Save Scott Reef Q&A: Why the Browse fossil fuel proposal must be rejected, your questions answered
Where is Scott Reef?
Scott Reef is located 270 km offshore off the Kimberley Coast in north-west Western Australia.
What makes Scott Reef so ecologically important and worth fighting for?
Scott Reef is one of Australia’s most spectacular, biodiverse and vital coral reefs. It’s an ancient reef system, comprising two large reefs formed over the past 15 million years. Although lesser known, Scott Reef is similar to the famous World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef in its support for a diverse array of ocean wildlife.
Scott Reef and its surrounding waters are home and habitat to over 2,000 marine animal species including:
- Around 1,500 species of invertebrates such as reef-building corals, sponges and crustaceans
- Nearly 900 species of fish, many of which play a critical role in sustaining the reef system
- At least nine reef-dwelling species of sea snakes, including the endangered dusky sea snake, for which Scott Reef is the remaining habitat
- At least 29 species of marine mammals. Scott Reef is an important stop for migratory whales, like the endangered pygmy blue whale, that travel a long distance from Indonesia to the Great Australian Bight
- Green and hawksbill turtles nest during the summer months on Sandy Islet on South Scott Reef, a narrow sliver of sand that lies less than 2m above sea level. It provides nesting habitat critical to the survival of a genetically distinct population of green turtles that swim hundreds of kilometres to lay their eggs here
- Multiple species of sharks and rays.
Isn’t Scott Reef already protected?
Scott Reef is not in a marine protected area, despite its ecological importance as a habitat for endangered and rare species; it is still able to be exploited by seismic blasting and fossil fuel industrialisation
What is the Browse fossil fuel proposal, and how does it threaten the reef and surrounding ecosystems?
Woodside, a major fossil fuel company, and its joint venture partners (BP,
Shell, Japan Australia LNG, and BHP Billiton) are proposing to drill up to 50 gas wells around Scott Reef’s world-class and fragile coral ecosystem to access the Browse Basin offshore gas field. Woodside also wants to dump its carbon pollution under the ocean floor near Scott Reef with up to seven new carbon capture and storage (CCS) wells.
If the Browse proposal is approved, it will lock in deafening underwater seismic blasting for decades and risk oil spills, blowouts and sinking green turtle nesting grounds as gas is sucked out from under the fragile reef.
Direct threats to Scott Reef from the Browse proposal include:
- Seismic blasting
- Underwater industrial noise
- Chemical pollution
- Light pollution
- Habitat disturbance
- Risk of oil spills
- Risk of sinking seabed.
If the Browse proposal is not stopped, most of the gas extracted from around Scott Reef would be shipped overseas via Woodside’s North West Shelf onshore gas processing facility, a carbon bomb that would produce billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution, worsening the climate crisis and fuelling more coral-killing marine heatwaves.
What is carbon pollution dumping, and how does it threaten Scott Reef?
As the climate crisis worsens, the fossil fuel industry is promoting carbon pollution dumping through so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way to bury carbon dioxide pollution by pumping it into wells under the ground, including below the ocean floor. It’s a fossil fuel lobby pipe dream and proven failure designed to greenwash their attempts to keep polluting.
As part of the Browse fossil fuel proposal threatening Scott Reef, Woodside wants to dump its carbon pollution under the ocean floor near the reef with up to seven new carbon capture and storage (CCS) wells.
Oil and gas companies like Woodside will try to use CCS to try to offset their carbon emissions. This allows the industry to claim net-zero ambitions, while continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels – worsening the climate crisis and slowing the inevitable shift to renewable energy. In reality, carbon pollution dumping is an expensive failure, risky at every stage.
Carbon pollution dumping CCS projects have alarming impacts on our marine environment and wildlife at every stage, and even long after projects are ‘finished’.
Seismic blasting to map beneath the seafloor is the first step in offshore carbon pollution dumping. It’s loud, like an underwater bomb, deafening and disorienting whales and other marine mammals, turtles, rays, and sharks, while killing krill and plankton —the foundation of the food web in ocean life. Seismic blasting continues for many decades after carbon pollution is dumped to monitor the area for leaks, fissures and fractures.
There are risks of leaks and pollution – from pipelines to wells, and even underneath the seafloor – at every stage of CCS development and operation. When carbon pollution leaks, it acidifies the surrounding seawater, which can harm and suffocate nearby marine life.
CCS has been a proven failure for decades, and existing offshore carbon pollution dumping projects are rife with problems. High-profile and hugely expensive offshore CCS projects in Norwegian waters have failed to deliver promised amounts of carbon storage.
What’s the current status of the Browse proposal, and is it still possible to stop it?
Woodside and its Browse proposal joint venture partners must apply for and receive approval from both the Western Australian and Federal governments. Those approvals have not been issued yet, so Browse can still be stopped!
Woodside needs approval from the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), the Western Australian Environment Minister, Mathew Swinbourn, and the Federal Environment Minister, Murray Watt. As all these processes are ongoing, public pressure still matters! We need our governments to hear the voices of ocean lovers and understand that the community wants Scott Reef protected.
