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Battle for the Bight goes on

The Great Australian Bight has been spared – for now. But can this pristine wilderness hold out forever against the hunger for its resources?

By Kathy Marks, The Weekend Australian Magazine August 22, 2020

In an excellent summary of the Fight for the Bight, Kathy Marks writes

At the Head of Bight, on Australia’s remote southern coast, the ­grandeur and the loneliness of nature are on conspicuous display. Behind you stretches the broad semi-­desert of the Nullarbor Plain; ahead, the billiard table of the continent falls, as if sliced with a knife, into the heaving Southern Ocean. From the top of the 100m-tall Bunda Cliffs, ­looking out over the blue-green vastness, you fancy you can see the Earth’s curvature. Due south, next stop is Antarctica.

This is the Great Australian Bight, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of ocean bordering a crescent of raw, wind-lashed coastline running from east of Esperance, in Western Australia, to the tip of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. One of the world’s most pristine marine environments, with more biodiversity than the Great Barrier Reef, the Bight is a haven for endangered species including southern right whales, which calve off the Head of Bight in winter. The chilly, nutrient- rich waters also produce some of the nation’s most highly-prized seafood, including southern rock lobster, Coffin Bay oysters and the sashimi-grade tuna fattened in pens off Port Lincoln.

Then there are the untapped riches thought to lie deep beneath the seabed: billions of barrels, potentially, of crude oil. For the past decade, a ­battle has raged over this submerged black gold, pitting ­fishermen, surfers, councils, tourism operators, environmentalists and traditional owners against the oil industry and its government proponents. Three multinationals have eyed up the Bight, then pulled out – most recently, in February, Norway’s state-owned Equinor, formerly Statoil.

Opponents hailed Equinor’s departure as a ­historic win, rivalling the victorious campaigns to prevent Tasmania’s Franklin River being dammed and construction of a gas hub in the Kimberley at James Price Point. The Federal Government is still pushing for the Bight to be exploited, however, linking its reserves to fuel security. Meanwhile, the small, isolated communities dotted along the coast have been left bruised by the years of strife. While “Fight for the Bight” crusaders are convinced a catastrophe has been averted, others rue the lost economic opportunities for a struggling, often overlooked region.

It’s worth reading the full article, which goes into the GAB campaign, the various companies who had laid claim to areas in the Bight, and ends with some thoughts on potential futures for the Bight.

…public opposition may have scared off overseas investors, who “thought these projects looked like too much trouble, with all the focus on surfboards and placards and social media”, says one industry source.

Amid a pandemic-inspired debate about ­sovereign capability, however, federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt is still spruiking the Bight as “a frontier opportunity”.

Read the full article at The Australian website (currently behind a paywall)

Fight for the Bight Alliance wins "The Greater Good Award"

Click on the image above to view the presentation (aroud the 10min mark)

Click on the image above to view the presentation (aroud the 10min mark)

Thanks to Surfing Australia for recognising the significance of what has been achieved in the Great Australian Bight.

The Australian Surfborders’ GREATER GOOD AWARD is for a person or group who in the past year has given back to Australian surfing through extraordinary results in a charitable, humanitarian, environmental, or philanthropic cause.

This year, the award was given to the Fight for the Bight Alliance.
Wilderness Society SA Director Peter Owen, accepting the award, said

"This award is for the thousands of people who stood together, as part of the Great Australian Bight Alliance and said NO to risky deep-sea oil drilling and the expansion of the fossil fuel industry into the Bight.

It's inspiring what has been achieved and an example of what is possible when the community unites.

With the oil companies retreating, we must now move to protect the amazing marine wilderness of the Great Australian Bight for good."

If you missed the show on TV recently, our award is from 10-12 minutes (click on the linked image above).


How the Bight Was Won

Australian Surf Business Magazine, May 24th

Screen Shot 2020-06-18 at 10.53.27 am.png

The campaign to stop Equinor from drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight is a unique – and uniquely successful – piece of activism. As well as the enormous breadth of the Great Australian Bight Alliance – across surfers, fishermen, sailors, conservationists and everyday citizens – the campaign had depth: working its way into media, local governments, boardrooms and even the courts. It is likely that the methods deployed by the Alliance will be studied and replicated in years to come. So why was it so effective? ASB spoke exclusively to two of the campaign’s prime-movers, Wilderness Society South Australia head Peter Owen, and Port Fairy surfer Ben Druitt who leads a Victorian chapter of the Fight For The Bight Alliance.

The groundswell of support behind the campaign to protect The Great Australian Bight has been recognised not once, but twice, at the Australian Surfing Awards incorporating the Hall of Fame. These Awards have been convened by Surfing Australia since 1985 to preserve and honour the high achievers amongst the Australian surfing community and culminate with the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame Inductee. In 2019, Patagonia received the ASB Greater Good Award for their ‘Big Oil Don’t Surf’ campaign which bought international focus to the issue. This year Peter Owen accepted the award on behalf of The Fight For The Bight Alliance, the organisation whose relentless efforts to bring national attention to the issue, resulted in Equinor withdrawing their plans to drill in the Bight. The campaign galvanised surfers and non-surfers alike but was most memorable for a series of paddle out protests led by surfers across the nation and in the heartland of Equinor in Norway.

The Fight for the Bight was a grassroots campaign against the exploitation of oil reserves in the Bight by multiple proponents, which narrowed into a struggle against one company, Norway’s government-backed giant Equinor. At stake was the opening of new industrial precinct in the Australian wilderness, significant further emissions, and the risk of a catastrophic failure of the well.

Full article at ASB Magazine

Temperature Check

New Internationalist 3 June, 2020

The fight continues: indigenous groups and their allies blockade  government buildings in Victoria, Canada to protest a natural gas  pipeline through Wet'suwet'en territory. Zuma Press inc/Alamy

The fight continues: indigenous groups and their allies blockade government buildings in Victoria, Canada to protest a natural gas pipeline through Wet'suwet'en territory. Zuma Press inc/Alamy

Danny Chivers is a climate change researcher, activist and performance poet.

Danny Chivers is buoyed up by three decisive victories led by indigenous groups against fossil fuel interests in Australia, Brazil and Canada.

The fight against climate breakdown can feel overwhelming. But a run of amazing victories against the fossil-fuel industry – all in a single week in early 2020 – gave real cause for celebration. In February, three major projects to extract oil and coal were soundly defeated by indigenous-led campaigns, keeping around nine billion tonnes of greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere – roughly equivalent to stopping all emissions from the US and India for a year.

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action in Canada, explains that indigenous rights are one of the most powerful tools available for challenging extractive industries. ‘There’s a foundational legal element that makes it very difficult for corporations and state governments to simply override,’ she says.

Full article at New Internationalist Online

Great Australian Bight: Equinor abandons plans to drill for oil

Andrew Morton, The Guardian

Norwegian company Equinor has abandoned plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight. In this photo from November 2019, people protest the company’s planned deepwater oil drilling.  Photograph: Jason Obrien/EPA

Norwegian company Equinor has abandoned plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight. In this photo from November 2019, people protest the company’s planned deepwater oil drilling.
Photograph: Jason Obrien/EPA

Norwegian oil company announces it has scrapped its $200m plan to deepwater drill in Great Australian Bight Marine Park

Norwegian oil giant Equinor has abandoned plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight, declaring the controversial project did not make commercial sense.

The company said on Tuesday it had told federal, South Australian and local authorities it had decided to scrap the $200m project to deepwater drill in the Great Australian Bight Marine Park.

It is the third major oil company to abandon plans to drill in the bight, following BP and Chevron.

“Following a holistic review of its exploration portfolio, Equinor has concluded that the project’s potential is not commercially competitive compared with other exploration opportunities in the company,’’ the company’s country manager for Australia, Jone Stangeland, said in a statement.

The decision is a significant win for environment groups and other opponents of the project, including Indigenous elders and local councils. The proposal sparked protests supported by tens of thousands of people opposed to fossil fuel extraction in a marine wilderness area.

Equinor’s announcement comes shortly after the proposed Stromlo-1 well site, in water more than 2.2km deep and nearly 400km off the South Australian coast, was granted environmental approval by the federal offshore petroleum regulator. The Wilderness Society launched legal action challenging the decision last month, arguing opponents had not been properly consulted.

