SYDNEY, Thursday 22 October 2026 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific has nominated Scott Reef to join the likes of the Ningaloo and Great Barrier reefs on the National Heritage list based on its ecological and scientific values.

The nomination was compiled by marine scientists Dr Vania Andreoli, Dr Kristina Heidrich and Oceanwise Director, Doctor Ben Fitzpatrick, and reviewed by Professor Peter Valentine, a former member of the Australian Heritage Council, on behalf of Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

Key points of the nomination include:

• Deeper habitats in the south of Scott Reef have barely been explored, and are likely to reveal more species not yet known to science.
• Scott Reef appears to be the last remaining stronghold of the dusky sea snake, an endangered species endemic to Australian waters.
• Scott Reef supports invertebrates found nowhere else, some not yet formally named, and its plankton includes at least 14 copepod species that appear to be new to science.
• Sandy Islet, on South Scott Reef, is one of only two nesting sites of a genetically distinct green turtle stock.

Woodside’s proposal to drill up to 57 wells around and underneath Scott Reef for oil and gas would put threatened species including pygmy blue whales and green sea turtles at increased risk, and emit 1.6 billion tonnes of climate pollution. The project also risks Australia’s worst ever oil spill, according to Woodside’s own modelling.

Both the approval or rejection of Woodside’s Scott Reef drilling plans and the addition of Scott Reef to the National Heritage register are to be decided by the Federal Minister for Environment.

The nomination comes after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists climbed and occupied a Floating Production Unit (FPU) at Woodside’s Scarborough Gas project calling for the government to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”.

Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “While Woodside’s plans to drill from around the pristine Scott Reef have been making national and international headlines, leading scientists, Dr Ben Fitzpatrick and Professor Peter Valentine have supported the nomination of Scott Reef for National Heritage listing due to its significant natural values.

“Scott Reef is an ancient coral reef, important feeding grounds for endangered pygmy blue whales who pass through the nutrient rich waters on their annual migration, and home to extremely vulnerable green sea turtles who only nest at Scott Reef.

“Woodside’s reckless drilling plans at Scott Reef fly in the face of science. This reef system is of national importance and scientific significance.

“The prospect of drilling for oil or gas at the Ningaloo or Great Barrier reefs would be considered absolute madness today, but that is exactly the decision before the government now.

“Murray Watt and the Albanese Labor government have an opportunity to protect the national significance of Scott Reef, and make history by stopping Woodside’s nature and climate wrecking plans.”

-ENDS-

Doctor Ben Fitzpatrick, Director of Oceanwise, and Professor Peter Valentine, James Cook University, are available for interview.

Media contact

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Emma Sangalli on 0431 513 465 or emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org

High res images and footage of Scott Reef can be found here

Photos and videos of Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s protest can be found here

Greenpeace nominates Scott Reef to National Heritage list for ecological significance

June Rubis is a steering group committee member for the Cali Fund, from Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.

At COP16 in Cali, governments made a significant commitment: at least half of the funding from the new Cali Fund should support the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including women and youth. It was a watershed moment for multilateral benefit-sharing.

The challenge now is to translate that commitment into access arrangements that recognise the different institutions, priorities and decision-making processes of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

For generations, biodiversity and traditional Indigenous knowledge have provided significant value to companies who depend on nature’s genetic diversity to discover new drugs that fight diseases, create products that improve health, and grow crops resilient to extreme heat and flooding events. While some compounds are sampled directly from the source country, increasingly the digital blueprints are held in online public databases which are freely accessible to use for innovation and research.

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The Cali Fund was established at COP16 to encourage commercial users of Digital Sequence Information, or DSI, to share benefits arising from its use. Estimates suggest it could generate over $3.5 billion a year – a stark contrast to the modest $10,656 currently committed to the fund from just five SMEs, underlining how much progress must be made at COP17 over the next two weeks.

The COP16 decision that set up the fund offers two routes for money to reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities: through government authorities, and through direct payments to institutions identified by Indigenous Peoples and local communities themselves.

Varied ways of organising

Indigenous Peoples and local communities organise through a wide range of institutions. Some have national or regional organisations experienced in managing international grants. Others work through territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations, cooperatives or networks. Some have professional finance teams and audited accounts; others have extensive experience governing territories, collective resources or conservation work without having been organised around international funding requirements.

For direct access, some questions are already apparent. Which institutions should be able to receive funds? How should they be identified? What fiduciary standards should apply? How should safeguards and accountability work where institutional capacities differ? What support may be needed where institutions have strong community mandates but less experience with international finance?

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If access is designed mainly around institutions that already meet the expectations of large international finance mechanisms, early funding will tend to favour those already familiar to funders. They will gain further experience and become better positioned for future funding, while institutions with less administrative capacity may remain outside the system despite strong community mandates and long histories of stewardship.

These first decisions matter most, because they set the terms for everyone who follows.

The role of intermediaries requires care. Some Indigenous organisations may want a fiscal host to hold and manage funds on their behalf. Communities may choose to work through an NGO they trust. Government-facilitated arrangements may work well in particular national contexts.

What matters is the function an intermediary performs and the authority that comes with it. Providing administrative support is different from deciding which Indigenous organisations qualify, which priorities can receive support, or how success will be assessed. Direct access means communities keep that decision-making authority.

Decision-making power

The COP16 decision refers to institutions that Indigenous Peoples and local communities identify. But authority among Indigenous Peoples does not sit in one kind of body. It may sit with territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations or combinations of these. Legal recognition and customary authority do not always align neatly.

