Phillip Roe Tradition Goolarabooloo Law Man inspects Lock ons Manari Road James Price Point

Ali Batten, one of the lock-on currently holding up Woodside convoy on Manari Road Media Statement.

I am forced to take this stand as a way to oppose and draw national attention to the actions of Woodside and the WA government.

What they're doing here in the Kimberley is unethical, unnecessary and invasive in the extreme. Our community is distressed and already damaged by their presence and campaigners have been traumatised and bullied. We had been shown no respect and have often met with open contempt.

We are defending Country. It has been cared for and revered for tens of thousands of years. It holds ancestral sites and sites of cultural significance to local people. It is also part of the Lurujarri song line. It is the habitat of endangered species of flora and fauna and part of the last remaining wilderness areas on the planet.

In the 1950s I saw the dunes and coastal bushland of North NSW destroyed by a mining company. The minerals they extracted from this devastation were used in weaponry. Sixty years later, I won't remain passive and allow corporate interests to destroy the dunes and bushland of Walmadany and turn it into a massive industrial site.

I'm 65 and I might have a few decades left. I'll spend every day of that time defending the planet against political parties and corporations which have no respect for the beauty and fragility of our environment.