Peter Owen, the Wilderness Society’s South Australian director, welcomed Equinor’s decision to “responsibly withdraw” from the project.

“It’s been a while coming, but the right decision is the right decision, and we have no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of people that have supported the campaign to fight for the Bight will be both delighted and relieved to hear this news,” he said.

Owen called on the Morrison government to “listen to the people and permanently protect the unique waters of the Great Australian Bight from drilling for good”.

The federal minister for resources, Keith Pitt, said the government was disappointed about Equinor’s decision, but pleased the company had made clear it would still be part of the oil and gas industry in Australia. It said the decision would be “particularly hard for South Australia”.

He said the government remained committed to “encouraging the safe development of Australia’s offshore petroleum resources. “The Bight basin remains one of Australia’s frontier basins and any proposals for new oil and gas fields in this area will be assessed fairly and independently,” he said.

Full Story in The Guardian

Equinor abandons plans to drill for oil in Great Australian Bight for 'commercial' reasons

ABC News

Photo: Equinor had launched plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight. (ABC News: Molly Schmidt)

Photo: Equinor had launched plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight. (ABC News: Molly Schmidt)

Norwegian company Equinor has become the third major fossil fuel producer to abandon plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight.

Key points:

  • Equinor said its exploration plan was "not commercially competitive"

  • Drilling has been fiercely opposed by environmental groups who warned about a catastrophic spill

  • The Federal Government is disappointed but supportive of future drilling

The company said it had concluded that its exploration drilling plan was "not commercially competitive" compared with other exploration opportunities.

In December, Equinor was granted environmental approval to drill 372 kilometres south of the Nullarbor coastline, despite protests from environmentalists.

BP abandoned plans to drill the bight in 2016, with Chevron following suit in 2017.

Equinor, which had planned to drill at a depth of 2.5 kilometres, said it made its decision after a "holistic review of its exploration portfolio".

Equinor Australia company manager Jone Stangeland said the venture was simply too expensive.

"We have received bids for the drilling rig, the helicopters, the supply base — the cost for these activities is just too high and too expensive to go ahead and drill the well," he said.

He said the company would "engage with the federal and state authorities regarding our decision to discontinue the exploration program".

Full story: ABC

Energy giant Equinor dumps plan to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight

Bianca Hall, theage.com.au

The Great Australian Bight at sunrise. Credit:Alamy

The Great Australian Bight at sunrise. Credit:Alamy

Norwegian energy giant Equinor has dumped plans to conduct deep-sea oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight, about 400 kilometres off the South Australian coast, saying the plan is no longer "commercially competitive".

The decision comes a month after the Wilderness Society filed documents in the Federal Court, backed by local government and traditional owners, challenging federal environmental approval for deep-sea drilling in the Bight.

"Following a holistic review of its exploration portfolio, Equinor has concluded that the project’s potential is not commercially competitive compared with other exploration opportunities in the company," he said.

"The approval of the Stromlo-1 exploration well environment plan confirmed our ability to safely operate in the Bight. However, Equinor has decided to discontinue its plans to drill the Stromlo-1 exploration well, as the opportunity is not commercially competitive."

The decision was welcomed by Wilderness Society South Australia director Peter Owen, who said he had never seen so much community opposition to a project.

"We're obviously commending [Equinor] for making this decision and following BP, Chevron and more recently Karoon Gas in abandoning plans to drill in the Bight," he said.

"It's very clear the people of Australia don't support this proposal, and haven't for a long time. It's in the very middle of the Great Australian Bight and a massive whale sanctuary.

"And it's also the wrong time in history to be pushing an expansion of the fossil fuel industry. It's obvious there's no social licence for this."

Mr Stangeland said Equinor maintained an exploration permit offshore in Western Australia, and "will maintain other ongoing interests and activities in Australia".

Graeme Bethune, chief executive of prominent energy industry consultancy EnergyQuest, said the "disappointing" decision appeared to be linked to European oil companies committing to stronger carbon reduction targets.

