On Monday 13 April, work stopped at Alcoa’s Huntly mine site for three hours as a result of direct action by a group of 16 concerned Western Australians. This was the first time direct action has stopped Alcoa’s mining activities since the 1970s.
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt published a ‘statement of reasons’ yesterday, outlining why he granted Alcoa an 18-month exemption to continue mining in WA’s Northern Jarrah Forest, despite being found to have cleared land over 15 years without permission.
The End Forest Mining (EFM) alliance has called an agreement reached with the Australian Government and US mining giant Alcoa to pay $55 million to “remediate historical land clearing” without approval as “a slap on the wrist”.
Alcoa was granted an Exemption Order in December 2023 to allow its bauxite strip mining activities to continue in the Northern Jarrah Forest while its Mining Management Plan was under review by the WA state government.
