Traditional owners at work on gas site

Aiming to keep the effects of Woodside’s site testing works for its proposed gas hub at James Price Point to a minimum, a large group of traditional owners are on site at every turn.

In the past two months, this group of Goolarabooloo Jabirr Jabirr traditional owners, employed by the Kimberley Land Council, has swelled to 40. They provide cultural guidelines for how all non-ground and ground-disturbing work should occur and are on the lookout for culturally significant sites or artefacts.

Traditional owner implementation committee member Donald McKenzie said the traditional owner monitors worked under instruction from the Environment and Cultural Heritage team, a group of elected members of the claim group.

“It’s fantastic to see Golarabooloo Jabirr Jabirr people out on country making sure our culture and environment is looked after properly with surveys and tests going on at the moment,” he said.

Traditional owner monitor Henry Augustine said the role provided a great opportunity for many who may have previously relied on as little as three days a week of work, which “didn’t put food on the table”.

“There are about 40 already on the books and this has made a positive change in their lives,” he said. “It’s given us the opportunity to work on our country, with our people.”

Meanwhile, Woodside said it was honouring the native title agreement for the proposed Browse LNG development signed in June.

The company said the agreement would provide more than $1 billion worth of initiatives such as education and training, job opportunities and cultural heritage protection.

Woodside vice-president Nigel Grazia said 35 indigenous people from the Kimberley were employed by the company or were going into sponsored traineeships.