Buru Energy is back with a new plan to clear a massive amount of native vegetation as they explore for gas in the Kimberley, close to the Martuwarra Fitzroy River. They’ve done this before - clearing a massive amount of gridlines for seismic surveys, equivalent to the length of a bulldozer driving direct from Perth to London.
Now, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is asking for your comments on whether to publicly assess this harmful project. It’s vital they hear from West Australians around the state, that we don’t want the Kimberley turned into industrialised oil and gasfields.
Will you make a comment today on Buru’s new proposal in the Kimberley and call on the EPA to publicly assess this project? We can’t leave it up to a private assessment between the EPA and Buru - or even worse, not be assessed at all.
The project involves clearing 438 hectares of native vegetation across 1147km of grid lines. This clearing would fragment habitat for native species including the conservation significant rainbow bee-eater, spectacled hare-wallaby, gouldian finch and the threatened greater bilby.
Will you urge the EPA to publicly assess this proposal?
-- Follow this link to fill out the easy form before the deadline, midnight on Monday 3 October 2022.
https://consultation.epa.wa.gov.au/seven-day-comment-on-referrals/rafael-seismic/consultation/intro/
IMPORTANT STEPS: Tick the box 'Assess - Public Environmental Review' and make a short comment on why you want it assessed, and why it should be a public assessment.
Click continue and then click 'submit' on the next page.
Note: the ‘Do Not Assess’ option means you’re asking the EPA to approve the project without assessing it. We do not want this to happen.
Suggested points to include in the comment section:
* If you have a link to the region, we suggest mentioning if you're a Traditional Custodian, resident, tourism operator, teacher, etc.
- The project should be assessed at the highest level due to the substantial public interest and concern regarding oil and gasfield development and fracking in the region.
- The project involves clearing 438 hectares of native vegetation across a total of 1147km of grid lines. Since 2009, Buru Energy alone has cleared over 15,000 km of seismic lines, approved without independent assessment in the West Kimberley/Canning Basin (Source: DMIRS data).
- The clearing would fragment habitat for native species including the conservation significant rainbow bee-eater, spectacled hare-wallaby, gouldian finch and the threatened greater bilby.
- The clearing creates invasive feral predator pathways.
- The project risks increasing weed distribution.
- The project and clearing puts at risk important Indigenous cultural heritage, e.g. medicine trees.
- The activity is a precursor to gas production that will create Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
- Cumulative impacts must be considered.
The deadline to comment is midnight on Monday evening, 3rd October 2022.
To read the full documents that Buru Energy has submitted to the EPA, click on 1. Referral on this page to view or download the PDFs https://www.epa.wa.gov.au/proposals/rafael-seismic-survey
Image: Cleared grid lines in native vegetation for seismic surveys in the Kimberley. Photo credit: Damian Kelly