The Kimberley Land Council says a fight over the development of a gas industry in the region, in northern Western Australia, has become divisive and nasty.

The land council and environmental groups are at loggerheads over a proposal to set up a liquefied natural gas hub at James Price Point.

The council’s executive director, Wayne Bergmann, says the local office had been vandalised with graffiti and Indigenous families were now fighting over the issue.

He called on environmentalists to take a step back.

He says Aboriginal traditional owners have a right to develop a gas industry on their land.

“It is great to have an open debate, but not a manipulative one and a divisive one that has no justification or basis,” Mr Bergmann said.

“The Aboriginal people have a right to make an informed decision about balancing their environmental and cultural values and determining the future that they want to create and the opportunities that they want to create for their children and their grandchildren.”

Mr Bergmann says Aboriginal people have been balancing the environment and its resources for thousands of years.

“We have a right to make decisions about how our country is used, how to balance the resources,” he said.

“We have ingrained into us a responsibility to look after the country and we haven’t given up on that.

“I am calling on the leaders of the environment movements. We want them to work with us, rather than against us.”

The Wilderness Society said it proudly campaigned against projects that threaten pristine habitats and valuable species.

The Wilderness Society spokesman, Peter Robertson said the large gas hub proposal would ruin the breeding and feeding grounds of humpback whales, dugongs and turtles.

“The Kimberley marine and coastal environment has been recognised globally as one of the least impacted and most pristine marine and coastal environments left on the whole of planet earth,” Mr Roberston said.

“The proposal to impose a massive, polluting destructive LNG gas facility on that coast is absolutely ridiculous.”

Aboriginal leaders said environmental groups were hijacking developments that would help improve the lives of indigenous people in Northern Australia.

Speaking at a conference in Darwin, Cape York leader Richard Ah Mat said the developments have the approval of Traditional Owners, and other groups had no right to interfere.

“Our future prospects as a people are severely shackled while we spend needless energy fighting to protect our legitimate rights over the management protection land use and development of our lands,” Mr Ah Mat said.

“If we don’t win, the fight we will collectively be condemned to a tragic life of generational welfare dependency.”