Environmental activists gathered outside Crown Hotel this morning to condemn the developing Browse project proposed by Woodside.

Woodside’s Annual General Meeting was held at the hotel on Thursday morning, with members from Greenpeace, the Conservation Council of WA, Environs Kimberly and the Australian Conservation Foundation protesting the gas project.

The oil and gas multinational is looking to develop it’s conventional natural gas fields in the Browse Basin. The basin is Australia’s largest untapped gas conventional gas reserve, with Woodside saying it has the potential to produce 11.4 million tonnes of gas per year.

The project will involve drilling more than 50 wells around the local marine ecosystem Scott reef. Environmental advocates say this will have devastating impacts on the reef and wildlife.

Environs Kimberly fossil fuels community organiser Wendy Mitchel says an oil spill from the project would be catastrophic to the reef system.

“Modelling shows that oil could actually reach as far as the Kimberly coastline. In the past, there’s been an oil spill not far from Scott Reef at the Montara rig, where oil travelled all the way to Indonesia” she says.

Scott Reef’s ecosystem consists of over 2,000 marine animal species, including pygmy blue whales which migrate to the reef between October and January.

The Browse project was referred to the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the Commonwealth DCCEEW to go through the environmental approvement process. Woodside says it will take measures to help protect local species, including reducing “the risk of noise from Project activities” that could disturb pygmy blue whale foraging and limits on commissioning flaring.

Australian Marine Conservation Society fossil fuels campaign manager Hannah Tate says Woodside’s environmental protections are “band-aid solutions” to the impact the project will have on the reef.

“Seismic blasting from loud air guns going off every couple of minutes over 24 hours impacts the entire ecosystem, starting with the tiniest krill all the way to the migratory whales,” she says.

“You can’t put a huge industrial gas zone next to a thriving coral reef and expect it not to have an outsized impact on the reef”.

Cheek Media founder and chief executive Hannah Ferguson addressed the protest, saying Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is ”beholden to the interests of major corporations in this nation”.

“There are two major parties in this country and frankly they’re wearing different coloured ties and that’s it’’ she says.

“They are averse to change, they must be pushed”.

The decision to approve the project is still in contention, with Green’s MP’s calling for the project to be rejected.

Greens MPs Sophie McNeill, Brad Pettitt and Steph Hodgins-May attended the protest, criticising Woodside chief executive officer Liz Westcott for refusing to attend the Senate inquiry into the taxation of gas resources.

“Liz Westcott should be there tomorrow for Steph’s inquiry, but she’s too gutless to do so,” Ms McNeill says.

“We’ve got our colleagues here to question the Woodside chief executive directly because she wants to shut up.”

The Browse project will need approval from both the Federal Environment Minister and the Western Australian government.

Murujuga Traditional Owner Samantha Walker reminded protestors of the need to protect Australia’s landscape.

“We have to compromise. We have to sit at this table. We have to think about the future for everybody, everyone of us that belongs to this great country of Australia”.