Traditional owners and pastoralists in the Northern Territory have had a victory in their legal battle to stop a gas company from clearing land for fracking operations in the gas-rich Beetaloo basin.

Traditional custodians and a cattle station owner have been locked in a bitter legal fight to halt preparatory work by gas company Sweetpea Petroleum on their lands at Tanumbirini Station four hundred kilometres south of Darwin.

The Rallen group who owns Tanumbirini Station have successfully secured a supreme court injunction, halting all civil works at the site after claiming heavy earth moving equipment was damaging a large breeding paddock carrying more than 1500 head of cattle.

Traditional owners too have accused Sweetpea Petroleum of crossing a creek, and bulldozing bullwaddy trees they claim are protected under the NT sacred sites act.

The reprieve may be short-lived though, all parties return to court in a fortnight where a stay application will be heard.

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