Australia’s law that is supposed to protect the environment and cultural heritage doesn’t work. There are few, if any, people who argue otherwise.
A case study comes via the environment minister Murray Watt’s statement of reasons for his approval of a 40-year life extension of the Woodside-operated North West Shelf gas plant in Western Australia.
The 74-page statement is illuminating on a few fronts. It shows the federal environment department and Watt rejected claims by Woodside and the WA government that acidic pollution from the plant – mainly nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide – had not damaged ancient Indigenous rock art found across the Murujuga cultural landscape that includes the peninsula.
Some of that rock art is estimated to be more than 50,000 years old. It includes what is believed to be the oldest known representation of a human face.
Watt also accepted de
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