This definition should accompany any claim Alcoa makes about its rehabilitation, but it does not.

The miner can complete its checklist to classify an area as rehabilitated in 12 months.

If Alcoa was into drug rehabilitation, this is the equivalent of claiming a patient was clean after they attend one session.

Any member of the public visiting an area of the jarrah forest claimed by Alcoa to be rehabilitated would expect to see something at least resembling a young forest, not an expanse of open space with a few seedlings.

Each year Alcoa also reports the rehabilitated areas to its American shareholders in a sustainability report.

However, the land that has just been landscaped and seeded is described as “returned to natural conditions or to productive use.”

Alcoa was asked if this is deceptive and misleading.

An Alcoa spokeswoman said the terminology aligned with “widely accepted concepts of recovery and return towards a reference condition.”

But shareholders were not told the land was returning towards its natural condition, they were told it was already there.

WA Forest Alliance convenor Jess Beckerling said Alcoa’s reporting of rehabilitated areas was cynical greenwashing.

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“Alcoa wants us to believe that it considers mining in the world’s only jarrah forest to be a great privilege, but the reality is that they’re treating it with callous disregard,” she said.

At least Alcoa is consistent – they are also treating the WA public with callous disregard.

Behind the shield of a 62-year-old state agreement, Alcoa has the privilege of hiding its activities and receiving approvals to clear forests not from the environment regulator but from the department charged with promoting industry.

It is not credible that Alcoa did not know that when the public heard it had rehabilitated an area they envisioned a lot more than bare dirt and a few seedlings.

Deception by omission is still deception, and it seems to be a favourite tactic of Alcoa.

In February, it responded to media queries about its plans to build a pipeline to pump water contaminated with toxic PFAS over a drinking water dam but did not mention that it had already built and used the pipeline.

A few weeks later Alcoa advertised for a communications adviser to work on “issues and crisis management” for 12 months and produce media releases and “talking points” about “operational and environmental performance.”

The company needs to deliver that environmental performance over the long term, not invest in short-term spin.

It is time that Alcoa be judged on the facts, not its public relations.

So far the score is 27,860 hectares of jarrah forest cleared, zero hectares with rehabilitation completed.

Alcoa’s shareholders are winning, and our forest is losing.

The company has abused its privilege and it needs to be subject to the same level of scrutiny as any other miner in WA.

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