Join us to participate in vital research monitoring Roebuck Bay's seagrass meadows! Take in the vast exposed mudflats as we conduct surveys on the seagrass plants and seeds. Learn about the many ocean critters we may encounter along the way, and, if we're lucky, spot dugong feeding trails.

We will meet bright and early at 5am for a cuppa and snacks (email us if you have specific dietary requirements), followed by a safety and training induction before commencing the survey across the mudflats. Please ensure you bring the following:

• Sun protection: the Kimberley sun packs a punch, please ensure you wear protective clothing such as a t-shirt/long sleeve shirt and a hat.
• Water bottle: save waste and bring your own bottle, we will provide water to re-fill.
• Reef shoes: the mud flats are very sticky! We recommend you wear reef boots to protect your toes from the many intertidal creatures and potential sharp rocks/coral. We will provide boots you can borrow if you do not have your own.

Please meet our team at the location below. Contact Alex, our seagrass officer, if you need help locating us or have any questions about the project.

Please watch our training video below so you can be best prepared for your afternoon on the mud:

BROOME COMMUNITY SEAGRASS MONITORING PROJECT TRAINING VIDEO on Vimeo

You can learn more about the project by visiting our website project page: Seagrass Monitoring Project - Environs Kimberley

We hope to see you out on the mudflats!

Contact: Alex – Seagrass Project Officer

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 0472721606

Meet near the Broome Port Slipway entrance.

Distance from town centre: 10 mins drive

GPS coordinates: -12.967874, 122.290245 

Society for Kimberley Indigenous Plants and Animals (SKIPA) was busy in 2025 celebrating the beauty, diversity, and ecological importance of Kimberley native plants with a variety of events. Earlier in the year SKIPA held their annual plant sale at the Broome Botanical Park. Grown by members at their own homes (in the absence of a central nursery) the plants sold out within one hour, showing the popularity of native plants and the growing appreciation of how native plant gardens contribute to biodiversity and conservation, reduce water usage, and create habitats for local wildlife.

Native garden enthusiasts among the swales listen to tips on harvesting water. Photo: Kylie Weatherall.

SKIPA also held their inaugural Kimberley Native Garden Open Day, exploring three very different gardens around Broome. With informative talks from each garden host, participant learnt about the successes and challenges of creating a native garden from scratch, how to introduce native plants to an established garden and how to harvest water on residential properties. While the gardens all had very different looks, a few ‘principles of success’ were common across all the gardens: mulch heavily, reticulate, keep on top of weeds, and provide plenty of sunshine.

The water-harvesting garden showed how to get the most out of the Kimberley's tropical downpours by retaining water on site without causing erosion or flooding. Tips included making vital initial observations to see where the water ran, where it pooled and where erosion could occur. This information can help the gardener plan how to redirect and capture the water through the construction of temporary watercourses, swales and mounds. Other tips included having porous driveways and paths (minimising hard surfaces), reducing evaporation through mulching, capturing rainwater in tanks and reusing grey water in gardens. With three delightfully different gardens to visit, the open day was an educational and inspiring morning for native-plant lovers, which SKIPA hopes to run again.

In between these events, busy bees were held at the Broome Botanical Park and at the new SKIPA/EK nursery. Generous grants from the Shire of Broome, the Foundation for Rural Regional Renewal, Horizon Power and the Water Corporation have all helped fund the construction of the nursery.

SKIPA greatly appreciates the support of all the funding bodies, as well as the tireless efforts of volunteers. We welcome everyone to get involved and learn about Kimberley plants and animals. If you'd like to find out more, visit our volunteer page here.

- Kylie Weatherall

Ignore local community protests, says Gina Rinehart CEO while standing in front of landscape community protests protected. 

Kimberley residents protested outside the News Corp Australian Bush Summit event sponsored by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart. They called on Ms Rinehart to respect the region's nature and raised concerns about Ms. Rinehart's mining company, Hancock Prospecting, and its application for five mining exploration licenses on her Kimberley stations.  

Instead of listening to the local community, CEO of Hancock Iron Ore Gerhard Veldsman used his presentation to castigate ‘Net-Zero’ as an “absurd energy policy” and dismissed “noisy, minority activists” as people who should be ignored. 

Kimberley residents protest outside the Australian Bush Summit. Photo: Wendy Mitchell.

Environs Kimberley executive director Martin Pritchard, who attended the event, said:  

“The Australian Bush Summit in Broome was clearly being used by Ms Gina Rinehart to platform her anti ‘Net-zero’ campaign. A video made by the right-wing Advance lobby group was played and there was a significant attack on renewable energy.” 

