Under one of the most remarkable landscapes in Australia is one of the world’s largest undeveloped reservoirs of onshore gas – and a Texas oil man wants to get it out.

Project Valhalla would drill an initial 20 fracking wells across an area twice the size of Victoria in the Kimberley.

And after Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority recommended it for approval, the proposal is one step closer to going ahead.

The Kimberley is also the largest and most intact tropical savanna in the world – a place of living songlines, deep cultural significance and extraordinary biodiversity, where campaigners say no local species has ever been recorded as extinct.

Communities are divided. A record of more than 8000 appeals have been lodged with the WA government to try to stop the project.

Today, journalist Katherine Wilson on the fight over fracking in the Kimberly – and how Project Valhalla made it this far.

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