Nullaki lime pit developer goes back to plan A after environmental protest over road-widening plans

Nullaki lime pit developer Graeme Robertson says he has abandoned negotiations with environmental activists and decided to forge ahead with his original road-widening plans after persistent trespassing and damage to machinery. However the protesters have given no indication they will back down from their efforts to protect trees which they say are home to endangered species. Works are continuing on an access road along Lake Saide Road to the Nullaki lime pit — including the removal of nearly 100 trees — despite an ongoing protest in which one local “locked on” to an excavator for over 11 hours last week. Work at the Youngs Siding site came to a standstill on Tuesday last week, when members of the Nullaki Action Group descended on Lake Saide Road to prevent clearing of “ancient trees” home to the critically endangered western ringtail possum. Two protesters, including former Albany Greens WA candidate Nelson Gilmour, were allegedly hoisted 20m into the tree canopy camping out overnight on a makeshift platform and hammock to stop removal of the trees. Once down from the tree, Mr Gilmour allegedly spent three hours “locked on” to machinery before he was relieved by another local who lay on the arm of an excavator for over 11 hours. Police were called to the site to remove the protesters. Mr Gilmour has been charged with two counts of failing to obey police and one count of obstructing police. “We’ve tried everything including meeting with the developer and writing numerous letters to the local, State and Federal government agencies and authorities,” Mr Gilmour said last week. “There has been a total failure of process here. Our environmental systems are broken.” Mr Gilmour said at least eight karri trees were more than 200 years old, along with one marri tree more than 450 years old. Mr Robertson’s proposal for a lime pit on the Nullaki Peninsula went to the State Administrative Tribunal in 2019, after it was twice rejected by the City of Albany. It was approved with 45 conditions including upgrading the existing 5.5km road to the pit. The Denmark developer said he had faced “continual objection and trespass” from members of the Nullaki Action Group as roadworks continued along Lake Saide Road for the past five months. After lodging restraining orders on four members of the group, including Mr Gilmour, Mr Robertson said he met them to devise a re-design for a section of the road, to save some of the trees. “Their main concern was there were a group of trees along about 240m of the road which were older trees and could we please redesign the road,” he said. “We agreed that we would do our best, keep in mind that the road is a City of Albany road — not ours — and it all had to be approved by the City. “We sent all that off to the City of Albany and they came back and said they would be amenable, subject to the final design for shifting the road over. “We had gone out of our way to comply and we didn’t have to.” After buying the 2000ha Nullaki Peninsula in 1987, Mr Robertson said he had pushed for the site to become a “landscape conservation zone”. “The Nullaki Peninsula is 2000ha which I personally converted from rural back to landscape protection to protect hundreds of acres of these sorts of trees all around the side of the Wilson’s Inlet,” he said. City of Albany chief executive Andrew Sharpe said the City had informed Mr Robertson “it is prepared to consider an alternative road design that may save additional trees.” But Mr Robertson said after the protests last week, he had decided to advise the City he would proceed with his original plan. He said he had reached an agreement with the protestors about a compromise for Lake Saide Road, only for Mr Gilmour to chain himself to a machine the next day. About $60,000 worth of damage had been caused to two machines at the site, he said. “We advised the Shire, and the contractor, to proceed. We are not going to bend to these people who from our evidence, they’re activists, not greenies,” he said. “I have advised the Shire and the action group that all bets are off, please go home, we are getting on with the contract.” Mr Robertson said 97 trees would be removed. “The reason that we got this lime pit approved is because there is a demand for 350,000 tonnes of lime every year in a radius out from Albany into the Great Southern,” he said. “Currently most of that, 80 per cent of it, is coming all the way from Redgate in Margaret River. “It is not a luxury. If we want to keep farming in the Great Southern the acidity has to be repressed and that can only be done with putting lime on the paddocks every summer.” Mr Gilmour urged Mr Robertson to “do the right thing”. “We asked him to redesign and the city said that they were broadly open to those changes but now because we were trying to save more trees along the road Graeme Robertson has revoked that promise and no trees are safe,” he said. “I urge Graeme Robertson to do the right thing, come to the table and save that 250m section that he said he would.” Mr Gilmour said the group would take further “non-violent direct action” to save the trees. “The next step for Nullaki Action Group is to fall back and protect that 250m section until we have it safe again,” he said. “That looks like going back into the two tree sits and lock-ons if necessary, non-violent, direct action until those trees are safe, just like they were three days ago.” Members of the Nullaki Action Group met the City of Albany yesterday morning and were trying to meet with Albany MP Rebecca Stephens to discuss their concerns. Mr Robertson said he expected the access road to be complete in December.