Never again. Reflections on environmental responsibility after Roe 8

A long and fierce battle opposing suburban communities in Perth, Western Australia, to government planners, and the role of environmental impact assessment (EIA) is the subject of this multi-authored book published in December 2017, a few months after a newly elected State government announced that a controversial highway project would no longer proceed. Such a decision, however, took place after construction had actually commenced, in December 2016, land was cleared, and protesters arrested.

Both researchers and campaigners authored the book’s sixteen chapters, alternating academic-style writing and lively campaign stories and containing even a bit of poetry. As announced in the Introduction, the book is ‘about the deficiencies in the environmental assessment process that led to [project] approval and the mismanagement of the conditions governing the construction’ (p. 5).

The project, called ‘Roe 8’, is an urban highway conceived in the 1950s as a ringroad around the growing and sprawling capital city now featuring 2 million inhabitants. It was built in stretches over decades and would terminate in the port of Fremantle. Roe 8 would not be its final tract, however. The very last section would only be constructed sometime in the future, what prompted opponents to air ‘a road to nowhere’ as one of their slogans.

Roe 8 highway entered the EIA process in 2009, when proponents called a public consultation as part of the scoping process aiming at selecting the best possible route inside a road corridor defined by the decades-old plan. Broader alternatives were out of the EIA scope, but totally in the agenda of concerned citizens and other groups, who favored an in-depth consideration of constructing a ‘21st century harbor’ further south to substitute for the old ‘19th century port’ in the heritage listed city of Fremantle. Changing the location of the terminus would arguably feeble the need for the highway extension, as heavy traffic would head to a new ‘outer harbor’ further south.

The EIA report was filed in June 2011 and received more than 3000 submissions during the three-month public review period, most of them critical of the scheme (p. 25). Environmental approval was granted on 17 December 2014. Public mobilization, strong not only during the appraisal period, but also afterwards, is presented in several chapters, especially ‘A Twenty-First Century Protest’. Described as a ‘grassroots campaign’ opposing ‘extraordinarily committed but marginally resourced citizens’ against the ‘major state institutions’, the opponents amalgamated a wide range of issues to carry forward their position: nature conservation, Aboriginal heritage and government accountability, to name just a few. Street demonstrations, pressure on politicians, and lawsuits as well as ‘public spectacle and satire’ (p. 81) were used in an attempt to stop or at least delay the beginning of the approved works.

And delay was obtained and it proved crucial for the campaign’s success. A lawsuit questioned the Environmental Protection Authority’s (EPA) review of the EIA (EPA 2013) arguing that the authority ‘failed to take account of its published policies on [biodiversity] offsets’ (p. 261). The project footprint would affect wetlands and woodlands of significant biodiversity and amenity value and environmental approval was heavily reliant on the proposed mitigation to reduce and offset impacts on those wetlands and woodlands. The wetlands, in particular, were a matter of concern as 80% of the ‘original wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain (…) have been destroyed’ (p. 55).

For offsetting, approximately 1000 ha of woodlands were set aside at a place located about 100 km from the project site, aiming at protecting habitat of endangered birds (black cockatoos) that nest in trunks of a particular tree species. As habitat fragmentation was considered as a significant residual impact, the only acceptable way for the project to go forward was through offsetting. However, if conservation offsets can be considered acceptable to counterbalance biodiversity losses, by locating them far away from the disturbed site, they do not replace the lost services provided by ecosystems to local communities. [A ‘conservation offset’ means the permanent protection of an equivalent environment offsite, while a ‘restoration offset’ means restoring a degraded environment to a state equivalent to that of the lost area.]

The Courts successfully upheld the plaintiffs’ argument that the EPA failed to apply its own policies, declaring in December 2015 the environmental approval as void. The State government however, appealed on the basis that EPA policies were not mandatory, and in May 2016 it won the legal battle, allowing works to start later that year.

The campaigners didn’t give up, however. In ‘Keeping Watch: Environmental Custodianship and Citizen Science’, the failures of environmental follow-up are revealed. Campaigners focused on the Fauna Management Plan, one of the approval conditions, by establishing a group of volunteer ‘watchers’ to observe compliance with the plan’s conditions, which were ‘blatantly ignored’ (p. 121). When those watchers became closely watched by police, the account almost turns into a thriller.

Legal and political battles were also fought on cultural heritage matters. A specific approval is required for those projects that may affect heritage sites. However, protection of Aboriginal sites was weakened after procedural reforms streamlined requirements, resulting in delisting, in the period 2008–2015, more than 3200 sites previously entered in the State register (p. 215). One of those sites is right in the alignment of the highway.

One of several interesting stories told in the book is about legal advice from the State Solicitor about the definition of ‘sacred site’. A new ‘and conveniently narrowed’ (p. 216) definition allowed for this and several other projects to receive heritage approval. The fact that the approvals grounded or such advice were challenged in the Courts and overturn on April 2015 did not prevent a new application for disturbing the sites affected by the highway to be reviewed by the competent government body, the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee. As this committee resolved that each of those spots was ‘not a site’, green lights opened up for the highway. In the analysis the author of the chapter ‘Never Again? Aboriginal Heritage Approvals and Roe 8’, what succeeded was a ‘radical process of de-professionalization’ (p. 227), or political interference by means of a ‘heritage assessment process taken over by technocrats with no understanding of the issues’. Readers from different countries may have thoughts similar to this reviewer’s: ‘the same things happen here’.

Biodiversity and cultural heritage were not the only hooks of concerned citizens to fight against the project. Other chapters bring information on issues related to noise, air pollution, asbestos and health. Health is discussed not only under the point of view of exposure to pollutants, but also considering the benefits that access to green space play in human health and well-being – and the detrimental effects of losing those green spaces. On average, however, Perth does very well, with 302 m² of green space per inhabitant (Coleman 2016).

A whole set of EIA issues parade along the book: poor connection and delay between policy planning and project development; project slicing; acceptability of biodiversity offsets and limits to what can be offset; poor compliance with approvals’ conditions and difficulties to enforce them; the scope of public consultation during project review and citizens’ call for deliberative approaches; limited room for post-approval public involvement; poor consideration of impacts on vulnerable (in this case, Aboriginal) communities; impacts on cultural heritage of native people; health impacts scoped out of the assessment.

The book tells a local story, but a story that in essence is not different from other urban environmental fights around the world. Maybe the Roe 8 project will ‘Never Again’ come back upon the residents of Perth southern suburbs, but similar projects elsewhere will continue to take a toll on biodiversity and local amenities as long as the value of ecosystems is not fully appreciated and infrastructure planning is insensitive to local values.

For those wanting to pay a virtual visit to the site, the coordinates 32°05′04″S / 115°49′22″E lead to a spot of cleared vegetation.

Luis E. Sánchez
Escola Politécnica, University of São Paulo
[email protected]
© 2018 Luis E. Sánchez
https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2018.1447736