Farmers versus BHP

On the Liverpool Plains near Quirindi, New South Wales, local farmers at Caroona have been defending their properties from invasion by BHP Billiton’s coal exploration drillers.

For 615 days, until Thursday 25th March, they have inspired coal-threatened communities everywhere with their blockade, by saying ‘No’ — and meaning it.

Trish Duddy and Tommy and George Clift (front L to R, all hatted) have been at the blockade camp every single one of those 615 days, joined by other locals on a rolling roster for cups of tea, information swapping, resolve steeling — and symbolic trailblazing.

The drillers had government permission in the form of an exploration licence but these farmers did not agree to access because they have strong and reasonable fears that any drilling through their precious aquifers could cause contamination or loss of the water on which their highly productive grain cropping depends.

Recently the Supreme Court quashed the Mining Warden’s decision where ‘access agreements’ were imposed on two Caroona properties. The access agreements were declared null and void because BHP had failed to notify the mortgagees for the properties.

It was the the first victory for the Brown and Alcorn families in an almost two-year battle to keep BHP Billiton off their land. The ruling could set a precedent that voids every access agreement in the exploration licence area and across the state.

So the blockaders have won a major and significant battle, but the war continues to save their fertile farmlands and its water supplies.  And they will not hesitate to reinstate the blockade if need be.

I had driven in to the Blockade that morning, looking south across the Plains to the polluted and dust-laden skies of the Hunter Valley, where the government has allowed every coal company to win every battle. Down there it is the wineries and thoroughbred horse studs now protesting that their industries cannot cope with any more coal mines.

The difference when I looked north, away from the coal-trashed Hunter, is obvious – clear blue skies as country skies should be, not murky brown. I admired the vast patchwork of ploughed land and crops, with the rusty red of sorghum seed-heads, the green of new crops, the cream of harvested stubble and the rich dark soil itself.

Later that day, heading towards the hills and home, I pass incredibly flat golden vistas of sunflower heads and their vibrant green plants and I am struck by its ‘livingness’ as I think of the appalling contrast I will meet back as I drive back into the Hunter.

Vistas of dirt and coal, an industrial hell, a dead landscape, seen through the veil made by one of the highest concentrations of fine dust particulates in Australia. I hope the Caroona farmers manage to stop this happening to their Plains — and after speaking to many of them I believe they will!

Women’s International Peace Walk  — Australia

Brisbane to Canberra 13th March—26th May 2010

My friend Christa is part of the group of women undertaking this walk — she designed the great fundraiser postcard too.

FootPrints for Peace is a global community of friends who are dedicated to creating change through peaceful action. They organise events throughout the world that bring people together to deepen our understanding of environmental, cultural and spiritual issues.

FootPrints for Peace believe that every step counts and would like to invite women to walk with them for one hour, one day, one week or the whole journey. They have five women doing the whole walk:  June Norman, Di Jenkins, Dawn Joyce, Sue Gregory and Cassie McMahon, with others walking significant distances and locals who will be walking with them for a day or meeting them on the outskirts of their town.  

If you are planning to walk for more than one day, please download the registration form from the Footprints for Peace website and email it to them here. You will also need to print the form, sign it and bring a copy with you when you commence the walk.

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Going, going, gone…

The last chapter of my book, Mountain Tails, is called ‘Missing Tails’  and as 2010 is the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, an extract from that chapter seems appropriate here.

The illustration for that chapter was the Greater Bilby, listed as  ‘endangered’ in Queensland and ‘vulnerable’ nationally — the Lesser Bilby is already extinct.

I am fortunate to be able to live amongst so many wild creatures, who belong here more than I do or ever could. Yet there are lots of tails I’d love to see but never will, because they’re extinct, or so few are left that they’re on the critically endangered list, or the steps on the way to that, the vulnerable or threatened species list.

The more I learn about the amazing animals around me, the more I grieve that so many equally unique and interesting Australian creatures are now gone. Their combined richness is what biodiversity means, and even though we may not understand how, all creatures, including us, have or had a place in an ecosystem; we are all linked. Like any chain, break or even weaken a link, and things eventually fall apart. Unfortunately those links are often invisible to us short-sighted slaves of Progress — until the effects of the breakdown, mostly irreversible, cause us trouble.

Australia holds the shameful record of having wiped out the most mammal species of any country in the world: 27 unique types of furry warm-blooded creatures, like us but oh so different, will never exist on this earth again, thanks to our clumsy Progress. And we’ve done it in only a little over 200 years. We’ve been rotten caretakers, compared to the original ones, who managed it so well for thousands of years.

We can add 23 bird species and four frog species to the tally of Australian creatures that are now gone forever. We can’t do a thing about this but we can help in trying to prevent it happening to the 22 animal species that are critically endangered right now, and the 345 species that are threatened!

My wildlife refuge is my own way of doing this, plus having my property conserved in perpetuity under the Native Vegetation Act, but there are various avenues and degrees of involvement for concerned people, landowners or not, including volunteering, observing and recording, donating and lobbying.