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An important feature of the Cali Fund’s governance is that Indigenous Peoples and local communities participate as full members of the Steering Committee, rather than as observers. Seven Indigenous Peoples and local community representatives, one from each of the seven socio-cultural regions, participate in consensus-based decision-making alongside representatives of governments and UN entities. Six additional representatives from civil society, scientific institutions and the private sector participate as observers.

That representation carries responsibility. Institutional legitimacy, access and representation take different forms across the seven socio-cultural regions. Indigenous Peoples and local communities members therefore have an important role in bringing those differences into the Fund’s governance and in ensuring that arrangements developed for one context do not become the assumed model for everyone else. 

Safeguards and clear responsibilities

COP17 can establish the core principles and direction, while allowing operational pathways to develop in ways that respond to different regional contexts. The decisions countries take in Yerevan will shape how that flexibility is realised in practice. 

The choices made around access will influence which institutions are able to participate, which routes become established and which forms of authority are recognised within the funding architecture. The aim should be an architecture with enough structure to maintain confidence while allowing for different forms of Indigenous and community governance.

A credible direct-access pathway will need safeguards, financial oversight and clear responsibilities. This would give the 50% commitment a stronger institutional foundation.

The Cali Fund’s importance will ultimately depend not only on how much funding reaches Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but on whether they are able to determine how the money is accessed, governed and used. This requires access pathways that recognise their institutions, priorities and decision-making processes, rather than requiring them to conform to a single predetermined model.

The post COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed

The UK government has approved extraction at the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, despite acknowledging that this decision could make it harder for Britain to convince other countries to move away from fossil fuel production.

UK energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the drilling on Wednesday after months of high-profile debate, fuelled in part by interventions from US President Donald Trump. She argued that the project would boost energy security in the wake of the Middle East fossil fuel crisis, protect hundreds of jobs and add £2.9 billion ($3.88bn) to the UK economy.

She said Jackdaw’s gas would be cleaner than imported gas and would not prevent the UK from meeting its legally-binding carbon targets and its goal of net zero by 2050. As the field is already licensed, she said extraction was consistent with the Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto promise not to issue any new oil and gas licenses.

The same morning, the government announced a new Energy Wealth Fund to reinvest oil and gas revenues in the climate transition. It will start with £2 billion ($2.67bn) from the government and be topped up over time with tax revenues from offshore oil and gas production.

Climate campaigners in the UK and abroad were quick to condemn the decision, while a leading legal expert told Climate Home News it goes against the advice of the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, the government’s own documents reveal that it recognises the drilling could damage the UK’s reputation and its ability to push forward the global transition away from fossil fuels.

“Climate leadership” blow

The 92-page decision document says Fahnbulleh “acknowledges that international standing on climate is important and accepts that a decision to grant consent may not further the UK’s international climate leadership.”

It adds: “She acknowledges concerns about the potential implications for the UK’s credibility and influence – including the difficulty inherent in encouraging other states to move away from fossil fuel production while the UK continues, in a limited and transitional way, to draw on its own domestic resources.”

While noting that Jackdaw has not been issued with a new license – just permission to extract gas – the document says Fahnbulleh “accepts this does not fully resolve the underlying tension in the UK’s position” but “considers this alongside the substance of the UK’s wider record [on emissions reduction], which remains significant”.

It continues that she accepts these concerns are “legitimate” and weigh against approving gas extraction, but only gives this argument a “moderate negative weight” set against the benefits of gas production.

“Huge” wrong signal

In international climate talks, the UK has long supported the transition away from fossil fuels and is one of very few major oil and gas producers to ban new licenses. Across the North Sea, the Norwegian government continues to make offshore areas available for oil and gas exploration through annual licensing rounds.

Climate experts and campaigners shared the concern, acknowledged in the decision document, that approving Jackdaw could set a precedent for fossil fuel production elsewhere. Sam Fankhauser, professor of climate change economics at Oxford University, said the direct climate impact of Jackdaw is “much smaller than the debate around it would suggest” but the “wrong signal it sends, however, is huge”.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said that while Jackdaw’s output will be very small, “it will signal to other fossil fuel producers that they too should carry on with business as usual, less than a month before the COP31”.

Kenyan campaigner Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, called the decision “a serious blow to Britain’s international climate credibility” as “the UK cannot expect developing countries to move away from fossil fuels while giving the green light to new drilling in its own backyard”.

International Court of Justice

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advised that government failure to take appropriate climate action “including through fossil fuel production” may amount to an internationally wrongful act.

The UK voted in favour of a United Nations resolution welcoming the advisory opinion. Yet, in its Jackdaw decision document, it notes that the ICJ opinion is not legally binding and says the UK does not accept the court’s opinion that the customary international law duty to prevent significant harm to the environment applies to climate change.

Fahnbulleh concludes that, although it will have “significant effect on the environment”, gas drilling in Jackdaw “would not lead to significant harm to the environment” – and so does not breach any duty to prevent such harm. Instead, the government document says the duty should be considered “as a matter of policy rather than legal obligation”.

Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who led Vanuatu’s legal team pushing for the ICJ’s advisory opinion, told Climate Home News that treating the duty as a matter of policy rather than legal obligation is “not how international law works”. “An advisory opinion is not a judgement,” she said, “but it states the law as it stands, and that law binds the UK whether or not it accepts it.”