Woodside Petroleum, the mining company whose expanding gas plant on the Burrup peninsula in western Australia will destroy hundreds of ancient rock carvings, has just announced a record annual revenue of $3.81 billion.
I’ve written before (here and here) about ideological aspects of the government’s hypocritical heritage policies, but news of Woodside’s massive profits strengthens the practical argument that the company is perfectly capable of finding an alternative location for its operations.
Last year, Australia’s Minister for Heritage and the Environment, Senator Ian Campbell called for submissions on the company’s proposed Pluto project. No doubt he received dozens of desperate pleas to save this globally significant site, which the Australian Heritage Council has deemed eligible for national and world heritage listing (see previous post). But despite the democratic posturing, and a long campaign to save the Burrup peninsula from the ravages of heavy industry, there is little doubt where the government’s priorities lie:
‘No one in their right mind would propose saving every single last bit of heritage on the Peninsula, unless they wanted to close down the economic development of Australia,’ Campbell said last year.
But is it really ‘Australians’ that benefit? The gas plant may create some extra jobs, but so would an offshore facility; or does Woodside not have enough money? Aboriginal communities in this remote part of Australia are certainly not seeing cash coming from the ugly behemoth located on their doorsteps, places like Kalumburu, where ‘there is not adequate housing or infrastructure, the houses are overcrowded, [and] many of them are in an incredibly rundown state.’
Something tells me the expected go-ahead for the Pluto plant, is more about lining the pockets of fat cats and filling the government’s war coffers than a pious desire for ‘progress’ and ‘development’. Woodside’s CEO collects a salary of almost $7 million; and in 2000, the company payed taxes of $440 million. Global wars on terror do not come cheap, so no wonder the government is again kowtowing to the desires of Big Oil, whatever the consequences.
For short-term corporate gain, concentrated in the hands of city executives, the Australian government is wiping out its natural and cultural heritage.
January 18, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Playing one non-renewable (gas) off against another non-renewable (cultural heritage) is always a fraught game. Unfortunately the loser is always the latter because it is not as profitable. In the Dominican Republic similar is happening, but here the short-term winners are property and tourism developers. Tourism has allegedly brought in $500 million to the DR this year (http://www.listindiario.com/cuerpos/republica/rep12.htm) at the expense of not just heritage (which to be honest is the least important aspect), but also at the expense of improving the lives of everyday Dominicans (and Haitians). Much of the money leaves the country as soon as it is made, and slum towns with no services and infrastructure grow embarrassingly up around resorts supplying low-paid and precarious jobs. The strength of the Ministry of Tourism, and the weakness of the cultural lobby is such that the human history of the island is being erased at an unbelievable rate. Occasionally, resorts ‘mine’ artefacts to create private musea – but this neither benefits Dominicans (who have no access), nor knowledge and understanding (no professional excavations, no context). This is a cracked record of a story, but the DR is a poor country whose natural resources are being marketed as ‘paradise’…with an expiry date. A more integrated approach which values the natural and cultural heritage might offer a more sustainable future. Or is this patronising and naive?
January 19, 2007 at 4:34 pm
I don’t think that sounds patronising or naive at all – it’s a similar story in lots of places, where natural and cultural heritage is sacrificed for what purports to be ‘development’ and ‘economic progress’, but where the only a tiny amount of tourism revenue trickles through to the general population, and most stays in the hands of foreign corporations and corrupt officials. Tourism certainly improves national economies, but so much of the revenue is unaccounted for, and often ends up outside the communities where it was raised.
Cambodia is a good example of people being locked out of the benefits of heritage tourism. The government there ensures that there are few opportunities for private individuals (unless they are foreign hotel developers) to benefit. Its a private company called Sokimex (which helps fund the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party) that holds the concession to sell tickets to Angkor, and only some of the revenue goes back to agencies that protect and maintain the site. Local Cambodians are excluded from selling trinkets to tourists in the temples, so you get an undignified scramble outside each site. The government is even trying to monopolise transport for tourists – at present its private cars and scooters – but they are trying to buy in official buggies, then small businesspeople will be locked out of that market too.
Your first point is important Alice. To set up an opposition between environmentally desirable gas (rather than coal or oil) against heritage preservation, is a false distinction in this case. As I said, the company is perfectly able to find alternative locations for its activities.
There is a lot of current information about the destruction of heritage on the Dampier archipelago: Here’s a story published today where Wilfred Hicks, spokesman for the Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo people, says “Pluto can be located within vacant parts of the existing Woodside Northwest Shelf Joint Venture land or in the Hearson Cove area where Burrup Fertilisers is located.”
Here’s an interview about the decision to not grant Burrup peninsula protected heritage status.
And here’s a good summary of the story so far from the perspective of Aboriginal groups, also quoting Wilfred Hicks:
“The ancient rock engraving were put there by our ancestors and they carry a message from the country that only the people from that country can hear and understand. It is a spiritual rhythm, a music, a message that ties us to our land and calls out for us to protect it. Destroy this spirituality and you destroy us.”
April 14, 2007 at 10:13 pm
[...] economy, be bad for the environment, and that a comromise was inevitable. This despite Woodside’s multi-billion annual profits, and the fact that an alternative scheme, either offshore or further down the coast, was perfectly [...]
December 22, 2008 at 8:12 pm
this project is a shame ! It s amazing to construct this type of project on a historic place. In France, no one could be done the same thing cause history is so important. Aborigene culture is beautiful and australian people must react actively to protect this natural and historic site.