‘The distance from Perth to London’: How a gas company cleared the Kimberley

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‘The distance from Perth to London’: How a gas company cleared the Kimberley

By Marta Pascual Juanola

Aerial image of seismic lines about 45 kilometres east of Broome.

Aerial image of seismic lines about 45 kilometres east of Broome. Credit: Damian Kelly

Native bees attempting to fly across patches of cleared land in Western Australia’s Kimberley region would overheat and drop dead before ever reaching the other side, unable to find food or an area to rest.

Such is the scope of the clearing, scientists and local Indigenous people fear some areas could become open killing fields, where predators like feral cats and birds of prey feast on fragile native fauna, like the bilbies, which no longer have scrub to shelter in.

From ground level, the Kimberley landscape appears pristine, covered by a blanket of lush woodland savannah. But from above the damage is clear: bold lines crisscross the land as far as the eye can see in a perfect grid pattern.

The lines are the result of seismic surveys by companies looking for oil and gas to extract and a testament to the region’s growing industry, which extends west to Broome and east to the doorstep of the Gibb River Road.

Since 2009 one company alone, Buru Energy, has cleared more than 14,000 kilometres in a straight line of native Kimberley bush without needing a permit – that’s the equivalent of the distance between Perth and London.

This data was sourced and analysed from the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety by the Lock the Gate Alliance, then independently verified and analysed by WAtoday.

Resource companies like Buru Energy have used an exemption under WA’s environmental regulations to carry out the clearing, leaving traditional owners with little ability to have a say.

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“The way our native title has been handed to us it granted the Yawuru people exclusive rights over this country. They forgot to tell us it’s got lines in it,” Yawuru traditional owner Micklo Corpus said.

“The lines are getting bigger and bigger and longer and longer. So on our country now we can go to Tasmania and back to Darwin on those lines.”

Buru Energy was approached for comment but did not provide a response.

A bulldozer clears native vegetation in Kurrajong.

A bulldozer clears native vegetation in Kurrajong. Credit: Lock the Gate

The Environmental Protection Regulations 2004 allow petroleum titleholders to clear vegetation without a permit for oil and gas exploration as long as it isn’t within an ‘environmentally sensitive area’.

Companies still have to submit an environment plan outlining the impact of their operations but it is up to the mines regulator to forward the plans to the Environmental Protection Authority – the body tasked with providing environmental insight – if they consider the impact to be significant. The Lock the Gate Alliance is not aware of any of the clearing by Buru being referred to the EPA.

Traditional owners and environmental groups say the lack of oversight could push threatened species to the brink of extinction and plans to frack the Canning Basin pollute the water sources of Aboriginal communities.

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They want regulations to change to increase accountability for companies and enable locals to have a say about projects before bulldozers move in.

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Fracking refers to the practice of drilling into the earth to extract unconventional gas using chemically treated water to fracture the rock.

Seismic surveys are carried out to find pockets of gas to frack. They use trucks to lower a plate onto the ground which generates an acoustic signal that provides information about an area’s geographical make-up.

Death by a thousand cuts

Located almost 3000 kilometres north-east of Perth, the Kimberley is one of Australia’s largest biodiversity hotspots and home to more than 65 species that are found nowhere else on Earth. However, the region remains largely undocumented by Western science, with new species added to the record every year.

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Curtin University fellow Adam Cross, who has spent most of the past decade working in the region’s tropical savannah and who gave the example regarding native bees in the opening paragraph of this report, recorded more than 30 new species of ants during a trip to its northern end. On another occasion, he recorded the largest population of extremely rare carnivorous plants recorded in Australia.

“There’s this massive potential, untapped biodiversity, that is potentially being lost before we can even describe it,” he said.

Dr Cross said the flow-on effects of removing native vegetation extended within hectares of the actual cleared site and species found only in tiny pockets of territory could potentially become extinct before they were studied.

“Organisms have to move further and across more dangerous lands to search for food or a mate or somewhere safe to rest; plants have less success with pollination because it’s a greater distance to the nearest plant,” he said.

Yawuru traditional owner Micklo Corpus protesting during a premier and cabinet meeting in Broome.

Yawuru traditional owner Micklo Corpus protesting during a premier and cabinet meeting in Broome. Credit: Damian Kelly

“It’s a concept that’s known as a death by thousand cuts.”

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Even after exploration activities end, Dr Cross said it could take decades for the landscape to be recolonised, and even then, there were few examples of successful, high-quality restoration.

Mr Corpus, whose country is within Buru Energy’s exploration area, said the surveys had destroyed medicine trees and anthills and changed the way water flowed across his land. Wildlife had also been disturbed by the vibrations, coming to the surface only to find there were no food sources.

“These mining companies are coming in and flashing money in front of us to work for them to destroy our country, only for them to get paid handsomely,” Mr Corpus said.

“They are not going to think about us when they go home and have a T-bone steak.”

He said Indigenous people should be given the resources to study their country before resource companies swoop in.

An ant nest and boab trees near Logue River, east of Broome. The area is within Buru Energy’s exploration permit areas.

An ant nest and boab trees near Logue River, east of Broome. The area is within Buru Energy’s exploration permit areas.Credit: Damien Kelly

Greater protections

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Activities that disturbed threatened fauna had to be authorised under the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, a spokesman from Environment Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson’s office said.

“Western Australia has a robust environmental assessment process across multiple agencies with environmental expertise embedded within each of these agencies,” he said.

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He said the government had invested $3.4 million in the WA Biodiversity Science Institute to advance biodiversity science and planned to create five million hectares of new national and marine park and conservation reserves including two near Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley.

But Lock the Gate Alliance coordinator in WA Claire McKinnon said the government was “bending over backwards for fracking companies” allowing oil and gas companies to have free rein to slice and dice ecosystems.

“If any farmer, private citizen or other type of company were to try to clear this shocking amount of habitat they would be hauled before the courts before they even cleared the equivalent of Perth to Fremantle,” she said.

With plans to open 2 per cent of the Kimberley to fracking, Mr Corpus said he worried about the future of his community and what state his country would be left in after companies extracted all the gas and left.

“We were born to look after this country,” he said.

“We are connected to our land. Providing it’s the right environment we can survive but without our water, we won’t.”

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