The Queensland government will ban new oil and gas developments in the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin’s rivers and floodplains – belatedly delivering on a nine-year-old election commitment to reinstate protections for the state’s pristine channel country.
The state’s premier, Steven Miles, will on Friday announce new environmental regulations for the basin, which is among the world’s last unaltered river systems.
The ecosystem was protected under “wild rivers” laws in Queensland from 2005 until 2014, when they were scrapped by the Newman government.
Labor promised to legislate protections for Queensland’s pristine rivers from large-scale industrial operations before coming to power in 2015, but since then the state has quietly progressed gas drilling plans by granting oil and gas leases.
By announcing new protections, Miles will have delivered on two of the environment movement’s most pressing concerns, emissions targets and developments threatening the channel country, within a week of being sworn-in.
Under the changes, any future oil or gas drilling in the floodplain areas of the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin would be blocked. Holders of exploration permits will be able to apply for production leases until 30 August next year. This sunset term will not apply to any “unconventional” gas drilling proposals.
Guardian Australia reported in 2020 that an independent scientific panel commissioned by the Queensland government had recommended a ban on fracking in the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin, but the experts’ findings were made secret by the state and ultimately ignored.
The new protections will be designed to allow for the growth of the state’s planned north-west minerals province, and conventional gas drilling proposals will still be considered if they are located away from the rivers and floodplains.
Earlier this year, Queensland sought public feedback on potential protections for the channel country. Of 17,500 submissions, 98% argued for stronger environmental measures.
Amid the process, gas companies appeared to be backing away from plans to drill in the area. Guardian Australia reported in July that Origin Energy had surrendered 10 tenements in the basin.
Miles said it was “important that my government protects this great part of our state for generations of Queenslanders to come”.
“The changes strike a good balance in preserving the Queensland Lake Eyre Basin region, while providing industry with the tools they need to grow and develop,” he said.
“While these changes may have a small effect on some future gas developments, I have asked the resources department to propose projects that will more than offset any gas supply affected.”
The government will seek to highlight benefits that protections will offer to the agriculture and tourism sectors.
The environment minister, Leanne Linard, said healthy water flow was “the lifeblood of these landscapes”.
“When the bigger flows come, these areas and the wetlands and water holes they feed into come alive, with waterbirds, like pelicans and stilts, arriving in their thousands to breed,” she said.
Environmental group Lock the Gate Alliance have been campaigning for protections for years. The group’s national coordinator, Ellen Roberts, said it “warmly welcomes” the move, but said it would seek further clarity about the details.
“Unconventional oil and gas extraction can require thousands of wells to be drilled across a landscape, with each well requiring millions of litres of water for a single frack,” Roberts said.
“This sort of development would have decimated the fragile and unique rivers and floodplains of the channel country.”
Roberts said the provision allowing companies to apply for production leases until August was “troubling” and that the group would be “intensely scrutinising” plans lodged before then.
“A large area of the floodplains is covered by existing petroleum exploration tenements, including potential commercial areas,” she said.
“Conventional projects are also risky, posing a contamination threat to surface and groundwater, and have severely impacted the flow of the channels in parts of the Lake Eyre basin.”
