In a victory for the Native American-led resistance to the destructive Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), last month the Obama administration denied DAPL permission to drill underneath the Missouri River in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
, a group of trade unionists supporting the anti-DAPL campaign, released the statement below on January 4.
The federal environment minister Josh Frydenberg has again approved the use of a marine supply base at Port Melville in the Tiwi Islands without an environmental impact assessment and with none of the environmental conditions that were previously imposed.
A spokesperson for Frydenberg said on December 15: 鈥淭he department has decided the operation of a marine supply base at Port Melville is not likely to have a significant impact on the environment and can proceed without further assessment under national environment law.
On December 4, celebrations erupted at Standing Rock after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it had denied the Dakota Access Pipeline Company a permit to build the final segment of the $3.8 billion project and would study a possible reroute of the pipeline. The announcement from the U.S.
Supporters of the NSW Hunter Valley community of Wollar held simultaneous rallies in Sydney and Mudgee on November 29 against a coalmine expansion that threatens to wipe out the village.聽
The NSW Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) is reviewing the proposal to extend the Wilpinjong coalmine. It held a public hearing about the project in Mudgee but Wollar residents and supporters boycotted it and protested instead. They said the process is stacked against them and the community鈥檚 legal rights have been taken away.聽
Nearly 10,000 people attended two sold out Frack Off! concerts at Margaret River over the weekend of November 26鈥27, highlighting the growing opposition to unconventional gas across Western Australia.
The concerts included performances by John Butler Trio, Mama Kin, Pigram Brothers and Ten Cent Shooters.
There were speakers from the three regions threatened by unconventional gas 鈥 the South West, Mid West and Kimberley.
One outcome of last year's inquiry into the Morwell Mine fire in Victoria's Latrobe Valley was the discovery that the default plan for 鈥渞ehabilitating鈥 the mine would be to let it fill with water naturally, perhaps to become a recreational lake. The hitch: it would take more than a hundred years to fill naturally and the water quality would be terrible due to pollution from coal seams.
Come December, North Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters will likely be receiving support from hundreds of US veterans who have committed to their cause.
Organiser Wes Clark Jr, a former US army officer best known as co-host of the Young Turks show, called the Standing Rock resistance to DAPL 鈥渢he most important event up to this time in human history鈥.
The US$3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), if completed, would carry up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from the North Dakota to refineries in Illinois.
If built, it will cross the Missouri River, the main source of drinking water and irrigation for 8200 residents of the Standing Rock reservation.
Those facts have turned DAPL into a flashpoint in dual struggles for climate justice and Native rights.
鈥淲e know that elections and individuals alone don鈥檛 create change 鈥 movements do.鈥
This is the maxim that guided the huge United States-wide action that took place on November 15. There were nearly 200 protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, the largest since the US government requested the project be temporarily halted in September.
BHP Billiton executives faced dissident shareholders at the company鈥檚 annual general meeting in Brisbane on November 17 over its responsibility for the Samarco tailings dam disaster in Brazil last year.
The protesters want Australia鈥檚 biggest company to compensate the victims. BHP jointly owns the iron ore mine with Brazilian mining giant, Vale.
The Queensland government has charged five former executives of Linc Energy with breaching environmental law over the operation of its underground coal gasification (UCG) site in Chinchilla from 2007 to 2013. They face up to five years in prison if found guilty.
As a close blood relative of former minister for the environment Greg Hunt, I am deeply ashamed that he did not do one simple thing: protect Lawler鈥檚 Well.
There were 11 sites sacred to the Gomeroi people in the part of the Leard State Forest in north-western NSW that is being cleared for Whitehaven Coal鈥檚 controversial Maules Creek Mine. Ten have already been destroyed or irrevocably damaged. The last of these Gomeroi heritage sites is Lawler鈥檚 Well.