Two legal challenges to Woodside’s North West Shelf extension filed on environmental and cultural grounds | Environment

The two groups have lodged separate legal challenges to the federal environment minister’s approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf expansion project, one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas projects.

The Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of Australian Rock Art have launched federal court proceedings seeking to overturn the decision.

Environment minister Murray Watt gave final approval last month to Woodside’s proposal to extend the life of the North West Shelf gas processing plant on the Burrup peninsula in northern Western Australia from 2030 to 2070.

“We challenge the lawfulness of Minister Watt’s approval of this gas hub expansion, which forms the centerpiece of the most polluting gas project in the southern hemisphere,” said Adam Beeson, ACF’s general counsel.

Beeson said many Australians were “shocked” by Watt’s decision, with the group’s research estimating the project’s total emissions would be more than 13 times Australia’s annual emissions.

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ACF will argue that the minister misjudged the economic benefits of the unapproved Gözat gas project, a separate Woodside proposal to develop a disused conventional gas field off the Kimberley coast, in his statement of reasons for approving the extension.

The group will also argue that the minister left out critical details in his decision, including approving the project without knowing details of the gas it would process and the pollution it would cause, and failing to consider the physical impacts of climate breakdown as an “impact”.

“A child born today will be 45 years old in 2070. We would argue that the minister was wrong to mention the alleged economic benefits of the proposed Eye gas project, which he hoped would feed Woodside’s gas hub but has not yet been approved, when approving the North West Shelf expansion,” Beeson said.

Friends of Australian Rock Art will argue the approval is invalid because the minister failed to properly consider the economic and social harms that would result from continued damage to the Murujuga heritage.

The group also has a separate challenge in the WA supreme court against the state government’s approval of the project.

The government’s statement explaining its reasons for approving the project shows the government has agreed to weaken the conditions it has proposed to protect world heritage-listed Indigenous rock art, after Woodside argued it could be forced to close the facility.

The statement shows Watt accepts the environment department’s recommendation that “a preponderance of scientific and other evidence” suggests industrial emissions are having a “significant adverse impact” on rocks at Murujuga, a cultural site in northern Western Australia that is home to more than 1 million pieces of rock art known as petroglyphs.

The Minister also accepted advice that future pollution from the North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plant could cause “degradation, damage, significant alteration, modification, obscuration or diminution” of the area’s natural heritage.

However, in his statement of reasons, the minister said that the final conditions of the project were “strict” and that he did not believe there would be an unacceptable impact on the heritage values ​​of the area.

Susan Swain, co-founder of Friends of Australian Rock Art, said the Murujuga petroglyphs and their cultural heritage were unique and priceless in the world.

“The UNESCO world heritage site includes among its treasures the oldest and most extensive rock art on the planet, along with the oldest recorded depiction of the human face,” he said.

“The environment minister was supposed to look at this heritage site and how to protect it, and we say he did not do so lawfully.”

Swain said social and economic harms caused by the government’s decision include “impacts on tourism, extreme heat and human health.”

Watt declined to comment on the legal proceedings.

Guardian Australia requested Woodside’s comment.