Margaret River high school students lead protest

Margaret River’s School Strike for Climate group took to the streets last week in a peaceful vigil against Woodside’s Burrup Hub gas project, off the Pilbara coast.

Local student and member of the School Strike for Climate group, Emma Heyink said she was terrified of the proposed project.

“The climate and environmental devastation of this project terrify me more than anything, keeping me up at night,” Emma said.

“The impacts of Woodside’s seismic blasting for gas, destroying Sea Country, destroying the climate and my hopes of a safe future, deafening whales, the same whales that migrate yearly past Margaret River where I live, that we all watch and love, must be stopped.”

The vigil saw young people supported by adults as they made their way down Margaret River’s main street bearing signs and slogans speaking out against the controversial project, which the Conservation Council of WA says would be the most polluting project ever to be developed in Australia.

The project involves the extraction of six untapped gas fields and the drilling of 84 wells off the WA coast.

Western Australia’s Environment Protection Authority last month dismissed appeals against the extension of the operation licence until 2070.

Recent protests against Woodside have made headlines for controversial tactics by some groups aiming to increase exposure to the cause.

Emma said a safe future and Burrup Hub could not co-exist. “I want a safe, clean future, and there is absolutely no place for Woodside’s dirty gas in this,” she said.