Forrest buys cattle station near Rinehart, Stokes on Fitzroy River – The Australian Financial Review

In suspending talks because of COVID-19, the government said it remained committed to establishing a Fitzroy River national park this year and its policy of no dams on the river or its tributaries.
The CSIROs Northern Australia Water Resources Assessment from 2018 found there was huge scope for water capture and irrigated agriculture in the Fitzroy catchment, which covers about 94,000 square kilometres.
The CSIRO report said livestock enterprises were already proven in the Fitzroy catchment and use of irrigation to boost feed supply, especially for lactating cows, could significantly increase beef production.
The report also outlined opportunities for large scale growing of cereal crops and cotton.
“It is physically possible to pump 1700 gigalitres of water in 85 per cent of years from major rivers and tributaries in the Fitzroy catchment into ringtanks near agricultural soils,” it said.
The impending sale of Jubilee Downs to Dr Forrest comes after an Indigenous group that came up with a $25 million offer complained that it could not compete with billionaire bidders.
The Yi-Martuwarra Ngurrara native title group also said it was concerned about the future of the river and heritage sites on Jubilee Downs.
It is understood Mr Stokes, who owns Napier Downs Station in the Fitzroy Valley as well as Mt House station, had also shown interest in Jubilee Downs.
In 2015, Dr Forrest and Mr Strokes were outbid by Mrs Rinehart when she secured the historic Fossil Downs station, which covers about 400,000 hectares where the Fitzroy and Margaret Rivers meet.
With the Jubilee Downs deal all but finalised, between them Mrs Rinehart, Mr Stokes and Dr Forrest have forked out more than $160 million in six years on pastoral leases in the Fitzroy Valley. WA pastoral leases largely restrict land use to the grazing of animals.
Jubilee Downs comes with about 11,500 cattle, homesteads, machinery and other equipment.
Station operators Keith and Karen Anderson have owned a minority share of the property alongside Mr Bass, whose conservation projects have included building Biosphere 2 in Arizona.
Dr Forrest already owns 1.2 million hectares of pastoral land further south in WA and is about to start work on an $80 million cattle feedlot near Moora that will boost supply into his Harvey Beef abattoir.
Dr Forrests fresh footprint in the Kimberley comes more than 140 years after his great-great uncle Alexander Forrest explored and surveyed large parts of the region, including the Fitzroy River.
Part of the Forrest family’s legacy in the Kimberly was erased last week when the government changed the name of the King Leopold Ranges to Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges.
In 1879, Alexander Forrest named the 600 kilometre-long ranges after Belgium’s King Leopold II. In announcing the name change, Aboriginal Affairs minister Ben Wyatt described the king as an evil tyrant with no connection to WA.

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