“Ironically the backdrop to the speakers was a large photograph of James Price Point on the Kimberley coast where Woodside planned one of the biggest LNG refineries in the world which they abandoned in 2013 after 5 years of protests in a campaign driven by Broome locals,” Mr Pritchard said. 

James Price Point, proposed site of Woodside's LNG refineries - abandoned after years of protests, backdrop to the Australian Bush Summit. Photo: Environs Kimberley.  

“Ex-NT Chief Minister and Hancock Agriculture CEO Adam Giles was surprised when I told him that the only reason, they could use that beautiful photo was because of ‘noisy, minority activists’ who protested the gas refineries and forced Woodside to abandon the project there,” he said. 

“I asked Mr Giles if he accepted the science on climate change and he said he did, but that he didn’t believe in net-zero. When asked what he thought could solve the problem of too many emissions, he could only say, ‘I’ve got my thoughts about it’. He dismissed CSIRO and BoM modelling showing that the Kimberley would be unliveable if the current emissions trajectory was maintained, by saying ‘that’s a load of shit’ and walked off.” 

“Given that pastoral stations owned by Ms Rinehart in the Kimberley are likely to be significantly impacted by climate change, Mr Giles’ dismissal of temperature modelling appears to fly in the face of good business sense which would be to plan for foreseeable risks,” said Mr Pritchard.  

Broome residents at the protest made it really clear there would be fierce opposition to Gina Rinehart opening up the Kimberley to mining.  

More than 17,500 Australians have made submissions to the WA Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) public comment period on Woodside’s controversial Browse gas project, calling for the rejection of the proposal to drill for gas around Scott Reef off WA’s Kimberley coast and pipe the gas to the North West Shelf export plant.

The remarkable national response from everyday Australians shows the proposal to drill over 50 oil and gas wells around the nation’s most important oceanic coral reef is completely out of touch with community expectations and should be scrapped. The WA EPA and Cook government must now reject Woodside's proposal and protect Scott Reef from industrialisation. The reef is already under severe stress from marine heatwaves caused by fossil fuel induced climate change, to industrialise and create more carbon pollution would see the end of this reef. 

Scott Reef. Photo: Nush Freedman.

The North West Shelf extension is still awaiting final federal approval.

The Conservation Council of WA, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Environs Kimberley and Greenpeace Australia together facilitated at least 17,500 community submissions to the WA EPA. 

 Environs Kimberley Martin Pritchard, Executive Director said: 

“The proposal to put 50 oil and gas wells, effectively industrialising one of Australia’s most sensitive oceanic coral reefs, is outrageous and completely out of step with community sentiment as demonstrated by the tens of thousands of public submissions that have been put in over the past 4 weeks on the minor amendments. 

“The community has stood up to Woodside’s industrialisation attempts before to protect the Kimberley coast at James Price Point and won. They don’t seem to have learned that lesson. We are not going to stand idly by and watch the oil and gas industry industrialise precious places like Scott Reef.

“The age of fossil fuels is over and we’re not going to allow Woodside and its joint venture partners BP, Mimi Browse and Petrochina to trash Scott Reef on the way out of the door.”

Sea snakes dancing at Scott Reef. Photo: Wendy Mitchell. 

 Conservation Council of WA Executive Director Matt Roberts said:

“Woodside’s revised Browse to North West Shelf Development proposal is an insult to the intelligence of West Australians.

"It fails to address the very real risks of oil spills, subsidence, and it increases  carbon emissions while exporting gas for private profits. The threats to the pristine ecology and the endangered pygmy blue whale, green sea turtle and dusky sea snake remain.

“The EPA made the preliminary decision to reject the Browse project because of threats to nature which have not and cannot be adequately addressed by Woodside. Alongside marine experts, we are of the firm view that the EPA should reject the revised proposal.”

Australian Conservation Foundation Climate Campaigner Piper Rollins said:

“You can’t put lipstick on a pig. The extraordinary community outrage over Browse demonstrates the total lack of social licence for Woodside’s Burrup Hub, including the controversial and still to be formally approved North West Shelf extension.

“Not only would this proposal harm Scott Reef and the many marine animals that live there, but it’s the same gas that would damage the 50,000-year-old Murujuga rock art if Woodside is allowed to build a 900-kilometre underwater pipeline to export the gas from its North West Shelf plant. 

“Woodside’s Browse proposal is incompatible with a healthy environment, a safe climate and the protection of the Murujuga rock art. Woodside knows it and the WA EPA knows it. This proposal should be unequivocally rejected.”

