WA author and environmentalist Tim Winton has fired a salvo at the fossil fuels sector, as the face of the controversial Environmental Defenders Office’s Christmas campaign.
Western Australian author and environmentalist Tim Winton has fired a salvo at the fossil fuels sector, as the face of the controversial Environmental Defenders Office’s Christmas campaign.
Mr Winton, a three-time Power 500 entrant, is a well-known supporter of the EDO, and its annual reports show he and wife Denise Fitch have donated to it for several years.
He is front and centre of the EDO’s latest donation appeal calling for public support to fund the activities of the contentious environmental group, which has found itself at the centre of a political firestorm over recent years and was ordered to pay more than $9 million in court costs to Santos late last month.
“We’re living through an extinction crisis and a climate emergency,” Mr Winton wrote in an EDO campaign email calling for donations.
“These are wicked problems. But they’re being supercharged by extractive industries determined to exploit our diminished environment as if such challenges either don’t exist or do not concern their shareholders.
“Some are pushing for even easier access and even less regulation and oversight.
“This is the context that makes the EDO indispensable.”
Mr Winton accused “natures greatest plunderers” of deploying two main tactics against the environment – lobbying and lawfare.
He called for public donations in support of the NGO’s work.
EDO is a non-government organisation set up to support legal appeals on the grounds of climate and environmental concerns on behalf of citizens.
But it has come under fire lately for its methods and accused by some in politics of weaponising cultural heritage to progress its environmental cause, and accused of lawfare in its own right.
High profile cases included Santos’ Barossa project, where a former EDO lawyer was accused by a judge of coaching a witness to give evidence in a way that furthered its case.
Santos was allowed to progress with its $5.8 billion gas project off the Tiwi Islands, after work was stalled for 16 months.
The EDO was ordered to pay more than $9 million in costs to Santos after its failed challenge.
The group also offered legal assistance to a traditional owner’s section 10 application against Regis Resources, which ultimately stalled the development of the McPhillamys gold project in New South Wales after a ruling against the fully permitted project by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.
The EDO receives funding from the WA government and the federal government, as well as government bodies in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Queensland.
EDO funding is likely to be a hot topic in the lead up to both the state and federal elections next year, with federal and state Liberals each pushing to abolish EDO payments.
Mr Winton has long campaigned against fossil fuels, and his latest book, Juice, tells a story set in a climate change-ravaged dystopic Australia.
He has been one among a group of activist Fremantle Dockers supporters which has, in recent years, campaigned for the club to end its long-standing association with Woodside Energy.
