Operation Kimberley Miinimbi Documentary

in Western Australia way up north is this wonderful area called the Kimberley it's a almost completely pristine environment it's completely untouched by human development in the western part of that is a massive humpback whale carving ground it's the it's the biggest one in the world right at this location a big Australian company called Woodside along with multinational partners and the West Australian Government is proposing a mega gas facility the second biggest in the world so far and a massive international seaport which will very much displace those whales pollute their waters and introduce thousands of ship movements every year here with all of the dangers to life that that brings as this is an extremely important breeding ground for the humpback whales this would impact their ability to have their population grow and certainly to sustain that healthy population they need breeding grounds like this you know there's only so many places on the planet that are suitable for these animals to be breeding and this is one of them along the journey of the east coast of Australia we've been greeted with dolphins and whales seals sea birds almost every day that's like a beautiful reminder to the crew that this is what we're going to protect you know it is specifically the whales it's this whale nursery that is in jeopardy and it's in danger it's really easy for people to point fingers and that guy the Japanese whaling fleet because there are the ones that are physically putting a harpoon into that these are the spines of these whales but the oil companies are doing the exact same things they're gonna be responsible for the for the depletion of the oceans for the depletion of whale stocks by destroying this nursery by destroying their home what's gonna happen off the coast of Kimberley could be much more detrimental to the to the lives of whales and it could be much worse than than the Japanese family alongside all this very kind of bleak and negative picture there very much is hope because even the companies themselves have not yet made a final investment decision on the project so they're intending to get together and sit sit together and look at how things are going in the first half of 2013 and decide whether or not they really want to invest their money on this particular Avenue having made the two-week passage from melbourne mr. Berlin dragged on the opposite edge of the continent at Ramadan in the early morning to the sight of humpbacks breaching on the horizon in the area where Jack's price point is what what the local people call while Madan is a group of people called the glare below the glare abbulu the custodians of the land the global people have been struggling hard on this issue for quite some time now for several years they have followed see if it's working the Southern Ocean very aggressively defending marine life down there they hoped that we could lend the same kind of assistance in the waters that they custodian over okay my name's Philip realm from the Gallardo Blue Man Group and I'm a senior war voice which we'd rather go and Richard will look after this country can hand it from our grandfather and we are fighting to stop this proposal of this gas gas plant that part of the hill of pain back in there all that they're going to build sort of an inland Harbor so for the barn ticket all the Middle's this burial site see it's going to be pulled up and it's not good we have the original people of Australia they should really and truly look at us that that crime doesn't represent me it doesn't represent milk indigenous people original people run Australia which is ludicrous what what the bonnet companies to it this is our future for our younger generation my my kids dead kids my grandchildren dead children this is home this is their uni this is their universe you know do any whether they were that Culkin here begin thing once we arrived on the Kimberly cuts were invited to come ashore by the Galera Balu people as a show of thanks to our presence that the Galera blue man held robbery at birth before we left the Datsun Williamstown to embark on the voyage up to the Kimberley we were visited by a representative of the of the people of the Dampier Peninsula he took us through a smoking ceremony and he presented us with a shell which was a symbol of strength on our voyage he also gave us some of the pin Dan which is the red colored soil of that stretch of coast and the ashes from similar ceremonies that he'd done previously he asked me that if once we arrived up on the Kimberley Coast that we would deliver them to the people we had the opportunity to fill fulfilled Rodney's wishes and bring that stuff back to country when the Australian continent was settled by Europeans almost the majority of indigenous people would displace from of the land that they that had once supported them but because of the isolation of the Kimberley coast it's one of the very last remaining areas where the original people still have a true connection Sea Shepherd's purpose here would be to show people directly what all of us would lose if one science project would have proceeded we'd invited people to come on board the ship and sail right up to the side of the proposal it's a Jacks price point on the first day of operation Kimberly near NIMBY we went ashore to embark campaign leader Bob Brown and to invite the first traditional owners we invited significant people people because comprehension of the situation there might be able to be spread to wider effect we're trying to bring what had been a fairly local issue in an easy issue for the for the companies and the government's kind of in question to sort of like somewhat just brush over make it into much more international and international issues so we invited on federal politicians influential musicians and journalists journalists who had news outlets both nationally the world welcome on board everyone on board the stable which is Sea Shepherd's flagship vessel off the plate would science proposal seeks legitimacy in an eight thousand page environmental impact assessment that concludes very few whales we've been within 80 kilometers of the coastline as a crew and as a ship we had a very clear purpose in what we would bring to the campaign for Janice price point it was clear that was absolutely ridiculous that Woodside's claims that this was not a while carving ground all we needed to do was with show it the main company that's pushing for this gas Harbor Woodside the main argument they made that there was no whales really you know they were sitting 8 kilometres off the coast and here we are only 3 kilometers off the coast and I got a mother and a calf she's nursing her young and nurturing her in this area and it just clearly shows that the science that's been put forth by Woodside is incorrect and that these whales will be under a