action – Page 2 – The woman on the mountain

Of birds… and an elephant

November 24, 2014 by Fred Baker

I’m not allowed on my front verandah at present. Two sets of protective parents say so.

The Welcome Swallows have hatched a second set of babies in the original nest. I have spotted three sets of panting baby beaks so far.

Perhaps being second time parents on my verandah in one season has made them more relaxed around me.

But the Willy Wagtails frantically circle and flit above me, chittering incessantly, even when I keep my distance or stand inside at my bedroom window to watch the babies. I wish they’d accept my assurances and spend more time feeding and watering the babies.

So I don’t go as close to take the photo as the Swallows permit.

I am feeling anxious myself for all the nestlings as the days heat up; 38 degrees on that verandah yesterday, and their parents have built the nests right up under the tin roof, which is lined but not insulated.

Conversely, I have just spent a week in icy airconditioning. I’ve been in way-too-crowded Sydney with four bush and bird loving ladies: L to R, Sheena Gillman, Patricia Julien, me, Paola Cassoni and Lee Curtis. We were on the Bimblebox/Protect the Bush Alliance stand at the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) World Parks Congress.

This Congress has been 10 years in the planning. People have whispered to us that the IUCN would never have chosen Australia as the venue for this Congress had they known what our government would be like in 2014: anti-environment and anti-action on climate change. And stupidly pro-coal. There are about 2000 people here but apparently others had opted out in disgust. Everyone knew about the Reef.

People were actually commiserating with us for having such an embarrassingly regressive prime minister. I offered to swap him several times but there were no takers.

For my part, I have been apologising to all for our coal fuelling their climate chaos pain.

Unfortunately the IUCN did not acknowledge the current and threatened impacts from coal to our ‘protected’ places like the Reef and Bimblebox. We know Bimblebox is home to 154 bird species… and counting. Worth far more than a coal mine for Clive Palmer.

As the only stand that mentioned mining, we did our best to arouse the very large elephant in the Dome. We made sure overseas delegates knew that our governments put Coal before Conservation every time.

Greg Hunt gave a backpatting closing ceremony talk that made me want to throw up. Conservation starts at home, Mr Hunt.

Later a young Indigenous man dared to let the elephant roar in his speech: extractive industries must not be allowed to harm the Reef any further, any longer.

Camping for Gloucester

November 10, 2014 by Fred Baker

I stayed at the Gloucester Protectors Camp for three days last week. Set in farmer Ed Robinson’s mown paddock, with cows grazing beyond the fence and the mountains framing the valley views, it’s a scenic spot.

The camp is evolving daily; it has portaloos and fresh water and an embryonic kitchen. They need lots of people to help build it … and to help use it for its purpose of stopping AGL from turning this beautiful valley into a CSG industrial pincushion.

After a wild wet evening arrival, the weather stayed fine but variable, offering hot days, cold nights, damply dewy mornings and some beautiful sunrises as they competed with the fog rising from the valley floor.

Starts were early, to get to the AGL gate in time to welcome the convoy of the Halliburton fracking crew to start their ‘work’ and to have ‘breakfast with the police’ who were making that start possible. Being legal doesn’t make it right, but the police have no choice here; it’s up to us to get the laws changed.

We bicycled in our own convoy — ’Tour de Gloucester’ — from the Fairbairns Road corner to the site on two mornings, reminding me how insufficiently padded were both my derriere and the bike seat.

But on the second morning our biking distraction was more than worthwhile when we heard that Ned Haughton had quietly locked on to an unguarded rig further away. He remained there for almost 5 hours before being freed.

Quite a few of us rode down the narrow dirt road to where he was; I’d have to say I wobbled precariously along the edges as police car after police car passed.

(I cadged a lift back for me and the bike.)

Bill Ryan came too and joked about him being in all the photos, like a ‘Where’s Wally?’ series.

Saturday morning dawned in dense fog. A short ‘breakfast with the police’ this day before heading into town for the Gloucester community walk through the main street. Absolutely inspiring, as it was the biggest turnout yet — almost 200. Lots of locals, young and old.

There were some terrific signs; our PM copped it on some. I had to laugh at the one held by gentle Linda, who greets the frackers each morning by meditating across the road from the gate.

So please come out to the camp and see what’s on. Gloucester folk are getting very tired from the battle and the daily stretch to fill the rosters; they desperately need — and deserve — our help.

