A few months ago we received some seemingly excellent news: Alcoa would withdraw from exploring in areas surrounding Mundaring Weir, and expand mining avoidance zones around Dwellingup. Whilst this is an incredible win for the Perth hills communities who objected to Alcoa’s mining plans, it’s not exactly all Alcoa makes it out to be.
This morning US company Alcoa announced the acquisition of South32’s alumina and aluminium assets including South32’s WA operations – the Boddington bauxite mine and its share in the Worsley alumina refinery – expanding Alcoa’s already massive clearing and lease area, and making Alcoa the third largest emitter in WA.
The fanfare from Woodside about supplying gas to Alcoa is a cynical move amid increasing and popular pressure for a federal gas reservation policy and increasing opposition to the North West Shelf facility and Browse gas export proposal.
Back from the Brink: A Protection Agenda for Nature is a new report by Conservation Council of WA (CCWA), calling for sweeping nature law reforms in Western Australia to avoid further threatened species extinctions.
Leading conservation groups have called for Alcoa not to be issued a new exemption order while its environmental impact is assessed, amid mounting community pressure to end forest mining.