serious threat from harm boat strikes dredging noise pollution if this project goes ahead so this is what the whole mission was about and we've we've already achieved it on and on in the very start of the campaign that that's what's the steak largest humpback whale nursery in the world place where these guys are born this is their home and it's under threat and we have to do everything we can to make sure that this guys hope it's not felt here one of the assets we brought with us was the helicopter with with that we were able to actually situate people right up over the site and give them that real true overview of what the site's going to look like there's because already would sites mapped out this huge creative area which allows us quite clearly to see that the magnitude of the destruction of it caused them this man at the moment for the cabin table well it's just an ocean of joy out here but if you fly just over the coastline there I mean some hundreds of meters here lay their suburb sighs is the footprint of this massive gas Factory it's almost unimaginable the tragedy waiting to unfold here if Australians don't rise to the occasion and say we won't put up with it it's wrong we won't put up with it the really interesting thing about all this is that the project can happen somewhere else Woodside is investigating two other really good alternatives one of them is to pipe the gas a few hundred miles down the coast to the Pilbara where a facility like this already exists and in a few years the gas that that facility is processing is forecast to begin to run low so it makes really good I can't economic sense for them to send the gas down and continue with existing infrastructure as I said before the shareholders will get just as good a return out of processing this gas at an alternate site the board however has got themselves locked in a backup on this issue they state their position it's so clearly they don't know how to get out of it and that is a very dangerous thing for the board of any company to do and particularly for its chairman Michael training now I would say that Michael Chaney and the board get yourselves out of this hall before it's too late this project is just getting more and more and more opposition the intervention of the C ship that is just one more powerful example of that come out of the Baka take the blanket off open your eyes up and look at the alternate it's you can take the initiative you don't have to wait for the government it is your responsibility not to destroy this wonderful place the reason that wood sides been so stubborn and so arrogant about pushing for this proposal to occur at the James price point while Matt on site it's because basically they've been forced into a corner by the state government who wants to be remembered for opening up the Kimberley region to export so that the Kimberley has many other resources other than the gas reserves that are offshore they have diamonds nickel tin zinc lead and onshore gas as well so really in a sense this is the state government being you know in a very narrow and economic sense quite smart really because they're forcing a corporation to install infrastructure for them but in doing so they'll decimate the Australian West Coast humpback whale population and that's just something that's not acceptable for any economic development reason while they commissioned the study which they said was the biggest study ever done humpback whales it wasn't anything of the kind and it was a very biased study and it's been discredited by everyone from the federal government science study to adjust in the last day Murdoch University if this project ever gets built it relies on 1500 provides vessel residence a year Johnny into the port head and two kilometres have to say so right in the world county area and you can imagine you know 1,500 massive tankers coming in here and all all the support vessels running around that isn't gonna cause major disruptions or wife Pamela these one so I can imagine what would I think it is a queen exactly adjusted before I couldn't imagine 1,500 acres in here a year and not not to mention these beautiful beans in this beautiful turquoise water this one won't be turquoise this would be white with sediment in dredging remains is not the constantly dredge this water constantly dredge this body sitting in a small boat and have the mother while come up and down straight towards the boat and then go around the end of it and hook up bringing its tile over that's an experience I'll take with me for every day of the rest of my life seeing the whales today again off James price point mothers babies bull whales seeing the count going up into the thousands of these whales the assurance that they'd be okay with a mega port with mega gas ships with a huge factory ashore is now clearly proven wrong capsulate the whole story spine of it is you have you have your land there be cultured you need up to now this entire debate has been entirely composed of political and economic themes but what economics and politics just don't account for it all now is ideas about beauty and about biodiversity and about the the fact that the the human sort of anthropocentric worldview is is only a tiny part of what existence and life on Earth is all about - you Cowboys are playing the role game conquer in the vine this wild nurseries been intact and unscathed by modern industrial development it should be kept free this this nursery can't go somewhere else but that gas factory can well I love wilderness area so I think there are very few left in the world and I think these are resources that are disappearing all around the world the oil the gas they lost 40 or 50 years and then the value is gone from it whereas the wilderness areas become more and more and more valuable as there are fewer of them and for governments not to see that is since departing the Kimberley Coast we've certainly seen a much higher profile for the issue in the press every time now that something occurs that a company makes a decision or someone makes a comment on the issue there's a story about it now but for the first time the the status of the Kimberley Coast is a talking point and it's something that we're aware of throughout the country it's become a national concern well I don't want to leave and our life doesn't allow for anything else but I don't want to leave here and the good folk of Broome and the Galera below people up on the coastline here or standing in defense of this the best message I can give is that Sea Shepherd and I are not leaving we're going over the nullabor to campaign to see that this place stays alive you

Channel: Sea Shepherd

Views: 40,510

Rating: 4.9126048 out of 5

Keywords: Sea Shepherd, Kimberley Miinimbi, whales, James Price Point, humpback

Id: h624NX-jBFk

Length: 27min 49sec (1669 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 12 2012