The Protect Gloucester website

Nature wins

November 6, 2014November 6, 2014 by Fred Baker

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW (NCC) recently held its annual conference. This growing umbrella association is the key voice for nature in NSW, and now has over 120 member groups and about 60,000 supporters, including individuals like myself.

One of the things they do at the conference is announce and give out awards to groups and individuals for their work for the natural world.

See all the awards on the About page of the NCC website.

I was overwhelmed to receive the 2014 Dunphy Award for ‘the most outstanding environmental effort of an individual’. The Greens leader Christine Milne presented it, seen above with NCC Chair Don White.

Many of you will know the name ‘Dunphy’, as Milo and Myles Dunphy worked tirelessly to protect our natural environment in many ways, not least to secure our national parks.

I am honoured to have my name even distantly assocated with theirs.

The Nature Conservation Council has been in operation for over 50 years. Its current CEO is Kate Smolski, whose enthusiasm and optimism gives us all hope in the many prolonged battles in which NCC members are involved.

Other awards were given (some seen above), and I was especially pleased to see that the Lithgow Environment Group received the Member Group Award and that Frontline Action on Coal shared the Community Action Award.

Congratulations to both these inspiring and persevering groups, with whom I have personal connection and experience of their work.

Getting up for Gloucester

October 27, 2014October 27, 2014 by Fred Baker

Last Thursday I got up at 3 am and set out for Gloucester, to join a 5.30 bus heading to the AGL AGM in Sydney.

In case you don’t know, AGL snuck in the first CSG fracking rig last week and have set up a screen to do it in secret in the once-rural paddocks on Fairbairns Road.

This AGL project was hastily approved and inadequately researched, and is inappropriately sited in the beautiful, scenic and historic Vale of Gloucester, gateway to Barrington Tops, from whence their clean rushing rivers come. These waters and the aquifers beneath are also the supply source for the Manning Valley downstream.

Hydrologist Professor Phillip Pells, not an opponent of CSG extraction per se, has said that Gloucester is the wrong place for it. The locals want the project stopped until the proof of this or otherwise is shown; until the fracking chemicals are tested, despite AGL assuring us they’re much like what’s in salad dressing; until the disposal of its wastewater with all its nasties, not ‘just salt’, is sorted; and until the 2-kilometre CSG exclusion zone that applies to Sydney suburbs is bestowed on the people of Gloucester.

Last time I looked, their bodies were the same, so the health impacts will be. Not fair, Minister Roberts.

Outside the AGM, after rallying talks, we cheered in the shareholders and waited to cheer them out, hoping that by then they would have learnt more about the damage their company is about to do from CSG, when it could instead be full on into renewables.

Six or so Groundswell Gloucester and Manning Clean Water Action Group members — respectably suited up — used proxy votes to address the meeting with facts that AGL does not give. In fact, they emerged gobsmacked at ‘the lies’ given out instead. Shareholders were advised by our locals to think about the potential liability from harm caused by this CSG project.

Here I am resting in the gutter alongside Ken Johnson of the Gloucester Project, which plans for Gloucester as a future regional food bowl. Ken’s 80, I’m 66, and the indefatigable Bill Ryan, only 90, was there too. Back in Gloucester, Ken’s wife Marnie was being cut out of her neck lock on the AGL main access gate as we spoke.

Dan Lanzini, meanwhile, was inside and locked on underneath the actual fracking rig. I’d met Dan up at the first Pilliga camp, when he and Dayne Pratzky visited to help kick things off against Santos.

My offer to ‘do’ something to show support was accepted, as was that of my bus seatmate and newfound friend, Alison. The bus got back about 7pm and Alison’s friends Brad and Thomas (Brad had been one of those addressing the AGM) generously put us up for the night and we set our alarms for another early start, 4 am.

After the last three days of protest action, there was a large police and security presence in the area and waiting at the main gate. For some reason, the frack rig workers didn’t arrive that day: results already?

So I had to quickly lock on to the next gate, right under the ‘eye’ of the security camera, but no burly security personnel. My ‘buddy’ Alison and about 14 locals stayed with me in support. The second round of police to visit issued me with a notice to appear in court — and left me to stew — or fry, advising that they would not be sending for the rescue team to cut me off.

After a morning of media — interviews from within the neck lock are pretty effective! — eventually the locals’ opinion was that no more could be achieved there that day.

If you want to know more and to help this community in any capacity — you don’t have to lock yourself to a gate! — please visit the Groundswell site — One example was the Knitting Nannas’ Lantern Walk (of Shame) on Friday. As you can see, non-nanna blokes and fairies are welcome!

