US aluminum company to pay $38 million after illegally clearing Australian native forest

U.S. aluminium company Alcoa AA.N will pay A$55 million ($39 million) to remediate native forest it illegally cleared in Western Australia in order to mine bauxite, Australia’s environment ministry said on Wednesday.

The payment, secured through legally enforceable undertakings, relates to land clearing between 2019 and 2025 of habitat in the Northern Jarrah Forest, south of Perth.

The money will go towards conservation-focused initiatives including ecological offsets, programmes to preserve endangered black cockatoos that nest in the jarrah trees, and improving the management of invasive species.

Alcoa has mined bauxite, the raw material for aluminium, in Western Australia since the 1960s and has cleared around 28,000 hectares (69,000 acres) of the state's native jarrah forest. It has faced growing opposition to its land clearing and environmental impact in recent years.

A proposal to clear a further 11,500 hectares of jarrah forest attracted a record 59,000 submissions from the public to the state's environment watchdog last year.

The government said the unlawful clearing of just under 2,100 hectares between 2019 and 2025 was done without seeking government approvals. It called the A$55 million payment "unprecedented" and said it was the largest of its kind.

($1 = 1.4152 Australian dollars)

-Christine Chen/Reuters