The Natural Values of the Kimberley

Introduction

• This section of the eNGO presentation will talk briefly regarding the natural values of the Kimberley region in the context of the Browse gas development. Later sections of this presentation will focus further on the Environmental working group’s position on site selection and process and a sustainable future for the communities of the Kimberley.

World Context

• By overlaying maps of 17 different activities such as fishing, climate change, and pollution University of California researchers have produced a composite map of the toll that humans have exacted on the seas.

• published in the Feb. 15 issue of Science

Human Impacts on the seas

Savannas of the world

• Building on the Millennium Analysis and other studies, scientists analysed the state of the world’s tropical savannas, as context for the savannas of Northern Australia.

Terrestrial Fauna and Flora

• North Kimberley and its islands is critical habitat of National significance for Australian flora and fauna

• Particularly for endemic plants and animals, and for mammal species that have declined across most of the rest of their range

Marine Flora and Fauna

• The Kimberley’s clean seas, myriad islands, coral reefs, mangroves, rainforests and rivers are home to an astonishing variety of wildlife, many found nowhere else in the world, including endangered humpback whales, 5 species of turtles, coral, many fish species, dugong, and rare snubfin dolphins.

Cultural Values

• The cultural values of the Kimberley are of very high value and are inextricably linked to the natural values of the country.

Compatible and incompatible land use in the Kimberley

Context for this presentation

• Australia is the only economically developed and politically stable nation containing extensive areas of tropical savanna and adjoining unspoilt coastline with a high level of natural integrity.

• The Kimberley is home to diverse and unique ecological communities, flora and fauna.

• The unspoilt natural values of the Kimberley underpin the sustainable future of it’s cultural and economic wellbeing.

• The Kimberley’s natural values are significant on a World scale.

A sustainable future?

• A sustainable future for the Kimberley can only be achieved through broad-scale and long-term planning, in which primacy is given to the national and international significance of the natural landscapes.

• Put simply, the quality of the natural landscapes of the Kimberley are now very rare on Earth. What legacy will we leave?

Process for responsible site selection and resource

development in the Kimberley

Cultural and environmental values

• Comprehensive understanding of the cultural and environmental values

• Agreed range of standards• Cumulative impact assessment• Regional cultural and environmental

management plans• Detrimental impacts avoided, mitigated, and

limited

Kimberley Traditional Owners

• Key role in all land management programs• Sufficient information for informed consent• Single enduring development plan

• Avoiding, mitigating and limiting the detrimental impact

Gaps in current process

• Broad assessment doesn’t underpin or inform hub identification process

• Assessment of sites outside Kimberley• Scope for individual LNG processing

development proposals to proceed • Potential for “umbrella” approval

• Public comment period