Speaker 1: Weber Lal Milba. You're listening to seven am. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 1: We have all come here together and from far away
Speaker 1: from the mura Yuga lands. When UNESCO voted to put
Speaker 1: the Murajuga cultural landscape in Northwest Australia on the World
Speaker 1: Heritage List, they recognized the ancient rock art as a
Speaker 1: masterpiece of human creative genius. It was a reflection of
Speaker 1: the work of the Muraduga traditional owners who fought for
Speaker 1: the carvings to be recognized on the world stage two.
Speaker 2: Or three decades ago. This journey started on a lot
Speaker 2: of by our old people.
Speaker 3: They're not here today.
Speaker 2: This this is for them. And what I'd also like
Speaker 2: to say just quickly, is that today we create our
Speaker 2: own stories in the stone.
Speaker 1: But what went on behind the scenes shows how little
Speaker 1: a heritage listing does to stop gas companies, the government
Speaker 1: that profits from them, all the effects of climate change. Today.
Speaker 1: National correspondent from the Saturday Paper Mike Sekham on YUNESCO,
Speaker 1: Woodside and the future of the Marojuga. It's Tuesday, July
Speaker 1: twenty two, So Mike, let's start with this site that
Speaker 1: is at the center of this debate. The Marojuga in
Speaker 1: northwest western Australia. Tell me a bit about the place.
Speaker 1: Why is it so.
Speaker 3: Significant, Well, it's the site of millions of petroglyphs, one
Speaker 3: to possibly two million. They haven't finished documenting them all,
Speaker 3: which are scattered across the Barrett Peninsula and the damp
Speaker 3: Here Archipelago.
Speaker 1: Mala holand.
Speaker 4: Yoga is a place that, you know, it's respected by
Speaker 4: the Aboriginal people of this area and it's come to
Speaker 4: be respected by the wider community for what's here. You know,
Speaker 4: it's the Bible of Aboriginal people. Soame as white men
Speaker 4: got a church.
Speaker 3: These patroglyphs, of course, are evidence of continuous human habitation
Speaker 3: for fifty thousand years or more, so it's a big deal.
Speaker 3: This is possibly the biggest collection of ancient rock art
Speaker 3: anywhere in the world, and for the past twenty odd
Speaker 3: years it's been the subject of a campaign by the
Speaker 3: traditional owners to have it listed with UNESCO as a
Speaker 3: World Heritage Site.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, tell me more about that push for UNESCO listing.
Speaker 1: What does getting something like that mean for a place
Speaker 1: like Marijuga.
Speaker 3: Well, because World Heritage listing is reflected in domestic law.
Speaker 3: Essentially it provides an additional layer of protection under the
Speaker 3: EPBC Act, that's the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act,
Speaker 3: to safeguard the future event any site listed. So what
Speaker 3: it means in practice is that any actions that have
Speaker 3: potential significant impacts on a World Heritage area have to
Speaker 3: be ticked off by the Federal Environment Minister.
Speaker 5: So you may remember that a few months ago I
Speaker 5: announced my proposed decision about an application to build the
Speaker 5: Central Queensland coal Mine.
Speaker 3: For example, a couple of years ago, the former Environment
Speaker 3: Minister Tanya Plibasek knocked over a proposal by one of
Speaker 3: Clive Palmer's companies to open a new coal mine adjacent
Speaker 3: to the Great Berrier Reef on the basis that runoff
Speaker 3: from the mine could affect the World Heritage values of
Speaker 3: the reef.
Speaker 5: The project would have had unacceptable impacts on freshwater in
Speaker 5: the area and potentially on fragile seagrass meadows that feed
Speaker 5: jugongs and provide breeding grounds for fish just off the coast.
Speaker 3: In the case of Marojogga, of course, the area is
Speaker 3: already home to heavy industry. There's a huge gas export
Speaker 3: facility in the port of Karatha that's run by Woodside Energy. Incidentally,
Speaker 3: when Woodside was building it's gas plant, it basically destroyed
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of these petroglyphs, blew them up. Essentially,
Speaker 3: they removed some more, but they completely destroyed others. There
Speaker 3: were concerns voiced by some scientists, by environmentalists and by
Speaker 3: traditional owners that emissions from the industry in the area
Speaker 3: were degrading the rock art. So one particular group of
Speaker 3: traditional custodians, that Save our Songlines group, joined with conservationists
Speaker 3: and I guess you could say saw Murga as a
Speaker 3: chance to not only protect the rock art but also
Speaker 3: to curb the carbon emissions coming out of the area,
Speaker 3: and at the start of the year UNESCO agreed with them.
Speaker 3: They found that the government's proposal for listing should be
Speaker 3: referred back to the government for further work.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what happened after that.