An approved protectors’ camp on farmer Ed Robinson’s property just up the road is at last in operation as of today, Monday 27th, making it easier for visiting supporters like me to help out. (Ed also addressed the AGM.)

Please spend some time there to help swell the numbers and stop the fracking.

All photos courtesy of Groundswell Gloucester.

Sitting for Leard Forest

February 10, 2014February 10, 2014 by Fred Baker

In the past, I’ve walked in rallies or stood in protest against the threats from coal or gas that continue to bombard our special places.

On 28th January, instead I sat for a day, a small part of the ongoing blockade against Whitehaven Coal’s destruction of Leard Forest near Boggabri. (See my past posts here, here, here and here).

A convoy of us set out at 4 a.m. from camp; the tripod for our intrepid high sitter, Surya McEwen, went up across the gate in the dark under a crescent moon.

A row of nine ‘staunch supporters’ were arranged tightly side by side in front of the tripod, ready to lock arms in our chairs, to protect him and make it more of a problem for him to be removed.

By dawn we were all in place, with even the luxury of a shade tarpaulin.

Maybe because we were all over 50, we were happy to sit, but also willing to be arested if need be, so strongly do we feel about the shortsighted injustice of what is being allowed to happen here — and why we are helping to try to stop it.

Stephen Galilee, CEO of the NSW Minerals Council, calls us ‘green extremists’

Given the range of perfectly respectable elders who made the choice to sit that day, and if necessary defy the law, Mr Galilee is way off base. From the youngest of us, Sharyn Brock (55) next to me, to the oldest, Kokoda veteran Bill Ryan (91), next to her, we were all regular folk, seniors who care deeply enough about this insanity to come from Sydney, Manning Valley and the Hunter to do this.

For it is insane to be digging up a precious remnant habitat like Leard Forest, under misguided approvals using totally discredited offset plans, to pollute and ruin the beautiful Maules Creek farming valley, and wilfully disregard what is sacred to the Gomeroi people, for the sake of product that will add to our global warming debacle.

Mr Galilee says ‘The protestors’ mission is to shut down society to save the planet’. Shutting down a private company’s legalised looting, its plans to destroy this area, is not quite the same thing! And the planet is our only home, Mr Galilee: ‘there is no planet B’. Saving it is not an aim to be dismissed so derogatively.

Indeed it is our concern for our society, for the future of our grandchildren, as our governments place monetary value — ’the significance of resource’ — above all else, like health and water and food production and endangered plants and animals, that drives us.

And yes, a Greens politician did lend support to the protest that day; Senator Lee Rhiannon (at centre) was with us from the cold dawn start to the hot late afternoon finish. Not just briefly for a media grab, as most politicians would. It was not a case, as Mr Galilee puts it, of ‘The Greens and their extreme supporters’, but the other way around; not that I ever admit to or advocate any extremism; this is just commonsense!

Ever since I’ve known her, about 9 years now, Lee has been actively supporting small communities and special places under threat.

She genuinely cares.

As does Julie Lyford (right), ex-mayor of Gloucester and key driver in Groundswell Gloucester, who works so cleverly and so hard, unpaid, to save her community from being over-run and harmed by coal and coal seam gas. (Julie also sent me some of these photos.)

If such people are green extremists, I am proud to be counted amongst them.

Of course there were younger folk there; after all, it’s their future at stake. How can they be castigated as activists, for acting to save it? They included some from Japan, given that much of our coal is headed for Japanese and Korean power companies, who have an interest in many Australian mines.

More creative young folk added a touch of theatre with these owl masks and toy koalas. Although as it was pointed out, any self-respecting owl would have quickly had those litle furry critters for breakfast!

Our uncomplaining tripod sitter was up there all day, under a brolly and later a mini tarp to help bear the heat.

When the police finally got to us, after dealing with the pole and tripod sitters scattered elsewhere in the forest, we were asked to move back as it was dangerous to get him down and dismantle the tripod with us there. OH&S rules, you know.

We decided not to. They went ahead anyway.

Altogether about 30 people have now been arrested at the Leard protests; 120 were there on the 28th. They are to be applauded for standing up — or sitting down — for what is right, not derided, as Mr Galilee does, for ‘their self-righteous claim to the moral high ground’.

He certainly can’t claim it; self-interest rules in the Minerals Council.

