- WA EPA has released Gascoyne Gateway’s environmental review documents for its proposed industrial port in Exmouth Gulf for public scrutiny.
- AMCS-Protect Ningaloo is campaigning to stop the port that would attract shipping through a critical humpback whale resting and nursing ground, require extensive dredging and cause other wide-ranging impacts.
- Exmouth Gulf, Ningaloo will become WA’s newest marine park and is under formal assessment for National Heritage listing – AMCS-Protect Ningaloo maintains that an industrial port would be entirely incompatible with these vital conservation measures.
Australians have 12 weeks to voice their concerns about the industrialisation of Exmouth Gulf after Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) today released the Environmental Review Document for Gascoyne Gateway’s port proposal for public comment. Submissions close 16 November 2026.
The proposal poses such widespread potential impacts to matters of national environmental significance that it has also triggered a federal assessment that will be part of this public comment period.
Gascoyne Gateway wants to build an industrial port 10km south of Exmouth town next to Qualing Pool – a rare freshwater oasis that the WA Government has earmarked as a class A nature reserve. The port would attract large vessels including fuel tankers, cargo ships, cruise liners and other heavy shipping into Exmouth Gulf, which the WA Government has earmarked for a marine park and which is under formal assessment by the Australian Government as a National Heritage treasure.
This ecologically rich marine and coastal area is closely linked to the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Coast and holds high conservation value. The area is home to many threatened and listed species, including dugongs, turtles, manta rays, sea snakes and dolphins, as well as corals, seagrass meadows, and sponge gardens. The proposed port would attract massive ships that would pass through a critical resting and nursing ground for one of the world’s largest humpback whale populations, posing serious threats of vessel strike and disturbance.
Tens of thousands of people have joined AMCS-Protect Ningaloo, the Exmouth-based Cape Conservation Group and many local community members, in opposing the proposal since plans were first announced in 2020. Over 20,000 emails have been sent to the current and past WA environment ministers calling for them to reject the proposal because it would fundamentally diminish the environmental values of Exmouth Gulf.
AMCS Chief Executive and Protect Ningaloo Director Paul Gamblin said:
“The Gascoyne Gateway industrial port and dredging proposal is completely incompatible with the environmentally fragile Exmouth Gulf – Ningaloo’s Nursery – and would change this marine wonder forever.
“An industrial port proposal, jutting nearly a kilometre into Exmouth Gulf and dredging of more than a million cubic metres of the seafloor in one of the world’s most important whale nursing grounds beggars belief.
“Tens of thousands of people have already made clear that industrialisation is unacceptable for Exmouth Gulf. People know that Exmouth Gulf obviously is no place for a port – its future is one of conservation and sustainable, light-touch economic activity, not industrialisation.
“Both the WA and federal governments have signalled that they are committed to protecting Exmouth Gulf so it’s time they made it clear that the future of this natural wonder is economic activity that treads lightly on its fragile environment. They must reject this proposal.
Cape Conservation Group Chair Denise Fitch said: “Exmouth Gulf is where Ningaloo’s whales rest and give birth, where our dugongs and manta rays feed. Dredging a port in the middle of this precious nursery goes against the spirit of stewardship that’s made Ningaloo the conservation and tourism success it has become.
“Ningaloo is already under pressure from climate change. We’ve recently experienced unprecedented coral bleaching and seagrass damage from marine heatwaves, and further destruction from Cyclone Narelle. Now is not the moment to be adding industrial stressors to this fragile ecosystem. And this is no place for an industrial port.
“We encourage those who know and love Ningaloo’s nursery to make a submission to the EPA and say no to this unwelcome proposal.”
Protect Ningaloo is calling on Gascoyne Gateway to do the right thing, as two other companies which pursued industrial projects in the Gulf have already done, and withdraw its proposal.
