A major station at the centre of the Northern Territory's expanding cotton industry has formally been found guilty of unlawful land clearing and will be fined. Tarwoo Station is one of three sites where satellite images indicated land had been cleared without a permit
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00:00 Hailed a new lucrative industry for the Northern Territory, critics say the emerging cotton
00:06 trade has failed its first test.
00:09 Tawu Station, the lynchpin of the local industry, where a processing plant is due to open, has
00:15 been fined for committing land clearing offences.
00:19 In a letter obtained by the ABC, the NT government says it's wrapped its investigation, finding
00:25 the offences were committed.
00:27 But it found the seriousness was considered as being at the lower threshold, due to the
00:32 clearing being mostly limited to an area that was subject to a development application and
00:37 that the clearing of the land was unlikely to be of material environmental harm.
00:42 The findings follow an extensive ABC investigation into cotton farming in the Territory earlier
00:48 this year, where satellite images indicated land clearing was taking place at multiple
00:53 stations without permits.
00:56 It's vindication for the community members and local residents who saw what was going
01:00 on at Tawu with clearing happening before a permit was issued and that those people
01:06 who stood up at that point in time in the absence of the Northern Territory government.
01:09 Fined $7,500, environment groups say it's a slap on the wrist and no deterrent.
01:16 I think what it does show is that the government is all too willing to facilitate the opening
01:21 up of large-scale cotton and hasn't taken the steps to properly regulate it.
01:25 The investigation was overseen by government official Joanne Townsend, who originally approved
01:32 Tawu's application after receiving multiple complaints of unlawful land clearing.
01:38 The ABC reached out to Tawu's station, which declined to comment.
01:43 Environment Minister Lauren Moss and Planning Minister Eva Lawler also declined.
01:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]