Even in towns, we can at least try to do no more harm, for example by keeping pets in at night when many native animals come out to feed. Think of small creatures like the Lesser Bilby, lost forever, every time it seems a chore to do so. It probably didn’t ever live in your area, but others of the 54 extinct animals did. If you want a more personal iconic image, find out from your local National Parks office what is under threat in your region, what birds, mammals and reptiles might not be around much longer.

When I see the wild animals around me living such efficient and rich lives in the natural world we inhabit here, requiring of me only that I should leave them alone, I wonder that we got our priorities so wrong, on such a large scale, in this country.

Take a look at the website for the Convention on Biological Diversity. UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon talks about the sad state of our world, where human activity is wiping out species at about 1,000 times the natural rate.

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Wybong Action Group

wag-bannerThe fight to save Anvil Hill near Wybong, NSW, from being mined by Centennial Coal involved thousands of people from near and far. We wanted to draw a line in the sand here at this scenically biodiverse ‘Ark of the Hunter’ and say ‘No new coal’.

We lost to King Coal and the NSW Planning Minister.

At the time, Muswellbrook and Denman mainly supported the Anvil Hill mine; perhaps they believed what the coal companies promised??!!!

Sold to Xstrata, who renamed it Xstrata Mangoola, and are now proceeding to ‘develop’ the site, it will destroy 100 square kilometres of the Wybong Valley. It has already got rid of 300 of the 500 residents.

Wybong, like its larger neighbour, Denman, is an area of farms large and small, vineyards and horse studs. Now the coal companies, showing their usual greediness, want three new mines in this area.

Xstrata Ridgeland is next to Mangoola: that should clear out the remaining Wybong community. And now there are the Spur and Yarrawa,  threatening closer to Denman.

Coal companies are good at ‘divide and conquer’. I hope this time the landowners stick together — as at Caroona — and say NO to the transformation of the Upper Hunter Valley into continuous mega dust pits and dust mountains.

The Wybong Action Group is certainly trying to make that ‘NO’ be loud and strong. They have my support and their website will now be a permanent link on mine.

UN petition for Copenhagen

copenhagen-logoHi all,
Ban Ki Moon will present the United Nations official petition “Seal The Deal” from the people of the earth to the delegates at Copenhagen. Add your voice here to the 364,206 people who have already signed his petition.

You can find it here or just click on the Seal the Deal logo.

Join me at Climate Camp

camp-posterFor three days in October, from Friday 9th—Sunday 11th, I’ll be camping in my little tent alongside hundreds of others at Climate Camp ’09 . 

Set up among the trees near Australia’s oldest coal mine on Dharawal land in in Helensburgh, NSW (40 minutes south of Sydney),  Climate Camp ’09 will be an entirely sustainable solar-powered event.

Climate Camp is for everyone — because when it comes to water, climate and jobs, actions speak louder than words. And getting a strong message to the government grows more urgent every day. By joining us, show them you demand a different future than the dark one offered by coal and its apparently entrenched supporters. 
  
This is a family event — come for the three days or come for an afternoon — for great workshops, music, art, food and positive climate action. Most importantly, if you can, please come along to swell the numbers at the powerful and peaceful community action on Sunday October 11th. 

At Climate Camp ’08 in Newcastle, our largest coal exporting port, around 1000 people of all ages joined in an uplifting community walk to halt the coal loader.

Find out what it’s all about on the Climate Camp ’09 website.

I hope you’ll join me at Climate Camp ’09 – with your kids and parents, neighbours and friends – we’re all in this predicament together and we all want a better future.  Let’s make it happen!

Paradise under threat

Recently I attended a Rivers SOS conference at Booral near Gloucester. Rivers SOS is an alliance of 40 groups from all over NSW committed to protecting the integrity of river systems and water sources against the impacts of mining.

The weekend was held at Country River Camp, an informal and natural grassy camping area right by the Karuah River. Keith and Margaret Wynne, who own Country River Camp, love their river and are strong supporters of those who fight to protect it.

On Sunday we were taken on a tour of this beautiful, well-watered area, under grave threat from the expansion of the two coalmines in the district. It’s hard to get a peek at the so-called ’boutique minery’ of Duralie mine, tucked away from the main roads as it is. But they’re expanding way beyond boutique, and if they get their way it will be all too visible.
rivers-1 Many farms, like the one below, have already been bought up for hard-to-resist prices; across other paddocks we could see dozens of test drill pipes under their white caps.
rivers-2 This region is watered by pristine rivers and creeks that rise in the nearby World Heritage sub-alpine Gloucester and Barrington Tops. And yet the mine wants to discharge its toxic waste water into these streams.

They call it ‘irrigating’, which means indirect discharge, as the waste will just take a bit more time to reach the rivers as it enters the many gullies and watercourses of the river flats and slopes they want to use for this (below).
rivers-3These gullies run into Mammy Johnsons River (below), which flows to the Karuah River and thence to the tourist and marine environment mecca of Port Stephens.

If beauty like this doesn’t matter, with water becoming such a precious commodity, it has to be an obscenity to consider mining this area which is also blessed with fertile soils.

We can’t drink or eat coal.