As I drove out next day, the overburden mountains of the Boggabri mine and the fine brown layer of dust and pollution in the sky above gave a portent of what lies ahead in spades if the Whitehaven mine proceeds. It would be good if the investors decide that the delays in its path from the protests are not worth pushing on with a dodo product, of declining acceptability worldwide.

Action to save Leard is ongoing and supporters are needed; go to Frontline Action on Coal for latest news and new camp.

Climate action

November 20, 2013 by Fred Baker

Last Sunday 60,000 misguided Australians got together in their towns and cities and rural parks to let Mr Abbott know they wanted action on the climate emergency.

He could have told them that it’s far more urgent to stop the boats than to stop global warming and impacts like super typhoons.

I went to the Port Stephens gathering, which was, surprisingly, admirably organised via GetUp by Maria, a local schoolgirl. It was a grey morning, lightly drizzling the whole time and I hoped her effort would be rewarded by at least 20 turning up.

In the end it was more like 60, all heartened to know that others cared enough to come. From greybeards to kids, some bearing home-made signs, many wearing ‘heatwave’ colours… and most bringing brollies.

The patient and articulate Maria persevered with getting people to cut out letters to paste on increasingly damp pages.

Trying to assemble the message was harder, but from atop a picnic table, she managed to herd the bedraggled cats and their letters to form the message: ‘Nelson Bay wants climate action’.

You got that, Tony?

Bravo to Maria and the 59,000 others who give me hope we will leave a future for our grandchildren.

But where were the rest of you?

Hunter coal’s 100 black marks

August 27, 2013 by Fred Baker

Can we send the coal industry in the Hunter to the sin bin and make them stay there until they learn how to behave better? This is Singleton, centre of the coal boom/blight in the Upper Hunter, where residents have just received their 100th air pollution alert.

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage issues warnings to subscribers by SMS and email, when air pollution exceeds national health standards. What do you do on such days if you have heart or respiratory problems? Stay inside.

Particle pollution in Camberwell, about 15 kms north of Singleton, with mines on all sides but one, has exceeded the national standard for PM10 a total of 22 times this year,

Yet against the advice of its own Health Department, the O’Farrell government approved the proposed Ashton (South East Open Cut) mine, owned by Chinese government-owned Yancoal, right next to Camberwell village and on that last remaining unmined side.

The message to the people was clear: your health is less important than coal dollars.?

Eleven of the 17 Hunter Valley monitoring stations have recorded exceedances this year, exposing residents to harmful levels of PM10 (particles of up to 10 microns in diameter). Air pollution alerts have been issued for Mt Thorley (14 times), Maison Dieu (12), Singleton NW (13), Lower Hunter (9), Singleton (6), Bulga (7), Warkworth (6), Jerrys Plains (4), Muswellbrook (3) and Singleton South (2).

The Valley from Singleton to Muswellbrook is facing a crisis of air pollution caused by opencut coal mining, despite all the industry spin about best practice. So they should sort out how to operate without the particle pollution – if they can – and don’t add to the problem with more coal mine development until they do. And if they can’t, then stop. No impact or no project.

Yet due to shameful proposed planning changes by the O’Farrell Government, it may be the last time a local group has the opportunity to challenge a coal mine approval in court, as they want the ‘resource’ placed above all other concerns like health and water.

Hunter Environment Lobby has launched a legal challenge against the approval of the South East Open Cut project and the case begins in the Land and Environment Court, Macquarie Street, Sydney, on Monday 2nd September. Supporters will rally outside the hearing at 9:30am. Can you make it?

On Wednesday 4th September the hearing will be held at Singleton Courthouse, and supporters will rally outside at 10:30am. Can you join me?

(If you are a tweeter, celebrate this infamous milestone of 100 black marks; the Minerals Council have their own twitter hashtag #nswmining where anyone can leave a pointed comment congratulating them on a century!)

(For information on the court case call Jan Davis, Hunter Environment Lobby, 0417 422 738)

Downstream worries

June 9, 2013 by Fred Baker

Taree is on the Manning River, downstream from Gloucester. Taree doesn’t have CSG or coal, but Gloucester has.

In a sane world the beautiful and bountiful Vale of Gloucester would not be even contemplated for these industries, but it has two coalmines, expanding, and a third, the Rocky Hill mine, proposed but being vigorously opposed, plus an approved AGL CSG project — equally opposed.

At the Taree Envirofair last Saturday, water was a big worry. Firstly, would the rain hold off? It did.

