Sea snake’s endangered declaration sparks call to halt Woodside Energy’s Browse gas project

The dusky sea snake, inset, has been declared endangered, sparking an 'urgent review' of significant gas projects.

A little-known species of sea snake is shaping as the latest threat to Woodside Energy’s $US20bn ($29.7bn) Browse gas project, with Tanya Plibersek’s own department calling for an “urgent review” of Browse and other Timor Sea energy projects after the dusky sea snake was formally declared endangered.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water made the declaration this week. The dusky sea snake is almost exclusively found in the waters of Scott Reef, above the Browse project’s Torosa gas field.

The department’s conservation advice calls for action to address the impacts from the local fossil fuel industry, saying that there needs to be an urgent review of all oil and gas activities across the Browse Basin and the Timor Sea to determine if the known and potential impact on the snake are adequately considered and avoided.

“It is critical that a precautionary and nature-positive context is applied to addressing known, likely, and potential impacts to the dusky sea snake, particularly in relation to regulation of the local fossil fuel industry and other activities that are driving climate change,” the conservation advice says.

The declaration and advice comes as Ms Plibersek continues to weigh up whether to grant approval for the Browse project.

Woodside and its partners plan to pipe gas from Browse almost 1000 kilometres south to the Pilbara, where it would be processed into LNG at the North West Shelf facility.

Browse is Australia’s largest undeveloped gas field. It has been the subject of multiple development plans in the past decades, but its logistic complexity has always made it particularly challenging.

Ms Plibersek has made several controversial decisions in her role this year.

She blocked plan for a wind turbine assembly terminal at Port of Hastings in Victoria due to impact on internationally important wetlands, and intervened to end Woolworths’s plans for an expanded depot in regional NSW due to concerns it could impact on a rare species of orchid.

Last month, she effectively blocked Regis Resources’ $1bn McPhillamys gold mine after some Indigenous stakeholders expressed concerns about the location of the mine’s tailings dam. She is also mulling an ongoing Section 10 application to consider the impact on Indigenous heritage from works underway at WA’s Burrup Peninsula.

Jess Beckerling, the executive director of the Conservation Council of WA, said the government must heed the federal department’s call for an urgent review of Woodside’s plans.

“There is now yet another reason that Woodside’s Browse proposal cannot be approved,” she said.

“To protect the endangered dusky sea snake, and all the other marine life at Scott Reef, the state and federal governments must refuse Woodside’s Browse gas proposal.”

The dusky sea snake’s declaration was also seized upon by Greenpeace, with head of climate and energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific Joe Rafalowicz saying it showed that Browse was “too risky to proceed”.

“Minister Plibersek’s commitment to ‘no more extinctions’ under this government will ring hollow if she does not immediately follow her own department’s advice to protect Scott Reef by urgently reducing and eliminating threats from the fossil fuel industry,” Mr Rafalowicz said.

Woodside has been approached for comment.