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Northern Australia has the world’s largest, most pristine remaining tropical savanna, globally significant free-flowing rivers, extensive wetlands and coastlines, and living First Nations cultures that have cared for Country for millenia.

Yet Northern Australia is at a decision point. The climate crisis is accelerating. Ecosystems across the North are showing signs of stress and collapse.

Rather than prompting a rethink, a new wave of industrialisation is planned across the region. Large-scale water extraction, fossil fuel expansion, mineral development and infrastructure subsidies are being advanced under a long-standing “Developing the North” paradigm that views the region primarily as a frontier of untapped resources.

This paradigm has repeatedly failed to deliver long-term prosperity for communities in the North. It has left damaged landscapes, fragile economies, and ongoing dependence on federal and state subsidies. It is incompatible with a safe climate and with Australia’s biodiversity and human rights commitments.

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Dear Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Senator Murray Watt, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator Katy Gallagher, Minister Madeline King, Minister Catherine King,

Northern Australia is home to the world’s largest remaining tropical savanna, vast wetlands and intact coastlines. First Nations cultures have thrived for tens of thousands of years alongside what are the last of mainland Australia’s free-flowing rivers and ancient groundwater systems. From Cape York to Uluru, Kakadu to the Kimberley, these places and peoples are of global significance. But these places are under threat more than ever.

We are calling on the Commonwealth to end subsidies for water and water infrastructure for damaging industrial development such as large-scale irrigation and fracking in Northern Australia.

For too long, the dominant narrative of “Developing the North” has driven decision-making in the region, no matter the social, cultural or ecological cost. This agenda has funnelled substantial public funding and water give-aways into the pockets of multi-national corporations, enabling industrial irrigated agriculture and water mining, excessive land clearing, fractured gas mining (fracking), and other toxic mining practices. This harmful ‘development’ comes at the expense of communities, culture, and nature, and accelerates the climate catastrophe across the globe.

The North is one of Australia’s last strongholds against a toxic future.

Right now across Australia’s Great North, communities are standing up to protect the rivers and groundwater systems that sustain Country:

• At Singleton Station north of Mparntwe/Alice Springs (NT), a massive groundwater licence threatens to extract billions of litres of water each year, risking vital desert ecosystems dependent on groundwater.
• In the Roper River, south-east of Katherine (NT), industrial agriculture threatens culturally and ecologically significant spring-fed systems.
• In the Kimberley (WA), fracking and irrigated agriculture threaten one of the last great free-flowing river systems in the world, the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) and the Ord River.
• In Lakeland (QLD), large-scale irrigation expansion would drive further water extraction in the already vulnerable Mitchell catchment.

These are not isolated issues. Together, they are a pattern of publicly-funded corporate water grabs that place rivers, ecosystems, and communities at risk.

That must change. The future of Australia will be decided in its Great North, a region of global ecological and cultural significance.

Our rivers, wetlands and groundwater belong to the people and Country of the North - not to industrial agriculture or fossil fuel companies. Public money should fund water security for communities, protect our free-flowing rivers and support First Nations-led water management.

The Northern Australia Conservation Alliance is a growing network of people across the North, supported by peak conservation organisations working across the region: the Arid Lands Environment Centre, Environment Centre Northern Territory, Environs Kimberley, and Cairns and Far North Environment Centre.

Together, we share a vision for Northern Australia’s world-class ecosystems to be protected and flourishing, and for land and water to be managed in ways that respect and uphold First Nations rights, authority, and knowledge.

We call on the Commonwealth to end subsidies for water grabs and water infrastructure for damaging industrial development such as large-scale irrigation and fracking in Northern Australia.

Signed,

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