Bauxite miners want to clear seven Rottnest Islands’ worth of WA forest

But the EPA wanted to consider it as part of its review of the Pinjarra expansion to better assess the cumulative impacts of multiple mining operations on the forest over which Alcoa has a 700,000-hectare lease from Mundaring to Collie.

The company says it will only mine 8 per cent of the lease which has jarrah forest.

Meanwhile, South32 intends to clear 4399 hectares near the country town of Boddington, which would provide 150 more jobs and allow it to maintain its currently approved mining rate of 18.8 million tonnes per year and annual refinery production of 4.7 million tonnes.

The plans have drawn concerns from environmentalists and recreational forest users as tourism in towns like Dwellingup rises.

Only 35 kilometres from the Perth suburb of Armadale are popular walking trails at Sullivan Rock. A short walk up the trail you can see the approaching mining, which could come closer if Alcoa’s expansion is approved.

The state government recently announced a ban of native timber logging in the state from 2024, but clearing trees for mining purposes will be exempt.

WA Forest Alliance convenor Jess Beckerling said the forest that would be lost to bauxite mining had high conservation values.

“The Northern Jarrah Forest was identified as one of a handful of Australian ecosystems most at risk of climate collapse in the latest report by the UN’s panel of experts on climate change,” she said.

“To do more damage – as this proposal would clearly do – would be an unforgivable act of self-sabotage for our state and set conservation efforts back decades.”

The forest – home to threatened species like black cockatoos, woylies and mainland quokkas – is part of the globally significant South West biodiversity hotspot.

Wilderness Society WA campaigns manager Patrick Gardner wants the EPA to go further than its two individual environment reviews of the South32 and Alcoa expansions by doing a strategic assessment, similar to one undertaken in the Exmouth Gulf.

“The prognosis by the IPCC [of forest collapse] sits uncomfortably alongside the state agreements that sanction this massive volume of native forest clearing,” he said.

“Those agreements are in urgent need of review and modernisation to help protect what little native forest we have left.”

Loading

Operations underpin thousands of jobs

Alcoa’s mining operations in WA support about 3750 jobs across its sites, two port operations, and three refineries.

Federal Liberal Canning MP Andrew Hastie said the company was an important employer for the Peel region, but important social, environmental and strategic factors needed to be considered.

“I have heard from locals in Dwellingup who are concerned about what impact the close proximities of the expansion could have on their community,” he said.

“The region has also enjoyed the growth of adventure and nature-based tourism in recent years, with the support of all levels of government. It is important that we don’t undermine the progress of the growing tourism industry and the jobs it brings.

“On the question of expanding raw bauxite exports, I am concerned that we do not undermine the long-term viability of our own strategic industries and the jobs they support. We refine almost 7 percent of the world’s alumina here in WA. We don’t want to lose that capacity.”

The rehab conundrum

South32 has purchased private land with similar forest values to what it intends to clear as an offset and both companies rehabilitate mine sites by planting trees where operations have taken place.

Alcoa went from planting east coast eucalypts and pines to native species like jarrah and marri from 1988. The company’s rehabilitation practices have evolved to the point it keeps the topsoil it takes from the ground and puts it back after mining.

But Curtin University forest ecology and environmental management adjunct associate Professor Grant Wardell-Johnson said any further expansions of bauxite mining would be a backward step, with the fragmentation of the forest by the spiderweb of mining a big concern.

“Logging is bad enough because that’s effectively mining the timber resource, but mining the substrate takes out the whole ground system,” he said.

In a drying climate and a dropping water table, the jarrah forests in the north could see the water table hit bedrock by the middle of the decade.

“Once the water table hits bedrock, then the jarrah forest is surviving only on the rain as it falls rather than tapping into a supply of water constantly,” he said.

Miners should just plant shrubs and no jarrah at all.

“You won’t make the water table rise again, but you will slow down the loss of that water table,” he said.

The period to comment on the public environment review of South32’s Worsley expansion closes August 15.

Public consultation for a similar review for Alcoa is due to open soon.