Environs Kimberley is seeking a community organiser to join our campaign to protect Country from the fossil fuel industry. We’re looking for someone passionate about community action on fossil fuels to organise events, recruit and train volunteers, mobilise the community and support Aboriginal people.

ABOUT ENVIRONS KIMBERLEY

Since our foundation in Broome by concerned Kimberley residents in 1996, Environs Kimberley (EK) has led the effort to protect the region, along with many other groups and individuals.

EK is a non-government organisation with dedicated staff, many volunteers and a Board of Management.

In the late 1990’s large corporations wanted to dam the mighty Fitzroy River to irrigate 200,000 hectares of genetically modified cotton. This plan would have destroyed vast areas of the savannah woodlands of the south-west Kimberley.

For the next eight years, the organisation grew and worked hand-in-hand with Traditional Owners to protect the river and precious groundwater resources until the proposal was abandoned. Following this struggle, EK turned to the whole region, one of the world’s last relatively intact landscapes.

Environs Kimberley and other groups supported the Broome community to protect James Price Point from the world’s biggest gas refineries. In 2013, after an epic eight-year struggle, Woodside and its joint-venture partners pulled out.

Through our on-ground projects team we have been successfully protecting, managing and documenting ecologically and culturally important ecosystems in partnership with Traditional Owner groups.

As a community-based regional organisation, we work with other environmental groups at a state, national and international level. This ensures that campaigns are well coordinated and effective.

THE ROLE

We’re seeking a passionate community organiser who will work with Environs Kimberley to support regional communities to protect land, water and air from the oil and gas industry.

You’ll be organising events and recruiting and training volunteers. You’ll be working with the Broome community and across the Kimberley to achieve real action to stop the climate crisis.

The Kimberley’s Canning Basin is one of the largest onshore fossil fuel provinces in the world. Oil and gas companies are forging ahead and seeking approvals to frack across the region.

If company plans are approved, thousands of gas fracking wells could cut through the landscape, with tracks, pipelines, pumping stations and well-pads replacing intact ecosystems. A petrochemical factory and pipeline to the Pilbara are also being planned by fossil fuel companies.

If the Kimberley were to be fully fracked, the amount of carbon emitted would be twice Australia’s entire carbon budget for energy under the Paris agreement.

EK has already been working on this onshore gas campaign for ten years and we’ve succeeded in preventing any of the planned production of fracked gas. Now we need to remove the threat from the region once and for all.

SKILLS REQUIRED

Even if you don’t meet all the selection criteria but think you are the right person for the job, we’d still love to hear from you. Formal education and qualifications matter less to us than commitment, values and initiative.

SELECTION CRITERIA

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills including public speaking
• Demonstrated capacity to organise successful events
• The ability to recruit, train and support volunteers and community leaders
• Experience working with Aboriginal people and supporting Aboriginal people and communities
• Work or volunteer experience with responsibility for working in groups, coordinating in networks and/or supporting community-based initiatives
• Driver’s licence for a manual car and own transport

DESIRABLE

• Experience with Nation builder
• Familiarity with the Kimberley
• Demonstrated proficiency in the use of social media tools
• Demonstrated ability to work with the media

RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:

• Building a powerful community movement in the Kimberley to stop new oil and gas developments
• Organising protest actions and community events
• Recruiting and training volunteers to take action on the campaign
• Supporting Aboriginal people to protect Country
• Supporting the Frack Free Kimberley Alliance team with other campaign activities.

Environs Kimberley is an equal opportunity employer. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are encouraged to apply.

This is ideally a full-time role; however, part-time may be possible by negotiation.

Contract starting ASAP. The position is based in Broome on an initial 12-month employment contract with the possibility of extension. A willingness to travel around the local region and flexibility to work evenings/weekends as needed is required.

If you have any questions, write to: [email protected] using the subject line: Community Organiser - Frack Free Kimberley enquiry via EthicalJobs.

Salary range Level 3 or 4 dependent on experience $65,000 - $75,000 (1FTE) pro rata + superannuation.

Relocation support (up to $2000). 5 weeks annual leave including 17.5% loading.