Scott Reef. Photo: Alex Westover.

Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) Fossil Fuel Campaign Manager, Louise Morris said: 

“More than 5,000 of our supporters added their name to our submission to the WA EPA to reject this proposal as of 5pm on the submission closing date. Adding their name to our concerns about the impacts of seismic blasting on marine life such as krill and the endangered pygmy blue whale that rely on the Scott Reef ecosystem and upwellings. 

“The WA EPA had already found the Browse proposal poses unacceptable risks to endangered pygmy blue whales, the green sea turtle and other threatened marine species; these minor  amendments do nothing to fix that.”

Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:

“Woodside’s revised plans are merely tinkering at the edges of what is a fundamentally problematic proposal, which fails to address the risk of subsidence at Sandy Islet, and hinges on a yet to be proven technology to mitigate the risk of a major oil spill — it is incompatible with the protection of the fragile Scott Reef.

“It’s unthinkable today that we would allow a multinational fossil fuel company to drill for gas on the Great Barrier Reef — we must not accept this at Scott Reef, home to vibrant coral, threatened species like pygmy blue whales and a critical green sea turtle rookery.

“Time and time again, Woodside has demonstrated it can’t be trusted with our oceans."

 Background on the process: 

The public comment period was in response to Woodside’s s.43A application to revise the Browse to North West Shelf Development, in response to the WA EPA forming a preliminary view in February 2024 that it would reject the project due to “unacceptable” risks to the environment, including threats many listed threatened species such as the Pygmy Blue Whale, Green Turtle and Dusky Sea Snake. 

The EPA will first make a decision on whether to accept the proposed amendments or not. They will then undergo a separate process to develop a report and recommendation to the WA Cook Government on whether Browse should proceed or not. It is expected that the EPA will accept the proposed revisions, but this will not be a decision about approval of the project or not.  

The Browse to North West Shelf Development  proposal traverses both State and Federal waters and will also require approval from the Australian Government under the EPBC Act.

The collaboration of environment groups and high profile Australians, resulting in 20,000 submissions, highlights the unabated risks to the environment and climate and widespread call for the rejection of the Browse to NWS proposal. 

• Scott Reef photos and other media assets are available via this link. 
• Photos and video from the National Day of Snap Action can be found here.
• Photos from the 2025 Woodside AGM protest can be found here.

Community members have staged a colourful protest at oil and gas developer Buru Energy’s annual general meeting in Perth today, accusing the company of a lack of transparency over its failure to refer its west Kimberley projects to WA’s environment watchdog. 

Groups working to protect the Kimberley are aware Buru Energy’s projects are at advanced planning stages, yet have not been referred to the state’s EPA.

Photos and a video of the protest are available here.

Buru Energy’s planned Kimberley projects include:

• Re-opening its polluting Ungani oil production facility and trucking oil through Broome or Derby for export;
• Opening a new conventional gas project, Rafael and producing LNG and condensate (light oil) for local use and/or export;
• Constructing new roads and pipelines;
• Potentially recommencing fracking at its Yulleroo gas lease near Broome.

Environs Kimberley Executive Director Martin Pritchard said, “Buru Energy’s planned projects would result in the fossil fuel industrialisation of the Kimberley - a region that is famous around the world for its pristine nature. These projects would also use massive amounts of groundwater and emit huge volumes of climate pollution.

“Buru Energy also holds the Yulleroo unconventional gas field, where it has previously fracked and has not ruled out fracking there again in the future.

“The Kimberley has the largest most intact tropical savannah in the world and our aquifers, wetlands and waterways are pollution free, we need to make sure we keep it that way and fossil fuel projects are not compatible with our region.

“A full EPA assessment should be conducted to properly consider the individual, combined and cumulative environmental and social impacts of Buru Energy’s stated fossil fuel industrialisation plans.”

The community protests outside Buru Energy's AGM.

Lock the Gate Alliance WA spokesperson Claire McKinnon said, “Buru Energy wants to industrialise the west Kimberley with fossil fuel projects yet none of the company’s drilling plans have been referred to the WA environment watchdog in over a decade.

“We’re really concerned Buru Energy’s oil and gas projects will go under the radar unless they are referred for assessment and full public scrutiny.

“Buru Energy’s planned oil and gas projects would have a devastating impact on the Kimberley’s unique environment. Buru Energy has already faced criticism for bulldozing so much habitat in the Kimberley for grid seismic testing that if the clearing was arranged in a straight line, it would stretch more than halfway around the world.”