Speaker 3: Well, there was a draft decision on May twenty six
Speaker 3: from an advisory body to UNESCO that found that the
Speaker 3: emissions from the heavy industry, including Woodside, was degrading the
Speaker 3: rocket and they proposed some pretty radical measures requiring the
Speaker 3: government to earn I'm quoting here, ensure the total removal
Speaker 3: of degrading acidic emissions and to prevent any further development
Speaker 3: and to plan for the decommissioning of the industry already
Speaker 3: there so was a pretty big deal. Problem was two
Speaker 3: days later the Federal Labor government released a proposed decision
Speaker 3: from the new Environment Minister Murray Watt that would allow
Speaker 3: Woodside to keep operating the gas facility and the port.
Speaker 3: He proposed to allow operations that were to have finished
Speaker 3: in twenty thirty to continue for another forty years, that
Speaker 3: is out to twenty seventy.
Speaker 6: Today, Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt approved an extension to
Speaker 6: the nearby Northwest Shelf Project, subject to strict conditions relating
Speaker 6: to the impact of air emissions from the operation of
Speaker 6: an expanded onshore Caratha gas plant.
Speaker 3: And that in turn paves the way for a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of new fossil fuel projects, you know, gas mining
Speaker 3: in the northwest of Western Australia to feed this plant.
Speaker 3: So bottom line to all of this is that the
Speaker 3: estimate is that the area could produce what environmentalists are
Speaker 3: calling accurately, I would suggest a carbon bomb, you know,
Speaker 3: releasing four point three billion with a b tons of
Speaker 3: carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the life of the planet. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's two very different competing visions for the future
Speaker 1: of the Morro Jugger. One where the rock cut is
Speaker 1: protected and the fossil fuel industry in the area is dismantled,
Speaker 1: and the other is where the entire area becomes, as
Speaker 1: you say, a carbon bomb, and there's the potential for
Speaker 1: even more mining developments to open up. So tell me
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 3: Well, the World Heritage Committee earlier this month unanimously decided
Speaker 3: to list Moro Juggur, So that's the good news. But
Speaker 3: it also amended the earlier draft decision and walked back
Speaker 3: the proposed d industrialization of the area. So the traditional
Speaker 3: owners now have UNESCO Heritage listing for Moro Juga. Great,
Speaker 3: but Woodside can keep on operating, you know, with all
Speaker 3: the attendant climate consequences.
Speaker 1: After the break the afternoon tea that led to UNESCO changing.
Speaker 7: Their mind, I therefore declared the Drug Decision Decision forty
Speaker 7: seven come eight to b point thirteen adopted as amended.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Mike, tell me then what we know about
Speaker 1: UNESCO's decision making here to list the area.
Speaker 3: But with this amendment, well, it seems to be the
Speaker 3: result of furious lobbying in the first place by the
Speaker 3: Australian government. Murray what, for example, hosted more than a
Speaker 3: dozen ambassadors from nations that are currently represented on the
Speaker 3: World Heritage Committee, had them around for tea duchess them,
Speaker 3: presumably with a view to getting this result. He's been
Speaker 3: lobbying in other international forums. And furthermore, he pronounced the
Speaker 3: draft decision was full of what he called factual inaccuracies,
Speaker 3: and that it relied on media and NGO advice IE
Speaker 3: environment groups rather than scientific advice in reaching its earlier
Speaker 3: decision that the area should be de industrialized.
Speaker 8: In the end, what persuaded the committee was both the
Speaker 8: scientific evidence that was put forward which disputed some of
Speaker 8: the claims that were being made, but also the genuine
Speaker 8: passion from the traditional owners to see this World Heritage
Speaker 8: listing be secured.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so tell me who is right here?
Speaker 3: Well, this is where it gets complicated, right. There is
Speaker 3: scientific and expert evidence on both sides of the issue. Here.
Speaker 3: There is scientific and expert evidence of damage to the petroglyphs,
Speaker 3: but a recent report involving about fifty scientists and the
Speaker 3: more Jugger Aboriginal Corporation who were proposing the listing, and
Speaker 3: the WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation found that
Speaker 3: there had been damage to the rock Cart, but much
Speaker 3: of it was from historic emissions, not current ones, in
Speaker 3: particular a decommission powerhouse that used to be there, And
Speaker 3: the finding was that acid rain had damaged the rock
Speaker 3: cart in the past, but what was causing the acid
Speaker 3: rain was sulfur dioxide emissions. There was a lot of
Speaker 3: sulfur in those days in the fuel that was used
Speaker 3: by industry. There is no longer nearly as much sulfur
Speaker 3: and fuel as there used to be, so the finding
Speaker 3: was that there was no longer a problem with acid rain.
Speaker 3: The rain that was falling on these petroglyphs was pretty
Speaker 3: much pH neutral or slightly alkaline. So on this very
Speaker 3: specific issue of acid rain damaging the rock cart, they
Speaker 3: found it was no longer a problem. Of course, then
Speaker 3: there's the broader problem of greenhouse gases. But as the
Speaker 3: scientist told me, that wasn't their brief. They weren't there
Speaker 3: to assess wh that this was bad for the climate.
