The destruction of Western Australia\u2019s northern jarrah forests for bauxite mining will push a threatened black cockatoo \u201cto and beyond the brink of extinction\u201d if governments allowed it to continue, conservationists have warned.<\/p>\n
Mark Henryon, a volunteer with Birdlife Western Australia, said there was a clear choice that would decide whether the endangered Baudin\u2019s black cockatoo would survive. \u201cBaudin\u2019s or bauxite \u2013 we can\u2019t have both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Henryon has spent years advocating for better protection of what he describes as the state\u2019s \u201cforgotten\u201d black cockatoo.<\/p>\n
The dark-feathered, white-cheeked bird with a call like a squeaky gate is endemic to the state\u2019s south west.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Compared with the higher profile Carnaby\u2019s black cockatoo, the Baudin\u2019s has a longer, narrower bill, which Henryon said it used like a surgical tool to extract the seeds from the marri nuts it fed on, without destroying the whole nut.<\/p>\n BirdLife WA nominated the species for \u201cuplisting\u201d to critically endangered in 2023 under the state\u2019s laws after research found the species\u2019 population had declined by 90% in 40 years.<\/p>\n The proposal would have brought the state conservation status into line with international bodies such as the International Union for the Conservation<\/a> of Nature, which lists the Baudin\u2019s as critically endangered.<\/p>\n But the state\u2019s threatened species scientific committee rejected the nomination, citing insufficient data.<\/p>\n Conservationists now fear the species is under greater pressure than ever due to planned expansions of bauxite mining in WA\u2019s northern jarrah forests.<\/p>\n The US aluminium giant Alcoa has two proposals to expand its bauxite mining operations that would clear more than 11,000 hectares of the heavily mined forest, roughly equivalent to bulldozing Perth\u2019s Kings Park 27.5 times over.<\/p>\n Metals company South32 has also been given the green light from the state and federal governments to clear more than 3,800ha for the expansion of its Worsley Alumina bauxite mine.<\/p>\n Baudin\u2019s black cockatoos rely on old trees and hollows in the northern jarrah forest in the Darling Range south-east of Perth as their primary winter habitat.<\/p>\n Most of the state\u2019s Baudin\u2019s population breeds in the state\u2019s far south-west and migrates to forage in the northern jarrah forest between the months of March and September each year.<\/p>\n Mining companies in the area have a long history of what the Conservation Council of WA describes as \u201cstrip mining\u201d \u2013 completely clearing parts of the forest in order to get to the bauxite underneath.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen images of football fields-worth of clearing, and there will be one tree left,\u201d Matt Roberts, the council\u2019s executive director, said.<\/p>\n Roberts said to secure the Baudin\u2019s future, \u201cwe need to end mining in forests and [the] clearing of forests for mining\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThese tree hollows can take hundreds of years to develop. They\u2019re in very old trees. They can\u2019t be rehabilitated or brought back at the pace that the Baudin\u2019s needs them to be.\u201d<\/p>\n The state\u2019s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) recently opened up Alcoa\u2019s proposals for community consultation; the first time the public has had a chance to scrutinise the company\u2019s operations in the area in 60 years.<\/p>\n It received more than 59,000 submissions \u2013 the highest number ever through a consultation process. Almost 90% were template responses, pre-written as part of an organised campaign, and the EPA said the record volume of responses highlighted the public\u2019s interest in the assessment.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In its submission to the authority, BirdLife WA said the consequences of further mining in the global biodiversity hotspot would be \u201cirreversible and catastrophic\u201d for Western Australia\u2019s birds, including the Baudin\u2019s, the Carnaby\u2019s and the forest red-tailed black cockatoo.<\/p>\n It told the authority the Baudin\u2019s would become functionally extinct within 50 years or sooner if the expansions went ahead.<\/p>\n The organisation wrote that much of the clearing proposed was in the highest quality habitat, which included old, mature trees.<\/p>\n The EPA\u2019s chair, Darren Walsh, said the authority would provide a summary of the submissions to Alcoa for a response before completing its assessment of the two proposals in the first half of next year. The authority would then deliver a report with its recommendations to the state\u2019s environment minister, he said.<\/p>\n An Alcoa spokesperson said the company believed environmental factors should be \u201cpurposefully considered and responsibly managed in conjunction with development activities necessary to produce the aluminium required to meet growing global demand, largely driven by requirements for decarbonisation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn both our current mining areas, and in future mining areas before the WA EPA \u2013 a proposal which involves clearing less than a 1 per cent additional area of the Northern Jarrah Forest over the next 20 years \u2013 we have avoidance measures in place to protect areas of high conservation value,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur environmental review documentation outlines the mitigation measures that Alcoa considers will ensure there are no significant impacts to threatened species including black cockatoos.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson said proposed mitigation measures included avoiding known and potential black cockatoo nesting trees and having buffer zones around them.<\/p>\n Henryon said Baudin\u2019s were so familiar to Western Australians, \u201cwe almost take them for granted\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have these birds flying around; they are part of the south-west\u2019s identity. Are we happy for them to just fade away?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we want to protect them, we need to look after their homes. If we\u2019re fair dinkum about this, we actually have to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The destruction of Western Australia\u2019s northern jarrah forests for bauxite mining will push a threatened black cockatoo \u201cto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-61160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}