1
Introduction
2
Context
3
South West Overview
4
Transformative Opportunities
5
Positioning the South West
6
Contact & Feedback
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The South West is one of Western Australia’s nine recognised regions located outside the Perth metropolitan area. Fronting the Indian and Southern Oceans, covering 24,000km2 and including 12 local government areas, the South West is the most populous and economically diverse of WA’s regions.
The Warren Blackwood sub-region has an economy based on agriculture, mining, timber and tourism. Manjimup is the sub-regional centre and includes the shires of Manjimup, Boyup Brook, Nannup and Bridgetown-Greenbushes. Manjimup Shire has more than 450 agriculture businesses that collectively generate $127m in annual agricultural production. It is WA’s largest horticulture producer.
The Warren-Blackwood has the largest number of individual small settlements of the South West, mainly a result of the historic development of small timber mill towns that emerged almost a century ago.
Access to native forest timber will end in 2023 and will have a huge impact on the hardwood timber industry, not just sawmills but downstream manufacturing of timber products. However, the sub-region features significant softwood plantations.
Greenbushes is home to the world’s premium lithium ore(spodumene) resource. The operation continues to expand and feeds a processing plant in Kwinana and the recently constructed Albemarle lithium hydroxide processing plant in Kemerton, 17km from Bunbury Port.
Image by Tourism WA