Seeding Success is a native seed based project, run by the EK Sustainable Communities Team with Indigenous rangers and Traditional Owners across the Kimberley region.

Participants in the project build skills and capacity in identifying native plant species, understanding seed ripeness and viability, and documenting Traditional and local knowledge about the seasonality of seeding and growing.

Other activities include:

• advancing technical skills in native seed collection
• seed cleaning and the preparation of seed for the restoration, propagation and food industries
• the Seeding Success project works closely with the Wattleseed Collective and the Kimberley Community Seedbank to ensure maximum collaboration and benefit across all Sustainable Communities projects.

Ranger picking Goonanggi (cluster fig) Ficus racemosa, Gooniyandi Country.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, Nyangamurta and Karajarri rangers, as well as Bunuba Traditional Owners have participated in seed collection and training field trips to identify, collect and store the seeds of culturally important fruit species on their own Country.

In late 2024, participants travelled to Kununurra with the EK team on a Kimberley native seed industry exposure trip. On this trip, rangers and Traditional Owners participated in collecting, processing and storing seed on a large scale and learnt about the requirements of operating a successful seed enterprise.

Kununurra industry exposure trip: Amy Wright (Gelganyem Seed Operation), Holly Timperley (Environs Kimberley), Leesharni Thomas (Nyangumarta Rangers), Riley Shaw (Gelganyem Seed Operation), Venus Aspro (Nyangumarta Rangers), Mandy Shoveller (Environs Kimberley), Jacqueline Shoveller (Karajarri Rangers/Environs Kimberley).

In 2025, knowledge collected throughout the project, in addition to scientific knowledge provided by SKIPA (Society for Kimberley Indigenous Plants and Animals) members, was used to publish a Bush Fruit Guide for Kimberley rangers. It outlines best practice guidelines for the sustainable collection, cleaning and storage of fleshy fruits for the Kimberley Seeds initiative.

Ficus species pluralis, commonly found across the Kimberley

Recording knowledge about edible species is important for Traditional Owners to keep cultural knowledge alive. It also opens the door to potential business opportunities in the bush food sector. EK will continue to work with rangers and Traditional Owners to clean and store native seed on Country, to an industry standard, and to promote a strong conservation economy in the Kimberley.

Venus Aspro (Nyangamurta Rangers) cleaning Kapok seed, Gelganyem Seed Operation

Partners: Kimberley Seeds Initiative, Kimberley Community Seedbank, SKIPA, Nyangumarta Rangers (facilitated by Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation), Karajarri Rangers (facilitated by Karajarri Traditional Lands Association), Yawuru Country Managers (facilitated by Nyamba Buru Yawuru), Wiyi-yani u baali ganbawarra (Bunuba Women).

Funders: This project is supported by funding from the Western Australian Government's State NRM Program.

A Kimberley gas fracking proposal by Texas-based Black Mountain Energy (BME), via subsidiary Bennett Resources, has been declared a Controlled Action by the Commonwealth Department of Environment, based on the project’s potential impacts on four Matters of National Environmental Significance, including the so-called ‘water trigger’. 

Environs Kimberley Executive Director Martin Pritchard said the decision was the first time a shale or tight gas fracking project in Australia has been designated a Controlled Action under the EPBC Act and subject to a final approval decision by the Federal Environment Minister.

Protest at Marrickville Town Hall – the Prime Minister’s electorate calling for a frack free Kimberley. Photo: Environs Kimberley.

“We are delighted that, thanks to massive community pressure, the ‘Valhalla’ project’s impacts on the world-renowned Kimberley are now subject to a final approval decision by Environment Minister Plibersek, taking into account its impacts on water, threatened species, migratory species and the National Heritage-listed Martuwarra Fitzroy River.

“The proposal should have been rejected outright by the Commonwealth as ‘clearly unacceptable’ and we are very disappointed that the level of assessment set – ‘by preliminary documentation’ – is very low and could be completed very rapidly with little or no new information.

“We will now be working overtime to ensure that the assessment is as rigorous as possible and that the Minister ultimately makes the right decision.

Mt Hardman Creek flows into the Martuwarra Fitzroy River – Black Mountain is proposing to frack 2 wells within 1km of the waterway. Photo: Environs Kimberley.

“There are many aspects of this decision that are unclear in terms of what the proponent is now required to do and how the community can continue to be engaged, and also how this relates to the ongoing WA EPA assessment of the project, but we will work through that with the Department in coming days.