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Mining madness

Our governments appear to be blind, mad or bad when it comes to coal. This is just one instance.

Firstly there is the madness of having approved, in 2007, a mega coal mine that in Stage One will produce 127 million tonnes of coal over 15 yrs for the world to burn to make more CO2 — just what we need; now they are contemplating approving Stage Two, to produce 17 million tonnes of new coal per year for 24 years — even better if we don’t want the global warming to slow down.

This Moolarben mega-mine, owned by  Felix Resources, will comprise three opencut mines and a longwall underground mine.

The second evidence of madness ( or whatever) is where the mine is to be located:  in close proximity to the Goulburn River & The Drip Gorge area that abuts the Goulburn River National Park.

The three opencut mines will trash the picturesque Moolarben valley, rich in bird life and biodiversity, will displace many farming families in this area and come within 2 kilometres of the village of Ulan and local primary school. I’m sure they will welcome the health benefits from all the heavy metal laden fine dust particulates and the 24-hour noise, lights and stress.
drip-1The Drip’  in Goulburn River National Park under threat from mining; get the scale of its grandeur from the two figures at its base.

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Defeating the dinosaurs

coal-dinosaurIn the months before the international climate conference in Copenhagen the dinosaurs of the coal industry are spending up big on lobbying to keep things the way they like them and helping the usual crew of Parliamentary dinosaurs to block the creation of hundreds of thousands of badly needed new clean energy jobs.

Now a coalition of organisations including World Wildlife Fund Australia, the Climate Institute, the ACTU, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Australian Conservation Foundation, have launched a counter-camapign.

You can add your voice to it by visiting the WWF’s Road to Copenhagen website and sending a message to your local MP.

Cyanide insanity

cyanide400

In my book The Woman on the Mountain, I expressed my disbelief that the National Heritage listed wetlands of Lake Cowal — and all the waters downstream — had been put under great threat from Canadian giant Barrick Gold’s open-cut cyanide leach goldmining right next to it.

The Wiradjuri people and their supporters have been fighting this insanity, this obscenity, for the past 10 years. Now Barrick Gold wants to expand into the lake bed, doubling the size of the mine.

No mine has ever avoided leaking cyanide-laced water and waste into the ecosystem. Barrick’s gold mine at Lake Cowal will be no exception.

You’ll be appalled at what you learn from their Save Lake Cowal website which I am now including as a permanent link from mine.

They need ongoing support in this campaign about sovereignty, the battle against corporate greed and the ongoing fight to protect an ecologically significant and sacred land.

Watch a video about it here.

Coal port takeover

Although I’d only been home for a few days, last Saturday I drove to Newcastle to help take over the harbour entrance to this major coal exporting port.

It’s the fourth year that the dynamic climate change action group, Rising Tide, have organised the event at Horseshoe Beach. This is a peaceful, family-oriented way to protest that the continuing export of our coal for the world to burn in power stations is fuelling global warming and thus climate chaos.

coal-port1
That’s me in the red hat, centre left, camera in hand.

coal-port2
This lone polar bear –  who sat there all day – said it all. The police boat kept a close eye on him: it’s the silent types you have to watch.

coal-port3
Kayaks were supplied, but many people brought their own water transport, from surfboards, sailboats and rubber dinghies to inner tubes and floaties. Some had made rafts of limited navigation and dubious flotation abilities, but great ingenuity and sense of fun.

I didn’t do much paddling about, being a bit of a wuss waterwise, opting to help out in the kitchen tent instead.

This year, the port authorities didn’t wait for the people occupying the port for the day to have the chance to actually stop any coal ships leaving the port. They cancelled them anyway.

This made the protest a success before it started and also kept the tension and the numbers of police down from previous years.

See Rising Tide’s website for further details on the day and their ongoing great work. People power does work: you might like to get involved.

Hurry up, Mr Rudd!


On Saturday 22nd November about 150 people walked in to the aging Eraring Power Station near Newcastle NSW.

Emitting over 20 million tons of C02 each year, it is one of the world’s most polluting, so an appropriate site from which to urge Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong to get serious about acting now to slow our runaway global warming.

And certainly not to give such an emitter a permit to keep doing so!

Police flanked and backed the walkers all the way.

Once we got there, they intensively guarded the final fence, while guard dogs paced behind it and police on horses and trail bikes patrolled the perimeters. We were allowed only three hours for a rally before all had to leave, escorted.

Perhaps they feared strong action, realising that people are getting desperate about the lack of genuine commitment by the Rudd government as time runs out.

The power station is huge when you’re up this close. It’s daunting, as are the unresponsive policemen between whom we edged to tie to the fence the banners we had carried, plus photos and drawings of things we love, and for whose futures we fear unless carbon emissions are stopped.

Here’s most of mine— less half a grandchild!

In December, the Rudd Government will announce Australia’s medium term emissions reductions targets, and they are widely expected to be weak and ineffective.

It looks unlikely that they will show enough courageous leadership to announce that 2010 will be Australia’s  ‘peak carbon’  year – after that and forever, our greenhouse pollution must come down.
 
But that is what we need, and what Saturday’s rally called for.

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