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Article from ‘Wilderness News’, Wade Freeman, December 1998

In the far north of Western Australia lies the Kimberley – an unforgettable landscape. Majestic boab trees rise from rugged hills, monsoon rainforests shelter beneath towering ochre cliffs, and deep pools of water bathe the ancient rock walls of secret gorges.

For more than 40,000 years the Aboriginal people have managed and sanctified this harsh but fragile land.

In the Kimberley we find one of Australia’s three remaining ‘world class’ wilderness coastlines. Its rugged islands, extensive mangrove ecosystems and deserted rocky bays are unspoilt. No roads, no powerlines; not a building in sight. But despite its natural and cultural importance, the Kimberley remains largely unprotected and faces numerous environmental threats.

In the late 1980s, The Wilderness Society Western Australia launched its defence of the Kimberley by adopting a ‘whole-of-region’ approach to campaigning. The result, four years later, was the North Kimberley Proposal, a progressive and positive vision for an Aboriginal owned and managed National Park – one large enough to protect the region’s coastline and its arid inland ecosystems. While the North Kimberley Proposal ultimately proved overly ambitious in its scale, threats to the region’s values continue to demand urgent attention.

I am therefore very pleased to announce the formation of a new branch of The Wilderness Society: the Kimberley Action Group.

Based in Broome, we aim to work with the many environmental, Aboriginal, industrial and governmental organisations to ensure that this area of high quality wilderness is given the respect and protection it deserves.

Accompanied by Alec Marr, National Campaign Director, I began the Action Group’s activities by meeting with Joe Ross, spokesperson for the Bunaba language group and chair for Bandaralngarri, a new organisation representing Aboriginal language groups occupying an area from the headwaters of the Fitzroy River down to the coast. We were guests on a boat trip through the exquisite Geikie Gorge, and on a helicopter ride to the beautiful and peaceful Dimond Gorge, preferred site of the Fitzroy River dam, if it were to proceed.

There, Joe Ross described the disastrous consequences any dam would have on the flood patterns and reliant ecosystems of the Fitzroy River, and also on the cultural significance of his language group’s traditional country.

Although the dam is no longer backed by corporate proponent Western Agricultural Industries, extensive monoculture cotton crops serviced by ground water are still very much on its agenda. Such plans could have dire consequences, since soils and waterways of the area are too fragile for heavily water-dependent agriculture. There are serious concerns about pesticide residues infiltrating Roebuck Bay, and salt water contaminating the inland fresh water aquifers. (Also, there is still no guarantee that plans for a dam will not be reintroduced at some stage).

Following the trip to Dimond Gorge, I was joined by David Mackenzie, WA State Campaigner, at a series of meetings with various local environmental groups and representative bodies of the Aboriginal peoples. The challenge of working with such a diversity of interests is not new to The Wilderness Society. There has been much interest here in the role played by the Society in establishing the Cape York Heads of Agreement. The Kimberley Land Council questioned whether Cape York could provide the basis for a similar agreement in the Kimberley.

However, there are significant differences between the regions. In the Kimberley, the average non-Aboriginal pastoralist has been here for about a decade. In Cape York, by contrast, many pastoralists who have farmed there for generations have a well developed awareness of the traditional owners’ history and their involvement with the land.

The Wilderness Society intends to support the Kimberley Land Council in its quest to re-establish title to the land through regional agreements, and to help develop and support proposals for increased Aboriginal involvement in National Parks.

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The Kimberley Action Group aims to:

• Promote wilderness conservation in place of short-term exploitation. Much work needs to be done to redress damage done to date – by the cattle industry, for example – as well as ensuring that future developments, such as mining, do not add to existing problems.
• Protect such magical places as the remote and biologically rich Mitchell Plateau and Walcott Inlet from tourism entrepreneurs and mining companies.
• Continue consultation with the Aboriginal peoples of the Kimberley and ensure that their interests are central in any future campaigns.
• Promote a low impact and educative tourism industry.
• Support local groups, such as Environs Kimberley, in their campaigns to protect the nature and culture of the Kimberley.