By Francesca Davis
"White people have four seasons, but we have only two: the wet and the dry, the high and the low of the river. The land rules the seasons for us. In the dry, we know the pools where the big fish have stayed. In the floods we know in which trees we will find trapped kangaroos and goannas. But when the dam goes in and floods the land, and the flow of the river downstream is regulated so that the wet and the dry become meaningless, it will all be all over for us."
Dickie Bedford of the Bunuba Aborigines is describing the effects of the Fitzroy dam and irrigation proposal planned for the Kimberleys in Western Australia. The $2 billion project is designed to make desert areas, 200 kms south of Broome, suitable for cotton growing and involves massive privatisation of water and land.
If the proposal goes ahead, it will extinguish native title in the area, flood vast areas of spectacular country and threaten the habitat of the rare Gouldian finch. According to former Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Jim Downey, "the river itself, and its abundant natural values, would be all but destroyed".
Following approval from the WA state cabinet last August, Western Agricultural Industries P/L (WAI) is undertaking a feasibility study for the dam and irrigation project. The ACF says the scheme includes:
- construction of one to three dams in the upper Fitzroy and Margaret catchments. The dam at Dimond Gorge would flood nearly 1000 square kilometres;
- construction of an earthen canal of up to 500 kms to transport the water for Fitzroy Crossing to Shamrock and Nita Downs stations;
- free allocation of water entitlements to WAI for re-sale to irrigators (capital value of $ 600 million or more);
- conversion of large areas of pastoral lease and vacant crown land to freehold to support around 1/4 million hectares of irrigated agriculture (mainly cotton); and
- construction of a weir at Fitzroy Crossing to lift the water level for gravity-fed diversion into the canal.
While the government is not funding the project directly, the recent formation of the state government's Cotton Strategy Group, together with the go-ahead of the feasibility study, indicates that the project has government support. If the project goes ahead, WAI and its partner, Queensland Cotton, will get the water for free to sell to the farms, and pastoral leases in the area will be upgraded to freehold — a massive handout to agribusiness.
The proposal is fiercely opposed by the local Aboriginal population and environmentalists. While WAI already owns Shamrock and Nita Downs, it is hoping to win over local farmers and Aboriginal communities with the lure of development — the project will create 200 farms and provide 5000 jobs.
However, according to Kimberley Land Council executive director Peter Yu, Aboriginal opposition is united. "Aboriginal people are committed to economic development, yet we place the integrity of our cultural heritage and the significance of our native title rights to traditional lands at the heart of our economic advancement", he said.
The KLC believes the government has not taken into account the destruction of Aboriginal sites and burial places, the native title implications and the public health consequences of an increased mosquito population. This is not to mention the environmental impact on the area.
The Fitzroy River is the largest in the Kimberleys, flowing for 560 kms to the Indian Ocean. It's also one of the last wild un-dammed rivers in Australia. The river area includes unique fish; endangered species such as the Gouldian finch and purple crowned wren; diverse gorge habitats; and King Sound, an estuary which supports a huge diversity of migratory waders, a dugong population and a valuable pearling industry. All of this is threatened by the proposed dam.
The Fitzroy is a monsoonal river, flowing for three months and drying out for the rest of the year. After the dam is built, average flows will be reduced by 2500 gigalitres (1.5 million Olympic swimming pools) annually. By itself the dam in Dimond Gorge would capture over 60% of the average flows from the Fitzroy. The natural flooding necessary for ecosystem functioning, the productivity of pastoral lands and recharging ground-water aquifers would be reduced dramatically. Moreover, during the five years it would take to fill the dam the river flows could be seriously compromised.
On the other hand, flows during the dry season will increase significantly. This would mean profound changes in river ecology, bank and channel stability, channel erosion and less variation in in-stream habitats, gorge habitats in particular, including Geike Gorge.
Little is yet known about the ecology of the Fitzroy, but it is home to a wide diversity of freshwater fish species and to three cartilaginous fish species (making it unique in Australia). The dam will prevent species such as barramundi from migrating to complete their life cycles. It will also release substantially colder than natural water.
The threatened Geike Gorge is one of the prime habitats for the coach whip stingray, Leichhardt's sawfish and shark species. The changed flow regimes will also affect the estuarine ecology (mangroves, seagrass and mudflats) of King Sound. Soil degradation, aquifer depletion and pollution caused by pesticides and herbicides used on the cotton are also dangers.
The ACF has called the dam proposal the "Franklin of the North" and is working with Environs Kimberley, a local group set up to campaign against the dam. They are concerned that, although the government is happy to use the Kimberleys for tourist revenue, a management plan for the region does not exist and the government has yet to commit itself to any formal process for assessing the environmental impact of the scheme.
Local pastoralists also oppose the project, fearful that their beef will be contaminated with chemicals from the cotton farms or angry that their stations will be flooded.
A memorandum of understanding between WAI and the WA government was scheduled for signing last December. This has not yet happened, but if the project is approved the government will have a fight on its hands from both environmentalists and the traditional land owners. As Dickie Bedford says, "The identity of our people is tied to the land. We are not about to lose that."