Protecting endangered species is a law in the US. The question arises when one species can kill another species to protect a species at risk. Or do we let nature take its course or do we intervene and eliminate the predator? Could be a bird, a shark its predating so we can kill them off to save a species. Protection of endangered species requires humans to decide who lives or dies…

The Colorado River runs 1450 miles from the mountains of Wyoming to the Sea of Cortez south of Mexicali. But the river never reaches the sea. The entire river is diverted at the Morelos Dam and channeled into an irrigation system that feeds a massive agricultural industry.

When you think of wealth extraction I suspect that gold mining or oil and gas wells covering the countryside. But to better understand this process let’s read the definition first:

Wealth extraction - the process of extracting the most valuable elements of an ecosystem for human benefit at the expense of everything else.

The fantasy of wilderness is a lie. There is no wilderness, but there are cultural landscapes. 

We drove west from Yiyili one evening and encounter massive wildfires burning out of control. There were no humans, no fire trucks, no water tankers. The fires are intentionally set, burn on their own free will until the winter rains put them out. They are called Cool Fires as they are set during the cool winter months in the Kimberley. There is a 30,000 year old reason for this. 

We heard of this town called Karratha near Dampier in the Pilbara. A town that represented everything Kimberley people hate and worry about. It is a major oil and gas, iron ore and sea salt complex that shipped 81 million tons of LNG, 861 million tons of iron ore worth $125B plus the largest evaporative salt ponds in the world. When Andy and landed in Karratha we thought we could be in San Francisco or Long Beach where refineries and cargo ships are commonplace. Sorta felt like home to us. 

Andy, Simon and Mark were heading back from Freshwater Cove to Derby and needed fuel for the boat. There was supposed to be a gas drum stored near Raft Point for such situations. It was not to be found but Mark took Andy and Simon to nearby Raft Point to view the Wandjina figures rock at high above the water.

The people of Broome won a significant campaign against a proposed $45 billion project – in April 2013 they stopped the development of a gas plant and port at iconic James Price Point (Walmadan). They had substantial political and corporate interests arrayed against them – the world’s largest multinational oil and gas companies, a determined state government as proponent who deployed police, and changed laws to suit, and a federal government unwilling to intervene. 

Our funding dilemma has always been deciding at what stage of the conservation process should we invest. We have funded all three - protect something, defend something or restore it as best you can. Most times we find the restoration projects the simplest to fund and support since the damage is done, many times the villain has left and it just takes time and money to replant a landscape with its natural elements.