Exmouth Gulf remains under threat from industrial development, but your support is making a difference.
We’ve stopped the saltworks, but an industrial port that would significantly harm this fragile marine environment is still proposed.
Gascoyne Gateway Limited (GGL) wants to build an industrial port at Exmouth Gulf, a globally significant environment with strong ecological linkages to the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Coast.
The port would bring some of the world’s largest ships through a vital resting and calving ground for one of the planet’s biggest humpback whale populations.
Vulnerable mothers and calves face a high risk of vessel strikes and disturbance from underwater noise.
The area is also home to threatened and listed species, including dugongs, turtles, manta rays, sea snakes, and dolphins, as well as corals, sponges, and seagrass meadows. All of this would be at risk from the port including the proposed dredging of one million cubic metres of seabed.
Why Gascoyne Gateway Limited’s port is not worth the risk:
- The port would draw bulk cargo carriers, fuel tankers and other ships up to 250m long into Exmouth Gulf.
- Humpback whales and their calves resting in Exmouth Gulf would be at high risk from ship strikes.
- Underwater noise from marine traffic would disrupt whales at a critical time in their migration.
- This area is also home to threatened and listed species, including dugongs, turtles, manta rays, sea snakes and dolphins.
- The equivalent of 34,000 shipping containers of seabed would be dredged to make the port deep enough for large vessels.
- A rock causeway would extend out 1 km into the fragile marine environment, damaging corals, seagrass meadows, and sponge gardens.
- The port and its onshore infrastructure would forever alter Qualing Pool, a significant freshwater body and a popular local beach, damaging the important and unique natural, cultural, and social values of the area.
The company, GGL, is currently seeking environmental approval for its port from the WA Government.
Take action and tell WA’s environment minister it’s not worth the risk and you want to see Exmouth Gulf, Ningaloo’s nursery, protected for good.
