Charlesworth said that differing accounts from witnesses led her to conclude the beliefs and customs that formed the intangible cultural heritage the applicants claimed could be damaged by the pipeline were not broadly accepted within their communities.

In October, Labor’s Northern Territory Mining Minister Nicole Manison praised the multinational for its “very extensive job making sure that traditional owners have access to all the facts about the project”.

But some islanders are still not convinced. “It’s been the Santos way or the highway,” said Puruntatameri.

Now they are pulling one of their last levers to try to stop the pipeline: lobbying Japan to divest from the gas field by claiming it will do irreparable damage to their communities and accusing it of failing to do due diligence on human rights concerns.

Santos did not respond to requests for comment.

“We depend on the fish we eat and the sea creatures we hunt for,” said Puruntatameri. “We only get what we need to feed our family. We don’t overdo it. We have been doing that for centuries.”

The finished pipeline will run just seven kilometres off the coast of the Tiwi Islands.

JERA, which met the elders last week, Sumitomo Mitsui and Mitsubishi UFJ all declined to comment.

Tiwi Islanders are also split between those who want to protect their heritage in the long term and those who want more work opportunities for their kids now.

In December, traditional owners from the Top End Aboriginal Coastal Alliance travelled to Canberra to support the project, arguing it was a “desperately needed opportunity for us to improve our living standards and to close the gap”.

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Puruntatameri said it was positive that Santos had employed some young Tiwi islanders, but argued they had “no proper knowledge of our culture” and what the pipeline was putting at risk.

Bourke, a Malawu traditional owner, said the proposed gas line would cut across animal migration areas seen as critical to the Tiwi’s culture, including turtle and crocodile dances. “It’s so important. We are all connected,” she said.

Burke, the human rights advocate, said the lack of investment in jobs and infrastructure by the federal government in the Tiwi Islands had opened the door for Santos.

“Even when we were in the Federal Court, the people on the other side were like, ‘we’re really sorry, but we’re doing this for our family. We want to upgrade the roads in our community’,” she said.

“We all want the same thing. It’s just that some people are not willing to risk our homes for those things.”

Japan wants more gas.

In March, the head of Japan’s largest gas exploration company, Inpex, Takayuki Ueda shocked Australian political leaders by accusing them of “quiet quitting” LNG exports and presiding over a deteriorating investment environment that would force Japan to turn to Russia, China and Iran for energy.

“I hope this point is obvious to all of you and that you appreciate that this outcome would represent a direct threat to the rules-based international order essential to the peace, stability and prosperity of the region, if not the world,” Ueda told foreign affairs officials in Canberra.

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Japan already accounts for more than 40 per cent of Australia’s LNG exports, but Tokyo’s gas needs have surged since it shut down nuclear reactors following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. The country has become increasingly dependent on gas to power high-tech industries and millions of homes in some of the world’s most densely populated cities.

Japanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maki Kobayashi said Australia was critical to Japan’s economic security. “We are very aligned,” she said. “You have energy, minerals and LNG is a very important part.”

Burke said Indigenous and Japanese Shinto belief systems were also aligned.

“Even through colonisation, Tiwi people have maintained the ancient way of living and everything about that very way of life is all connected to the environment,” she said.

“In Shinto, they honour nature, and everything in it, everything is a god to them. For us, it would be like drilling for gas and putting a pipeline through the Imperial Palace and knocking down all the temples.”

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