“Given the clear information provided by scientists and the evidence we have of the global climate crisis, including coral bleaching in the Kimberley and Ningaloo right now, to allow the opening of a new oil and gas province would be unconscionable,” Mr Pritchard said.

“The carbon emissions from these twenty test fracking wells are equivalent to putting 1.5 million cars on the road for a year, we’re talking tonnes of toxic chemicals pumped under extreme pressure underground with billions of litres of water and radioactive wastewater.

“This is an industry that should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

“Minister Plibersek and the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese need to stand for the globally significant natural and cultural values of the Kimberley before it is too late. In 2021 they committed to World Heritage listing for areas of the Kimberley where Traditional Owners wanted it. 

“History, and voters, will judge the Australian Labor Party incredibly harshly if they allow fracking in the world-renowned Kimberley.”

Premier Cook on election trail in the Kimberley – community calls for fracking ban commitment

West Australian Premier Roger Cook is on the election trail in Broome and has been greeted with a strong community call to extend the ban on fracking in the southwest of the state and the Dampier Peninsula to cover all the Kimberley.

While the WA Government under Premier Mark McGowan’s leadership promised veto rights for Traditional Owners and farmers over fracking in 2018, the promise has not been fulfilled and the whole process is creating significant division in communities across the region.

“There’s a simple answer to the whole question of the destructive industrialisation of the Kimberley through oil and gas fracking and that’s a ban on the industry like there is in the Southwest of the state,” said Environs Kimberley Executive Director Martin Pritchard.

The community protest at local Kimberley MP Divina D’Anna’s office called for the ban in light of the proposal by Texan fossil fuel company Black Mountain, to drill and frack 20 oil and gas wells in the Martuwarra Fitzroy River catchment.

The WA EPA is currently assessing the proposal and a decision will be required of the WA Government after the election.

The Kimberley community has vehemently opposed fracking for the past 12 years and concerns have been heightened recently with Black Mountain proposing a pipeline to an LNG refinery in the Pilbara.

“A recent report by climate scientists has shown the potential for 8,700 oil and gas wells across the region that would seriously undermine Australia's ability to meet its climate goals, surely the Premier Roger Cook doesn’t want to open the Kimberley to that,” Mr Pritchard said.

“What we have now is a completely different proposition to what the WA government based its lifting of the ban on fracking in the Kimberley in 2018. What we’re facing now is turning the Kimberley into Texas,” Mr Pritchard said.  

“The community wants a commitment from the Premier and the Labor party that the already existing ban on fracking in the Southwest of the state and the Dampier Peninsula be extended to cover the whole Kimberley,” Mr Pritchard said.

Surveying of over 1,000 people in the seat of Fremantle revealed 92% of voters want a ban on fracking and 72% are willing to change their vote for it.

“If its too risky for the Southwest then we shouldn’t be discriminated against in the Kimberley just because it’s been a safe Labor seat,” Mr Pritchard said.

You can send a message asking Premier Cook to ban fracking in the Kimberley here. 

Photo: Damian Kelly.

More than 120 Broome locals gathered yesterday at Entrance Point Reef to call for its protection.

As the community came together, barefoot kids delighted in discovering hermit crabs under the glowing sandstone cliffs near the opalescent water covering carpets of corals.

The Broome community standing together to protect their cherished place. Photo: Damian Kelly.

With a giant red crane looming ominously over the scene, Yawuru local Tony Lee spoke powerfully about the heritage importance of Entrance Point while Ngaire Pigram, creator of the two petitions to the WA Parliament requesting the protection of Entrance Point, called for a minute of silence to honour the place’s spirit.

“What they’re bringing here is destructive industry… you’re not going to be able to hear the reef talk any more,” they said fighting back tears.

“Don’t ever think you can’t stand up for Country. You all belong here because you’ve all felt this place and you know how special it is… let’s not give up.”

Ngaire Pigram and Kath White. Photo: Damian Kelly.

Hand-painted signs by local families asked Minister for Ports David Michael why he hasn’t answered more than 1000 letters requesting protection of the reef. Other signs questioned why there has been no study done on the more than 40 species of corals living at the site.

Amelia, Martin and Bonney. Photo: Damian Kelly.

The community also called on Hon. Peter Foster, Chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Public Affairs whose electorate is the Mining and Pastoral Region, to respond to the signatories of the two petitions requesting the protection of Entrance Point Reef.

You can see more photos and read further coverage of the community action on ABC Kimberley’s facebook post.

Our community can still protect Entrance Point Reef - if you haven’t already, please send a letter to Minister Michael to protect the reef from industrialisation here.