Pilliga

Knitting Nannas and Friends gathered outside Santos’ Sydney office to protest, as the company held its annual general meeting in Tarndanya/Adelaide. Marie Flood reports.

Marie Flood, a member of the Sydney Knitting Nannas and Friends, gave this speech at a Sydney climate protest alongside First Nations activists, unionists and high school activists speaking out for real action on the climate.

The Gomeroi Nation voted overwhelmingly to reject a proposal from Santos at a historic Native Title meeting in Tamworth. Paddy Gibson reports.

Gomeroi man Raymond “Bubbly” Weatherall, on behalf of the custodians of the Narrabri-Pilliga region in NSW, has called for the fight against government and private gas plants to continue. Jim McIlroy reports.

 

The Gomeroi Nation has put the federal and New South Wales governments on notice for not respecting their rights and are saying “no” to a gas invasion of their country, says Maria 'Polly' Cutmore. 

Santos released an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on February 1, declaring it intended to develop a controversial gas reserve in Narrabri, in north western New South Wales.

Farmers, townspeople, Traditional Owners and environmentalists are opposed to the proposed gas field: an overwhelming 96% of landholders, representing 3.2 million hectares of land over which Santos holds leases, have declared their lands “gasfield free”.

Santos wants to drill 850 wells at 425 sites on about 1000 hectares in and around the Pilliga State Forest, near Narrabri.

Gamilaraay people are engaged in an epic fight for country against coal and gas giants supported by state and federal governments. For Raymond “Bubbly” Weatherall, from the Gunu Gunu clan and the Biridja clan, the fight is about totems — “our water, the environment and the land itself”.

Hundreds of environmental protestors made their voices heard against coal and coal seam gas (CSG) mining over the weekend of February 20 and 21. In the Pilliga, more than 300 people defied a police roadblock to protest the construction of Santos' Leewood waste water treatment facility and in the Leard State Forest a group of about 30 people blockaded the gates to Whitehaven and Idemitsu's Tarrawonga coal mine. Protest in the Pilliga