Rare glimpse at stunning reef beside Woodside’s gas-drilling ambitions

The wild Scott Reef, off the north-west coast of Western Australia, is so remote it would take you a four-hour flight and a three-hour bus trip, and then an 18-hour boat journey to get there from Perth.

It is, in the words of renowned author Tim Winton, “the last remote, unspoiled, undeveloped, clear water coral reef system” in Australia.

The beauty of Scott Reef, in never-before seen photos.Credit: Nush Freedman

Scott’s sparkling waters are home to endangered dusky sea snakes, green sea turtles and manta rays, as well as the brightly coloured corals still thriving unlike so many of their counterparts on the east coast.

“It’s really quite confronting to think that even these magnificent places are facing massive industrialisation,” Winton said.

“Scott [Reef] is looming as a pretty significant inflection point in the climate struggle, by which I mean, the struggle against climate chaos or climate breakdown.”

Within three kilometres of here, energy giant Woodside has set its sights on what it believes to be the largest untapped conventional gas resource in the country – the subject of its proposed $30 billion Browse project.

Woodside’s long-running plans for the Browse gas export project suffered a setback this year, as revealed by a freedom of information request obtained by WAToday.

WA’s Environmental Protection Authority wrote to Woodside in February to outline its preliminary view that “the proposal was unacceptable”.

The EPA raised serious concerns about the possible effects on blue whales’ feeding, risks to nesting sites for endangered turtles or the potential for Scott Reef to be damaged by oil spills.

Woodside’s proposed Browse project, which is fiercely opposed by environmental groups, would be one of the biggest oil and gas projects in the nation, but whether it can go ahead will in part depend on government approvals.

Dusky sea snakes are found only in a handful of reefs off the Kimberley coastline, including Scott Reef. They were listed as endangered in September.Credit: Nush Freedman

WA-based federal Resources Minister Madeleine King last year backed the oil and gas giant’s plans to pipe “Australia’s largest untapped gas resource” 1000 kilometres to its existing gas plant near Karratha into the 2070s as “important to the future gas supply of WA, and our regional partners”.

A spokeswoman for Woodside said the company continued to work with state and Commonwealth regulators to finalise the assessment process.

“While we are confident that initial referral documents, submitted more than five years ago, demonstrated our intent to manage environmental impacts and risks to an acceptable level, we have continued to collect scientific data relevant to the development area and monitor advances in global best practice environmental mitigations,” they said.

“In September 2024, Woodside provided further information to the state and Commonwealth regulators on the Browse to North West Shelf Project referral, including new scientific data and additional best practice mitigations to further demonstrate our commitment to avoid and minimise any potential environmental impacts from the proposed development.”

Winton, musician John Butler, climate activists and scientists and film crew Terra Australis spent days travelling to Scott Reef, which sits about 270 kilometres off the Kimberley coast.

Dusky sea snakes, endemic to Scott and surrounding reefs, were listed as endangered in September.

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