Traditional owners fight to keep spiritually significant river safe from development project

ABC NEWS (Australia)

An Aboriginal elder has blasted a legal rehash of Andrew Forrest's plans to alter a West Australian River. The State Administrative Tribunal has been hearing the final evidence in the long-running case.

Transcript

00:00A tribunal in Perth weighing up the future of the Ashburton River, more than a thousand

00:07kilometres away in WA's north.

00:09The river flows through Mindaroo Station, owned by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest,

00:14who wants to build ten weirs along it, mainly to supply crops and cattle in a drying climate.

00:20The state government initially knocked back the project in 2017 because of its impact

00:25on traditional owners, who believe a spiritual water snake lives in the river.

00:30Everyone goes to church every week to heal themselves or take all the anxiety out of them

00:36and all this sort of stuff. Well, the river is something like that for us.

00:40During eight days of hearings, much of the key evidence came from competing anthropologists.

00:45An expert for Andrew Forrest told the tribunal he doubted the whole of the Ashburton River

00:50could be considered an Aboriginal spiritual site.

00:53But the anthropologists called by traditional owners pointed out that other rivers are afforded

00:58heritage status, like the entire Swan River here in Perth.

01:02Andrew's been known to just take, if you don't agree with him and he loses against you,

01:07he'll take you to court again until we run out of money.

01:12You know, he's got all the money in the world.

01:15A spokesperson for Andrew Forrest's company told the ABC they committed to ensuring the weirs are built,

01:20given the substantial environmental benefits that will flow from the project,

01:24and they share the objective to restore, respect and care for the land

01:28in a drying region impacted by climate change.

01:31Closing arguments are set for February.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended