Gas Gets Dug Out, You Get Sold Out
Alana Ramshaw reflects on her recent activist trip to the Pilliga region of NSW, divided by coal seam gas exploration projects. In February, students from the USYD, UTS and UNSW Enviro Collectives had the opportunity to go to Narrabri to gain an understanding of the local impacts of coal seam gas exploration. This was an eyeopening experience that allowed us to support local activists from Gamilaraay Next Generation in their protest against Santos and the Santos-sponsored ‘festival of rugby’ hosted in the town. Santos is an Australiabased oil and gas producer, one of the largest in the country. In the past year, they have attracted controversy and attention for their growing over 80 coal seam gas fracking wells in the Pillaga region, in far north-west NSW. Narrabri is a town in
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this region where local First Nations people (the Gomeroi people) and activists are fighting to stop the gas giants destruction of country and erosion of local community and culture.
does not constitute rehabilitation. We also encountered what we believe to have been a Santos tanker full of contaminated “produced” wastewater, driving into the forest with the intention Gas mining in the of illegally dumping Pilliga not only causes the hazardous waste. irreversible ecological destruction, but The approach Santos does so on sacred, have taken towards sovereign Gomeroi gaining local approval land in a forest with for the expansion spiritual significance of their gas project in Gomeroi culture. is underhanded, Santos’ desecration of insidious, and Indigenous land serves intentionally divisive. as a clear-cut example of the inseparable Santos have financially nature of the fights supported local for climate justice and businesses, schools, Indigenous justice. and events such as the rugby festival. In return, We saw “regeneration local newspapers refuse zones” fenced off by to publish anything Santos in a pathetic critical of Santos or attempted reversal their gas project. of their existing e n v i r o n m e n t a l Local individuals vandalism. Planting a and families are few sparse shrubs acro unwilling to criticise ss irreparably dead land a corporation they
