Shire of Broome State of the Environment 2025

Shire of Broome State of the Environment 2025

The Project

The Shire of Broome engaged Land Insights to prepare its State of the Environment 2025 report and an integrated, high-level Environmental Management Plan to guide the next decade. The Shire governs one of the largest and most environmentally significant local government areas in Western Australia, covering more than 56,000 square kilometres across the Kimberley, from the Dampier Peninsula in the north to Eighty Mile Beach in the south. Beginning with a site visit in late 2024, the brief was to update the environmental baseline first set in the 2016 report, assess what had changed across seven environmental themes, and turn that assessment into practical actions the Shire could actually fund, deliver and track. The project continued a working relationship with the Shire that also includes the Town Beach Foreshore Management Plan.

The Challenge

Reporting on the state of the environment across a jurisdiction this large and diverse is difficult, and most of the values that matter sit beyond the Shire’s direct control. Responsibility is shared across State agencies, twelve registered native title bodies, DBCA, the Kimberley Ports Authority and private landholders. The area holds National Heritage-listed dinosaur trackways, Ramsar-listed wetlands at Roebuck Bay, Threatened Ecological Communities and extensive mangrove systems, along with the only conservation estate in WA jointly managed by Traditional Owners, DBCA and a local government. A report covering all of this risked becoming either a data exercise with no clear actions, or a wish list of commitments the Shire had no authority or budget to deliver. The Shire needed an honest assessment of where it had made progress since 2016, where it had stalled, and a plan scoped to what it could realistically influence.

What We Did

Land Insights built the assessment on the Pressure–State–Response framework, evaluating each of seven themes, being land management, biodiversity, water resources, coastal environments, energy and emissions, waste management, and climate change, against the 2016 baseline. Each theme was scored for direction of change, condition and confidence in the available evidence, so Council could see not just the trend but how reliable that trend was. We audited progress against every action in the 2016 report and set out the results in full. Climate change was added as a standalone theme for the first time, reflecting its growing relevance to planning, infrastructure and community health.

We ran a structured community engagement program, including a survey that reached 122 residents and a series of interviews and workshops with around 50 participants, spanning residents, Traditional Owners and ranger groups, environmental organisations, industry and State agencies. The findings were brought together with Traditional Owner knowledge, scientific data and operational insight, then translated into a high-level EMP with actions for 2025 to 2035. Critically, every action was mapped to one of the Shire’s six recognised roles, being Fund, Provide, Partner, Regulate, Facilitate and Advocate, so the plan stayed within what the Shire could genuinely deliver or influence.

State of the Environment: The Outcome

Council adopted the report in 2026. The result is a single, evidence-based document that works as both a record and a working tool. It gives the Shire an auditable picture of environmental change since 2016, a clear view of where effort is paying off and where it is not, and a costed, role-based action table that Council can resource through its budget process and report against over the next ten years. A standalone Consultation Outcomes Report gives the Shire a durable record of community and stakeholder priorities to draw on for future decisions.

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