WA’s Black-Cockatoos face extinction from Alcoa Plan

MEDIA RELEASE

WA’s Black-Cockatoos face extinction as Alcoa seeks massive forest clearance

14 / 08 / 2025 PERTH WA – BirdLife Western Australia warns that Baudin’s Black-Cockatoo will go extinct if Alcoa expands its bauxite mining in the Northern Jarrah Forest.

Right now, US-mining giant Alcoa has applied to bulldoze over 11,000 hectares of forest on the Darling Scarp – equivalent to 6,500 football ovals – critical Black-Cockatoo habitat. A further 16,400 hectares of forest will be impacted.

These forests are home to WA’s iconic Baudin’s Black-Cockatoo – internationally recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as Critically Endangered – as well as our two other threatened species of Black Cockatoos: Carnaby’s and the Forest Red-tails.

Baudin’s Black-Cockatoo depend on the Northern Jarrah Forest for survival. They breed down south before migrating north to feed in the Northern Jarrah Forest during the non-breeding season.

“If we lose these forests, we lose the birds. Forever,” says Dr Mark Henryon of BirdLife WA.

Alcoa says its mine expansion will be safe for these birds, but their claims don’t add up.

Contradictions
Alcoa says it avoids high conservation value areas, but its own documents show they will remove mature Jarrah and Marri forests that provide essential feeding grounds, roosting sites, and nesting hollows for Black-Cockatoos.

“Bulldozing these forests removes their homes and any chance of a future,” says Dr Henryon. “Chicks perish. Parents starve.”

Forests can’t be rehabilitated
Alcoa claims it is restoring plant diversity and 75% of mined areas are under rehabilitation. But research by experts at Curtin University showed that Jarrah forests can never be restored after bauxite mining because bauxite itself is part of the forest’s ecological fabric.

Not a single hectare of the 28,000 mined by Alcoa since the 1960s has met the WA Government’s own rehabilitation standards – a fact that has proven disastrous for all three of WA’s Black-Cockatoos.

Black-Cockatoos on the brink
Alcoa claims that most animals return to rehabilitated areas, but this doesn’t apply to WA’s Black-Cockatoos. Black-Cockatoos rely on old trees for food and nesting – trees that are destroyed during mining.

Baudin’s Black-Cockatoo has already declined by more than 90% in 40 years. Only 2,500-4,000 mature individuals remain.

Offsets don’t work
WA’s Environmental Protection Act requires environmental offsets to counterbalance the lasting damage caused by a project and deliver measurable conservation benefits. But for Black-Cockatoos, offsets have repeatedly failed.

Alcoa’s proposal is no different. It amounts to mapping and monitoring nesting trees, installing water troughs, raking around some tree bases to reduce the risk of fire, and conducting the occasional bird survey.

It will not replace a single hectare of the 11,000 hectares Alcoa plans to destroy. It will not create new habitat. It will not halt, let alone reverse, the decline of Baudin’s.
And the WA Environment Minister, the Hon. Matthew Swinbourn MLC, knows it. Recently, the minister rejected a proposal to clear just 2.3 hectares of Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo habitat at Cocanarup, near Ravensthorpe, ruling that the “significance of the area and the scale of the impact … is unable to be adequately offset.”

Is it worth it?
The Northern Jarrah Forest lies within the Southwest Australia biodiversity hotspot – one of only 36 recognised global hotspots for exceptional endemism and critical threat.

Aluminium is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust.

“Is it really worth destroying a globally-significant forest, pushing Baudin’s to extinction, and erasing WA’s invaluable natural heritage for this?” asks Dr Henryon.

Contacts
For media enquiries, please contact:

Dr Mark Henryon, BirdLife WA Advocacy
Mr Viv Read, BirdLife WA Advocacy

0423 659 324
08 9383 7749
wa@birdlife.org.au

Who is BirdLife WA?
BirdLife WA is the state branch for BirdLife Australia. BirdLife Australia aims to provide a bright future for Australian birds. We have 13,000 members and over 330,000 supporters nationally.