Conservation groups Environment Centre NT and Arid Lands Environment Centre are calling on the Federal Government to establish a Royal Commission into water management, deforestation and impacts on the rights of Traditional Owners in the Northern Territory.
The calls follow revelations aired by ABC’s Four Corners program, ‘Water Grab’, into the mismanagement of water licences in the Territory, land-clearing laws riddled with loopholes, and shocking conflicts of interest regarding government decision-makers.
The groups are calling on the Federal Government to immediately commit to:
- Support the Northern Territory Government to implement an immediate moratorium on new water licensing and water allocations in the Roper system and land clearing permits on pastoral leases.
- A Royal Commission into water management, land clearing and deforestation in the NT and the impacts on the rights of Traditional Owners.
- A Commonwealth-funded First Nations-led governance project for the Roper catchment.
Quotes from Kirsty Howey, Executive Director of Environment Centre NT:
“This national scandal has exposed a fatally compromised system of land and water management in the Northern Territory,” said Executive Director of Environment Centre NT Kirsty Howey.
“This is a complete dereliction of duty from Northern Territory decision-makers and raises serious questions about just how far the NT Government are willing to change the rules to accommodate big business. The Federal Government can’t sit on the sidelines - urgent action is required before the Northern Territory’s iconic savanna is trashed, rivers are destroyed, and Traditional Owners rights are undermined. We don’t have time to wait.
“Territorians have made it clear they don’t want to see what has occurred down south happen to Top End rivers. 72.5% of NT residents say large cotton companies shouldn’t be allowed to expand operations until they fix the problems they have caused in the Murray Darling,” said Ms Howey.
“The Northern Territory’s savanna is a national treasure and the world’s largest remaining intact tropical woodland – but it’s at risk of being bulldozed by cotton producers. Big cotton devastated the Murray Darling Basin – we mustn’t be bullied into making the same mistakes here,” she concluded.
Quotes from Adrian Tomlinson, CEO of Arid Lands Environment Centre:
“The Northern Territory is now a national embarrassment when it comes to environmental protection. It’s time for a complete overhaul, but we simply can’t trust the Northern Territory Government to do the job. We’re calling on the Federal Government to step in and publicly probe this unfolding disaster before it’s too late.
“The Northern Territory is known around the world for its iconic natural treasures, including our free-flowing rivers and underground aquifers. But the policies of successive governments have paved the way for massive amounts of water taken from aquifers in central Australia and river systems – threatening groundwater dependent ecosystems and cultural values, as well as fishing, tourism, and our Territory lifestyle,” said Arid Lands Environment Centre CEO Adrian Tomlinson.
“Whilst the spotlight placed on this scandal by Four Corners is certainly welcome, this is by far not the first time that both the NT and Federal Governments have been warned of these matters, including by communities themselves. The 2022 release of the Georgina Wiso allocation plan resulted in 17 of the nation’s leading water scientists writing to the Chief Minister warning of ‘particularly poor and regressive’ approaches.
“Enough is enough. We need to ensure that we do not lose what makes the Territory so special – our amazing and unique natural environment,” he concluded.
Ends
Contacts: Elliot Huges, 0413 740 016, elliot.hughes@ecnt.org
Notes for editors:
*Polling of residents in Darwin and Palmerston, undertaken by uComms in April 2024.
*Letter signed by 17 water conservation academics sent to then-Chief Minister Natasha Fyles on 23 November 2022.
Images and b-roll available here
Background - A broken system
- The Northern Territory is home to some of Australia’s most iconic natural places - soaring escarpments, pristine rivers, the largest intact savanna ecosystem remaining on earth. It is home to some of the world’s last free-flowing tropical river systems.
- Since 2018, the cotton industry has set its sights on expansion in the Northern Territory. The significant environmental risks of an expanded cotton industry in the NT are documented in the 2022 report A Fork in the River. This expansion is occurring in a context of extraordinarily poor regulation.
- The Environmental Defenders Office has described the NT’s laws as among the worst in the country. The Northern Territory is largely non-compliant with federal water policy, with the Productivity Commission recently described the NT’s water planning as “backsliding” compared with other jurisdictions (see page 130). Water Allocation Plans are not binding on decision-makers. Water is free for irrigators in the NT, which Government Ministers have described as our “competitive advantage”. This means that, structurally, water licensing and allocations in the NT involve the transfer of public resources/wealth to private interests without compensation. It also means that there is no revenue to pay for regulation of water even if the regulators wanted to regulate the industry properly. In 2022, 18 water academics from around the country sent a letter to the Chief Minister calling for the NT’s water system to be overhauled.
- The NT is the only jurisdiction in Australia without native vegetation laws. Land clearing on the pastoral estate (where most of the development is proposed to occur) is regulated by the Pastoral Land Board. Land clearing approvals have rapidly accelerated in the NT, with proposals for cotton cropping expected to require much more. No pastoral land clearing applications have ever been assessed by the NT EPA under the NT environmental assessment laws, nor referred for assessment under the federal EPBC Act.
- Traditional Owners have called for overhauls to the way that water is managed in catchments.
- In 2023, Traditional Owners from across 20,000 square kilometres of the Roper River catchment travelled to Canberra to ask for protection of the river from threats posed by new water intensive industries in the catchment and to be at the forefront of decision-making for the river.
- The delegation also asked for a ban on all further water extraction, licenses and surface water harvesting in the Roper catchment, including the groundwater and floodplains.
