The Ethics of Resource Extraction and Processing: Two Western Australian Case Studies

Abstract

The history of Western Australia is often written as land and resource development with the normative dimension of this history implicitly seen as one of the positive dimensions of civilisation and progress. Yet throughout this history ethical issues abound and, when made explicit, provide opportunities to question and critique the path taken by all humans on this most fragile of continents. Western Australia’s rise to the role of key producer of raw commodities to meet global resource demand invites an ethical analysis of resource extraction in the state. Based on analysis presented we call a for a refocusing of the way humans in Western Australia relate to not only their land or ‘country’ but also the whole planet and argue the need for holistic sustainability and place-based ethics that will be required to undertake such a task.