operating out of Broome.”

Over those two years, noise complaints in Broome went through the roof. Airservices Australia data, released exclusively to Greenpeace Australia Pacific, show a tenfold increase in complaints from Broome in 2017-18 compared with other years.

It is little wonder that this happened. Helicopter traffic regularly peaked at over 1000 flights per month in that period. That’s 33 per day, and if all those flights had been crammed into daylight hours, it equals one flight almost every 20 minutes. Unfortunately, much of the traffic occurred at night or early in the morning, making the noise particularly disruptive, according to complaints.

No other time has come close to matching this. Throughout much of the period, starting in June 2017, when PHI began flying its helicopters out of Broome, helicopter flights made up a third of all traffic at Broome airport.

The helicopters used are twin-engined models that are significantly larger than joyflight tourist helicopters also seen in Broome.

Greenpeace has obtained copies of complaints made in Broome during the construction period. Highlighting the extent of the issue, the complaints included the following statements:

• “It's 6 am on Saturday morning and I have been awake since about 5am this morning due to the continuous loud helicopter noise, which has also woken my small children.”
• “These aircraft fly over early every morning and then fly in and out all day.”
• “Helicopter noise from Broome airport is so loud it woke me up. It drones on and on, before sunrise, in the day and now after 11pm at night. Can't sleep at night, can't sleep in in the mornings, can't concentrate in the day with these incessant periodic noise events. Health hazard.”
• “I have had tourists telling me they won't be coming back to Broome next year if this is how it is going to be, too bloody noisy.”
• "Sick to death of living in what feels and sounds [like] a war zone."
• “The impact of these helicopters is immense and it's really unbearable to hear those blades over your house. I contacted these cowboys and the airport in the past but now they don't take my calls anymore.”
•  “The helicopters are using my place as a navigational point. They should be flying somewhere else instead of right over my house.”
•  “The airport is very close into the Broome township. The helicopters make unacceptable noise levels near residential areas. When is the helicopter base going to be moved?”
• “Why do the helicopters sound like they are just driving up and down for an hour, its very noisy and if its not at 7-9pm its 5.45am-6.45am its very annoying and being a shift worker either end is hard to sleep. I cant wear and shouldn't have to wear earplugs.”
• “Would like to lodge a complaint for helicopter noise last twenty minutes or so, just sitting there on the runway, also excessive noise from helicopters early in the mornings taking off and returning as well as training ones on Friday nights.”

If Woodside’s Browse facility gets approval, Broome can expect far worse.

Woodside’s proposed project will dwarf what is already in place in terms of both scale and complexity - and that will mean a sharp rise in helicopter traffic.

“The complexities of projects like Browse are myriad,” the AFR has reported, “and they stretch way beyond the technical, geological and geographic.”

Woodside’s Browse operation is massively bigger than what is already in place, and will triple local production. At 11.4 million tonnes per annum, Woodside’s Browse operation is more than double the combined capacities of Prelude and Ichthys (3.6 MTPA and 1.6 MTPA).

Woodside’s project will exist in waters as deep as 700 metres, more than twice as deep as the 250 metre waters where the existing projects operate.

This will all, of course, also require a workforce that is significantly greater than was previously used.

The airport says 45,000 per year are already transported by helicopter to work on oil and gas facilities.

Unfortunately for residents, tourists and tourism operators in Broome, the approval of Woodside’s project will mean many more helicopters - in the short term, and in the long run.

The WA state government's mid-term performance review has revealed that the January 2023 floods in the Kimberley will cost taxpayers over $869 million dollars. 

The announcement comes on a 45C day in Fitzroy Crossing. 

Broome-based conservation group Environs Kimberley (EK) is calling on the State and Federal governments to recoup the cost from fossil fuel companies who have made billions in profits over the past year, while driving worsening climate impacts. EK is also calling on the WA and Commonwealth governments not to approve new gas projects in the Kimberley, including proposals by Buru Energy and Woodside. 

EK Director of Strategy Martin Pritchard said, "The January 2023 floods have had a devastating impact on communities in the Kimberley’s Fitzroy Valley with many people losing all their possessions and homes. It’s now been revealed that this flood has come at a cost of what's likely to be over a billion dollars to taxpayers and private businesses. 

"The State and Federal governments need to recognise that fossil fuel-driven climate change comes at an enormous cost to communities, taxpayers, private businesses and the natural environment and we know what and whom is causing this – oil, gas and coal companies."

The revelation of the enormous cost of the flood comes on a 45C day in Fitzroy Crossing with the next 10 days predicted to be above 40C. Fitzroy Crossing will be unliveable in the next 50 years with CSIRO and BoM data projecting 225 days over 40C a year if we continue on the current emissions trajectory.

“Catastrophic climate events like floods and heatwaves have been predicted for years and now we are bearing the enormous costs of burning fossil fuels while oil and gas companies like Woodside make billions in profits. There’s something very wrong with this picture and it’s clearly not sustainable for the environment nor taxpayers.

“We are calling on governments to firstly stop the damage by preventing new fossil fuel projects like Buru Energy's Kimberley onshore gas proposal and Woodside’s offshore Browse project and second, to instigate a ‘Climate Change Disaster Levy’ on fossil fuel companies that can be used to plan for climate change disasters as well as fund recovery work.

"Woodside has put a measly $750k towards flood recovery while making billions in profits and wants to open up more gasfields that will fuel climate change for another 50 years. They are throwing spare change at Western Australians suffering from floods, heatwaves and fires while pocketing enormous profits for themselves. 

“We cannot open up any new oil and gas fields if we want a safe climate.”

Photo of Fitzroy Crossing bridge collapsing in 2023 flood: Andrea Myers