(Dan Harris, Almin Karamehmedovic/ABC News) It's hard to believe a place like this still exists on the planet. The Kimberley, in northwestern Australia, is like the Amazon you've never heard of. It's a massive stretch of pristine wilderness the size of California, largely untouched since the Earth was formed.
It has rainforests, towering desert rock formations and miles of unspoiled Indian Ocean beaches.
It has crocodiles, whales who come here to spawn, dugongs (sometimes called "cows of the sea"), and thousands of other plant and animal species. Many of them are rare and endangered.
The Kimberley is also home to aborigines who may make up the oldest continuous civilization on Earth, dating back some 16,000 years.
The Kimberley: Paradise Under Threat?
This place is now, many believe, under threat -- and could someday be threatened by the type of pollution we're seeing in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
An international consortium of huge oil companies, including Chevron, the American oil titan, wants to ramp up drilling for natural gas off the coast and to build a massive natural gas plant here.
"We remain committed to the responsible and economic development," Chevron told us in a statement.
But critics say this project would be the first step toward industrializing one of the last untouched parts of the planet.
"It'll devastate the area," said Robert Vaughn of the group Save the Kimberley.
"It'll be like living in Beijing."
Peter Tucker, Vaughn's colleague, agreed. "There's nothing like it on this Earth, and it would be an absolute tragedy to see the Kimberley become an industrial precinct."
Read the full story at ABC News
