21 June 2019

A Shanghai-based company — and a major landholder in Australia — has been ordered to stop clearing land at Yakka Munga cattle station in the Kimberley after the area's Aboriginal native title holders blockaded the site.

Zenith Australia Investment Holding is accused in the notice of "unauthorised clearing" under the Environmental Protection Act.

...The action follows a protest by the Nyikina Mangala people who say they should have been consulted before the land was cleared under their Indigenous Land Use Agreement with the company.

...The company, Zenith Australia Investment Holding, has declined to comment since the Nyikina Mangala people raised the alarm about the clearing....

But Tony Seabrook of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association said the company was "well within their rights" to clear the land.

...According to a WA Government document, Yakka Munga is owned by Zenith Australia Group, which also owns six other properties around WA.

Its parent company Shanghai CRED also has a joint venture with Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting, which owns stations covering 80,000 square kilometres across three states and the Northern Territory.