The current environmental assessment processes are:
- Federal approval of Browse to North West Shelf Project under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act).
A final decision is still pending under the EPBC ACT to be made by the Environment MInister Murray Watt.
- Western Australia state approval: Browse to the North West Shelf Project under the WA Environmental Protection Act (EP Act).
An amended Browse proposal is currently being assessed by the WA EPA, with a final decision to be made by the WA Environment Minister.
- Federal approval for the Browse Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) proposal under the EPBC Act
The federal government is overdue in fulfilling its legal commitment to provide a decision on whether approval for this aspect of Browse is required under the EPBC Act and how it must be assessed.
Aren’t there laws that are supposed to stop nature and climate wrecking proposals like the Browse fossil fuel proposal?
While it’s right that the Browse proposal be assessed under federal and state environment laws, it’s also the case that Australia’s national environment law – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC ACT) – is failing to do the job it’s supposed to. Marine life is suffering from the mass bleaching of our great reefs from west to east and marine heatwaves in the south, to species such as the Maugean skate being pushed to the brink of extinction.
The EPBC Act is more than 25 years old and dangerously weak and outdated. It doesn’t even take into account the impacts of global warming and climate change-linked extreme weather. The Act lacks proper enforcement, shuts communities and First Nations peoples out of decisions and allows industry giants to push through damaging projects with little scrutiny.
We need strong national nature laws that reflect the science, give real protection to critical ecosystems and hold polluters accountable. AMCS is part of a nature coalition of environment organisations urging the Albanese Government to create new nature laws this term of government to ensure Australia’s oceans and marine life are protected from the threat of climate change and direct impacts of offshore fossil fuel expansion.
What’s the alternative to gas — and what’s the bigger climate picture here?
Gas is a harmful fossil fuel, like coal. The drilling, processing and burning of gas releases greenhouse gases, including highly potent methane, which is 28 times more potent than CO2 in driving dangerous warming in our atmosphere, contributing to dangerous global heating and extreme weather events.
From new offshore gas and oil field exploration to drilling such as that proposed for Scott Reef and failed technologies like CCS carbon pollution dumping, the gas industry now has its sights set on the oceans we love.
The Albanese government is still priortising the interests of the fossil fuel industry with its Future Gas Strategy, which brings more seismic blasting projects to our oceans and increases the threat of drilling and carbon dumping in marine environments.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are alternatives to an energy system powered by nature and climate-wrecking gas.
Renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar, backed by battery storage, are increasingly taking over from coal and gas, powering an increasing portion of our energy grid. Most of the gas drilled in Australian waters is exported overseas, while Australians pay more and more for gas at home and suffer from extreme weather disasters exacerbated by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels like gas.
What is AMCS doing to save Scott Reef?
AMCS has joined with other leading conservation groups in calling on the Western Australian and Federal governments to respect the independent scientific advice and expert opinion, and reject the Browse proposal.
AMCS is running a national campaign to raise awareness of Scott Reef’s beauty and ecological importance and mobilise public opposition to the Browse proposal. Alongside this, AMCS’s expert campaigners are meeting with industry and political leaders to make the case for the protection of Scott Reef and the rejection of the Browse fossil fuel proposal.
To document the threats posed by Woodside’s risky and polluting gas proposal, AMCS patron Tim Winton and CEO Paul Gamblin joined a group of marine scientists, filmmakers and conservationists in December 2024 on a voyage to Scott Reef. The footage from that trip also formed the basis for Corals’ Last Stand, a short documentary that tells the story of Scott Reef, highlighting its incredible beauty and the fight to protect it. Corals’ Last Stand has been shown to sold-out audiences across Australia, and AMCS will be hosting more screenings in the coming months. Keep an eye on the AMCS events page for news of future screenings of Corals’ Last Stand.
What impact can public pressure really have at this stage? What is the best way for me to get involved in the Save Scott Reef campaign?
There are many things that every ocean lover can do to help Save Scott Reef from the dangerous Browse fossil fuel proposal. Public pressure is vital while state and federal governments are still assessing the Browse proposal, and we await a decision.
Here are some meaningful actions you could take. Even doing just one of these things that feels right for you is a great contribution to the campaign to Save Scott Reef.
- Share the story of Scott Reef with family, friends and your wider community networks
- Follow and share the social media content of AMCS and other organisations fighting to Save Scott Reef
- Join rallies and protests
- Attend an in-person or virtual screening of Coral’s Last Stand.
- Donate to AMCS or other conservation groups to help power their advocacy for Scott Reef
- Write to your local MP to ask them to help Save Scott Reef
- Send letters to newspapers and media outlets telling them that the Save Scott Reef campaign matters to you and that you’d like them to report on it
- Save the date for our national week of action from September 29, 2025
- Use AMCS’s easy online tool to tell the WA and Federal environment ministers to reject the Browse fossil fuel carbon bomb.
Together, as a community of ocean lovers, we can Save Scott Reef!
Note: references and sources are hyperlinked