Speaker 3: They accept that it's bad for the climate. They were
Speaker 3: there to assess whether it was bad for the rock
Speaker 3: Art and they determined it wasn't.
Speaker 1: So, Mike, we've gone from having this draft decision which
Speaker 1: says that the rock art needs to be protected from
Speaker 1: these industries, to then having this finding that says, well,
Speaker 1: it can be listed with the industries that are damaging
Speaker 1: it can also continue. So does this really undermine the
Speaker 1: meaning of even providing a UNESCO listing?
Speaker 3: Hard question? I think unbalanced. It's a good thing that
Speaker 3: it's been a World Heritage listed, right, So that's the case.
Speaker 3: And Minister what has said that he will impose some
Speaker 3: conditions on industry in the area. We haven't seen those
Speaker 3: yet because so far, you know, we've only got his
Speaker 3: proposed decision. We have ongoing negotiations between his department and
Speaker 3: Woodside about the conditions that might pertain, So we'll have
Speaker 3: to wait and see about those. But you know, there's
Speaker 3: a bunch of money at the bottom of this, isn't there.
Speaker 3: I mean, Woodside has contribute a lot of royalties and
Speaker 3: tax dollars to the Australian treasury over the years following
Speaker 3: the extension that you know, obviously they will contribute a
Speaker 3: lot more. The Western Australian government in particular is very
Speaker 3: much beholden to the gas industry, and by extension, so
Speaker 3: is the federal government, because the federal government wants to
Speaker 3: hold on to its seats in Western Australia. So you know,
Speaker 3: the process does seem to have been very much the
Speaker 3: result of lobbying. Some of the more Juga traditional owners
Speaker 3: that Save our song Lians group complained that they didn't
Speaker 3: get a sufficient chance to state their case at the
Speaker 3: World Heriage meeting in Paris. Various of the countries that
Speaker 3: sponsored the amendments to the original draft to remove them
Speaker 3: were big in the gas industry. You know, Japan, Koreer
Speaker 3: take a lot of Australian gas. Qatar was in They're
Speaker 3: a major gas producer. So there's a sort of somewhat
Speaker 3: unholy mix here of the profit motive and electoral incentives
Speaker 3: for the labor government.
Speaker 1: So where does all of this leave us, Mike, what
Speaker 1: does the few to look like?
Speaker 3: For more Jogger, Well, I would make the point that Katha,
Speaker 3: which is the nearest town which is where these industrial
Speaker 3: facilities are, it's already one of the hottest places in Australia.
Speaker 3: I mean it has a record temperature that approaches fifty
Speaker 3: degrees celsius. You'd have to think that, you know, another
Speaker 3: another forty years fifty years of emissions from the gas
Speaker 3: industry in Australia is only going to make things worse.
Speaker 3: So you know, climate change, we know it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: There will be sea level rises which will incidentally affect
Speaker 3: some of the petroglyphs. It's a very cyclonic area up there.
Speaker 3: There will be bigger, more powerful storms. Like I said,
Speaker 3: it's already one of the hottest parts of Australia, if
Speaker 3: not the world. So the petroglyphs may survive, but you
Speaker 3: have to wonder how the traditional custodians will endure the
Speaker 3: climate of the future.
Speaker 1: Mike, thank you for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: We've invited Environment Minister Murray what on the show. We
Speaker 1: hope to bring you in interview with him soon. Also
Speaker 1: in the news, Larissa Waters has backed the decision making
Speaker 1: process that led to the expulsion of one of the
Speaker 1: Australian Green's co founders from the party, saying nobody is
Speaker 1: above the rules. Co founder Drew Hutton was removed from
Speaker 1: the Greens over claims he fostered debate the party deems
Speaker 1: as transphobic Following a complaint, a Greens committee found that
Speaker 1: while Hutton himself had not demeaned trans women, he had
Speaker 1: provided a platform for others to do so. Hutton says
Speaker 1: the dispute is a matter of free speech and the
Speaker 1: Greens have lost their way. Meanwhile, Waters says the party's
Speaker 1: work on environmental, climate, economic and social justice doesn't stop
Speaker 1: because of one man's focus on how other people identify it,
Speaker 1: and Victorian Premier to Center Alan has promised a statewide
Speaker 1: register of childcare within weeks. Alan conceded that childcare regulations
Speaker 1: have not worked after revelations that allowed adg pedophile Joshua
Speaker 1: Dale Brown was sacked from multiple centers and able to
Speaker 1: continue working across the state. The Premier didn't comment on
Speaker 1: the specifics of Brown's case, but said the Working with
Speaker 1: Children CHECH process would be considered as part of a
Speaker 1: broad review into the sector, and that the state based
Speaker 1: register would eventually be absorbed into a national register. I'm
Speaker 1: Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.