South32 and the Destruction of the Southwest Jarrah Forests

Good to see that the world's attention (of a sort) is being directed at the mining company South32's government-backed hyper-destruction of the northern jarrah forests in the south of Western Australia. That it comes via a Hollywood actor is neither here nor there, the facts are the facts and if Leonardo DiCaprio brings attention to this horrific reality, then that's a good use of 'influence'. 

So much use of influence is dubious and ultimately self-serving (usually a form of vanity, profiteering and/or ideological control), but a world in denial about habitat destruction will not hear unless it enters their personal ambit. The distressing thing is that it takes 'celebrity' for the media to take any real notice. And as we all know (and say), media is so often driven by zeitgeist, 'likes' and self-interest.

Destruction of the southwest forests is an ongoing, hour by hour issue. The worship of aluminium/bauxite (South32 owns 86% of Worsley Alumina) is central to this destruction. The deceptive sell of jobs, which are a distinctly finite proposition in such industries, drives the left-lite argument for the retention of this planet-killing industry, while consumerism and brute capitalist profiteering drives much of the rest. 

One of the most appalling aspects of the mining-sell in Western Australia is the lie of 'rehabilitation' of mine sites (forests cannot simply be replaced) along with the way such propaganda infiltrates schools. Mining's grip on Western Australia is so extreme that it underpins much of the arts, sports and daily life-activities of the population. Different mining companies use different social tactics, but all try to ingratiate themselves into the 'realities' of daily life. 

Readers of this blog will have read many entries like this over the years, but please don't let that inure you to the essential nature of each specific issue. Each case of destruction (and we are talking thousands of hectares of jarrah forest in this instance) is part of the picture of total annihilation of the biosphere, and as we recoil in trauma from the Trump administration's mass-scale ecological terrorism, we should surely keep in mind that it's an international issue, deeply set in authoritarian and (apparently) non-authoritarian political ecologies alike.

I acknowledge with respect the many activists who struggle with the corporate-government machine in trying to protect what remains of these magnificent forests. This poem was written in the latter stages of 2024 and scrutinises the various toxic activities of South32, a BHP spin-off that boasts a skyscraper in the city of Boorloo/Perth overlooking the river:

Limbo Subscript 24

 

South32 ‘spun out of BHP’ has city

sky-signage! and has been given

‘the go-ahead’ to rip out what’s left

 

of the circulatory system of  jarrah

forest near Boddington, to convert

tall-tree country to alumina dust

 

for smelting. The actual ruling

of the EPA to save what was left

of that forest was overruled

 

by the minister for environment.

This is the truth of limbo, which

has qualities of hell and purgatory

 

and the advertising campaign

known as ‘heaven’. And it has

so much more going for it —

 

you don’t have to search far

to see South32 has US

Department of Defense

 

financing for an American

zinc and manganese project,

and that one of their directors

 

is a non-executive director

of BEA industries, the mega

defence conglomerate. This

 

embroils the fate of innumerable species

of animals and plants: to be ‘restored’

or maybe ‘resurrected’ by people

 

from your schools who wanted

passionately to ‘work with nature’

and make a buck. To be ministers.

To sniff the almost clean-enough air.

 

 

            John Kinsella