An Aboriginal group in Australia successfully blocked plans to develop a massive new gas field off the country’s northern coast, winning an appeal on Friday.
Dennis Tipakalippa, a member of an Aboriginal community in the Tiwi Islands, is behind the complaint against the Santos Group, one of the country’s largest oil and gas producers, which wants to launch a drilling program in the Timor Sea. Dennis Tipakalippa and the Munupi clan fear that the Santos project will harm their maritime food resources, but also the spiritual link they have with the region.
Read alsoIn Australia, the hard retrocession of their lands to the Aborigines
In September, a court revoked the environmental approval of the gas company’s project, ruling that indigenous groups had not been properly consulted. On Friday, the Australian Federal Court dismissed Santos’ appeal, finding that the company was required to “consult Dennis Tipakalippa and the Munupi clan because their interests may be affectedby the gas project. “Santos and all other gas companies need to take notesaid Dennis Tipakalippa in a statement released by the Environmental Defenders Office. “We fought to protect our “Sea Country» (sea country, a term used to refer to their territory at sea) from start to finish and we will never stop fighting“, he said.
While Santos will have to seek new approvals before it can start drilling, it’s uncertain whether Friday’s court ruling will be enough to permanently block the A$3.6 billion (US$2.5 billion) project. ). Santos also said Friday that he still plans to extract gas from this field by 2025. The Tiwi Islands make up a sparsely populated archipelago, located about 80 kilometers off the coast of Darwin, in the northern Australia. Australian Aborigines make up around 90% of the 2,000 inhabitants of these islands, known for their art, their language and their passion for Australian rules football.