WHAT: Snap anti-fracking rally at Empire Energy's AGM
WHEN: 10.30am, Thursday May 27
WHERE: 20 Bond St, Sydney CBD
WHO: Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network, GetUp, Lock The Gate, Don't Frack The Territory
VISUALS: Activists and protesters with signs outside Empire Energy, Traditional Owners addressing the rally
Traditional Owners from the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory will join environmentalists, First Nations activists and anti-fracking campaigners outside Empire Energy's corporate headquarters in the Sydney CBD today to protest Empire's plans to frack the Basin.
The rally will coincide with Empire's Annual General Meeting, where the company will discuss its plans to ramp up fracking exploration in Beetaloo.
GetUp First Nations Justice Campaign Director Larissa Baldwin said:
"Empire Energy's plans to frack the Beetaloo Basin are environmentally catastrophic and go against the stated wishes of Traditional Owners.
"If Empire's corporate leadership has any sense at all, they'll abandon these plans before they inflict irreversible harm on the Basin and the First Nations communities that live there.
"Traditional Owners are travelling all the way from the Northern Territory to be here today, sending a message to Empire, the Morrison Government and anyone else who thinks corporate profits matter more than Traditional Owner control of country.
Empire holds exploration licences across a huge part of the Basin, and they're anxious that sacred and culturally important sites are at risk of destruction.
"Climate change is already affecting remote First Nations communities. Fracking the Beetaloo would release hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, threaten the groundwater that these communities need to survive, and undermine culture and community."
Media contact: Alex McKinnon 0411 829 334
Spokespeople:
Larissa Baldwin, First Nations Justice Campaign Director at GetUp