Last month Equinor vowed to reduce its net carbon intensity by at least 50 per cent by 2050.

Full story at The Age

Paul Kelly's new song is both a lullaby and a wake up call

by Dan Condon, Music reads, Double J

Click on image to view video

Click on image to view video

Paul Kelly doesn't tend to trifle with politics all that often in his music. And you might say that this new single, 'Sleep, Australia, Sleep', isn't a political song.

He wrote the song as a lullaby, but says that its message could serve as a wake up call.

In Kelly's own words, it's "a critique of the widespread attitude amongst humans that we are the most important life form on the planet. I believe we’ve reached a tipping point now where this attitude is doing terrible harm to all life on earth".

Full Story: Double J, ABC

Great Australian Bight: Wilderness Society launches legal challenge to Equinor's oil drilling approval

Source: The Guardian
Adam Morton, Environment editor

Conservation group say the Norwegian energy giant refused to formally consult with affected groups

Equinor was asked to modify oil drilling plans after analysis showed a potential for spill along the coastline and ocean of the Great Australian Bight. Photograph: Julian Smith/EPA

Equinor was asked to modify oil drilling plans after analysis showed a potential for spill along the coastline and ocean of the Great Australian Bight. Photograph: Julian Smith/EPA

The Wilderness Society has launched legal action challenging the environmental approval granted to Norwegian energy giant Equinor to explore for oil in the Great Australian Bight.

The conservation group had flagged a possible court case after the proposal to deepwater drill in the Great Australian Bight Marine Park was approved by the federal offshore petroleum regulator in December. It was the second, and most significant, of four regulatory hurdles Equinor needs to clear before it can drill.

Peter Owen, the Wilderness Society’s South Australian director, said Equinor had refused to formally consult affected groups as required. He said the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, known as Nopsema, had made a legal error in accepting the company’s claims that it had.

Owen said the decision effectively dismissed the concerns of environment groups representing tens of thousands of members, Indigenous custodians with cultural values threatened by offshore drilling and more than 20 local governments responsible for communities and coastal property as not relevant to the approval process.

“We should all be very concerned about the precedent Equinor and Nopsema have set here,” he said. “We have no doubt that if Equinor had fully and legally consulted with these parties, its plans would have been better informed and more robust. Instead, it is our view that it now holds an invalid approval.”

Full Story at The Guardian website

Great Australian Bight oil drilling approval to be challenged in Federal Court

Source: ABC News
By Eugene Boisvert, Patrick Martin and Stacey Lee

A legal challenge against plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight has been launched in the Federal Court.

The Wilderness Society is taking the national regulator — the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) — to court after it granted conditional environmental approval to Norwegian oil company Equinor to conduct drilling.

The society alleges Equinor did not consult "important and relevant parties", which it said was required by regulations.

Full story here

Australia’s Coastlines are Engulfed in Flames

Source: SURFER magazine, Jan 4th

Sean Doherty

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

The surf-rich nation is fast becoming the poster child for the climate crisis

“The fascination of the press in the US and the UK in particular with the Australian fires stems largely from Australia’s recalcitrance to reducing their carbon emissions.
At the recent Madrid climate conference, Australia actively lobbied to have targets relaxed, despite being amongst the world’s highest per capita carbon emitters. The Australian government is currently facilitating a wholesale expansion of the fossil fuel industry.
The Adani coal mine in Queensland. The Equinor oil well in the Great Australian Bight. Gas development pretty much everywhere. Both here in Australia and abroad there’s a feeling that these fires are almost symbolic.
Australia has become the poster child for climate change. The world is getting a first look at what the new normal might look like… and it’s happening to one of the countries responsible for driving it.
The world has made the link between fossil fuels, fire and climate, and the fact Australia’s leaders haven’t has made us a pariah.”

Full story: SURFER 

10.000 australiere demonstrerte mot Equinor lørdag – varsler eskalering om miljøplanen godkjennes

10,000 Australians Demonstrated against Equinor Saturday - Alerts Escalate if Environmental Plan Approved

“Paddle-out”-protestene mot Equinor som var varslet på lørdagens “National Day of Action” i Australia, samlet 10.000 deltakere.

Kjente strender som Bondi Beach, Gold Coast og Byron Bay var fylt opp med surfebrettpadlende demonstranter. Noen strender hadde over 3.000 deltakere, ifølge arrangøren Fight for the Bight.

Ambisjonen til de som demonstrerer er å stoppe Equinor fra å sette i gang med oljeboring i Australbukta, der det norske oljeselskapet har to lisenser.

Hevder at et flertall av australierne er i mot Equinor-planene

I Adelaide, hovedstad i delstaten South Australia og Australias femte største by, ble det arrangert et liksom-oljeutslipp mens en annen gruppe hang store bannere fra byens fjellside. 

– Med denne liksom-ulykken setter vi fokus på hvor vanskelig det vil være å rydde opp ved et potensielt oljeutslipp i Australbukta. Det vil være svært ødeleggende for landsdelen, og er en av grunnene til at Equinor ikke har støtte. Risikoen er for høy, og store deler av Australia har derfor sagt nei til oljeboring i dette dype, urolige havet, sier Damien Cole, en av initiativtakerne til National Day of Action og ambassadør for Surfrider Foundation.


Tilspissing

Ifølge demonstrantene har nå Equinor et flertall av australierne mot seg, i spørsmålet om igangsetting av oljevirksomhet i Australian Bight. Det vises blant annet til en avstemming i avisen The Advertiser denne uka, hvor 80 % sa de var mot planene.

I en reportasje på TV-stasjonen 7NEWS (videoen over), sier Peter Owen, leder for miljøorganisasjonen Wilderness Society, at aksjonen mot Equinor vil eskalere til et nivå “som trolig aldri tidligere er sett i Australia”, dersom den reviderte miljøplanen blir godkjent av myndighetene.

Equinor har frist ut november med å sende inn ny miljøplan. Også den første ble underkjent.

English translation:

The "paddle-out" protests against Equinor that were announced at Saturday's National Day of Action in Australia brought together 10,000 participants.

Famous beaches such as Bondi Beach, Gold Coast and Byron Bay were filled with surfboard paddling protesters. Some beaches had over 3,000 participants, according to organizer Fight for the Bight.

The ambition of the demonstrators is to stop Equinor from embarking on oil drilling in the Gulf of Australia, where the Norwegian oil company has two licenses.

Claims that a majority of Australians are against Equinor plans

In Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia and Australia's fifth largest city, a sort of oil spill was arranged while another group hung large banners from the city's mountainside.
With this kind of accident, we focus on how difficult it will be to clean up a potential oil spill in the Gulf of Australia. It will be very devastating for the region and is one of the reasons Equinor does not have support. The risk is too high, and large parts of Australia have therefore turned down no oil drilling in this deep, troubled sea”, says Damien Cole, one of the initiators of the National Day of Action and Ambassador of the Surfrider Foundation.

Intensification
According to the protesters, Equinor now has a majority of Australians against it, in the issue of starting oil operations in the Australian Bight. Among other things, there is a vote in the newspaper The Advertiser this week, where 80% said they were against the plans.

In a report on the TV station 7NEWS (video above), Peter Owen, head of the Wilderness Society environmental organization, says that the action against Equinor will escalate to a level "probably never before seen in Australia", if the revised environmental plan is approved by the authorities.

Equinor has a deadline for November to submit a new environmental plan. The first one was also rejected.

Australia says No X Way

Great Australian Bight Alliance

Australia says NO❌WAY - A national day of action

Equinor has stated that they will not push against community resistance in their plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight.

On November 23rd 2019, 56 coastal communities across Australia came together in a national day of action, in opposition of Equinor’s plans to put at risk one of the last big intact marine wilderness areas on the planet.

In this national day of action, these coastal communities, along with the 20 plus councils who have voted against Equinor's plans, clearly show that Equinor has no social licence.

Its time that Equinor follow BP and Chevrons lead and cease their plans to drill for oil in the Bight, which would be welcomed as an early xmas present by Australians.

"You told us you would not push through community resistance! You said if you were not wanted here, you would not proceed, well Equinor here is your answer loud and clear" - Damien Cole, Surfrider Foundation Australia



#fightforthebight #noxwayequinor