Secondly, how to alert Taree residents to the looming threat to their clean water supply if AGL’s fracking gas wells go ahead, with so little known about the aquifers with which they’ll be interfering?

Plus both coal wastewater and CSG produced water is contaminated and saline, and its disposal is always a hugely risky and still unresolved issue, especially in high rainfall areas.

Irrigating river flats with it doesn’t seem like a good idea if you want that river water to be clean. I think of this irrigating as simply a slower death by pollution than direct discharge into the river…

Taree certainly doesn’t want it.

The Manning Clean Water Action Group’s stall (MCWAG) had plenty of folk signing petitions and gathering info, and their red-T-shirted members proclaiming ‘Water not coal or CSG’ were highly visible throughout the Fair.

In between local entertainers, the Fig Jam stage was held by speakers like activist Jonathan Moylan (pictured), Chris Sheed from MCWAG, local solicitor Paul Lewers, Bruce Robertson (ex-Transgrid fighter from the Manning Alliance) and lastly, myself.

The message from us all was, in the end, similar: we are under grave and imminent threat of losing many precious resources like land and water, against the wishes of the people.

None of our governments are yet taking the threats seriously. So we, the people, must stand up, speak out — and make them!

Putting two bob on the environment

June 7, 2013 by Fred Baker

On Saturday 8th June, 2BOB radio on the NSW mid-north coast is having its annual Envirofair in Taree Park, from 9.30 to 3.30. Taree is on the mighty Manning River.

Manning Valley Community Radio Station 2BOB 104.7 FM

They’ve been holding these family-day fairs for 22 years, with the simple aim of ‘raising awareness about environmental protection’.

You can check out their website for what the day holds, but it sounds like fun as well as information: ‘… music, dancing and performance artists; fabulous food from 2BOB Radio’s famous Global Cafe and local epicureans; innovative market stalls; displays and demonstrations of ecologically-friendly products and ideas for living; and inspirational environmental speakers.’

I will be one of those speakers on the Fig Jam stage, at 1.15 or 1.30 pm. Jonathan Moylan, innovative activist (of the ANZ ASIC hoax) is another.

I’ve given about 6 talks in the Manning since the book came out in May 2012; it’s an aware and alert region, with active community groups – maybe partly due to such a great community radio station.

CSG looms here, but would be crazy to try to proceed.

Come and say ‘Hi’ if you’re about on Saturday. (The Manning Clean Water Action Group stall will have Rich Land, Wasteland books for sale — and hence for me to sign for you!)

Camberwell fights on

May 28, 2013 by Fred Baker

This is me and the heroines of my Chapter One, ‘Living with open cuts’: Wendy Bowman, The Genteel Guerilla General’, (left) and Deidre Olofsson, ‘Deidre the Dauntless’. They are still fighting for justice and survival, and we were at Wendy’s home, ‘Rosedale’, where I spoke at a fundraiser for their court case.
Photo courtesy of the Singleton Argus, from an article by Editor Di Sneddon, 28th May 2013.

Many of my readers will remember the posts I’ve done about the long-suffering villagers of Camberwell, just 15 kms north of Singleton in the NSW Hunter Valley: ‘Camberwell — in crisis from coal’ and ‘Hopes for a saner 2012.’

I told you that if the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) rejected this Ashton S-E open cut proposal by Chinese miner Yancoal, that would be the end of the village. This was on the grounds of water and health.

I didn’t tell you what happened after their victory.

The mining company, with the backing of the Department of Planning, of course appealed the decision in the Land and Environment Court, which sent the decision back so that a second PAC could assess the proposal.

Somehow, suddenly, the serious water issues for Glennies Creek — on which the Hunter River below here relies, as do the famous Hunter’s vineyards and other irrigators — were not so important for the NSW Office of Water.

The Department of Health remains opposed to the project. Dust levels are already shocking in this part of the Hunter; far more kids in the Singleton area (1 in 3) have reduced lung function than the state average (1 in 9).

The Hunter Environment Lobby (HEL) has now launched an appeal against that second approval and the case goes to court on August 26th. They need more funds to pay for their legal team and the excellent expert witnesses they have assembled, even though many are providing services for much less than usual.

This case will have far wider impacts than for Camberwell.

So, on a sunny Saturday 25th May, HEL had a fundraiser garden party at Wendy’s ‘Rosedale’, right where the open cut would be. It’s Wendy’s second dairying property and home as she was forced off her first by another open cut.

Cakes were in abundance, auctions and raffles were heId; I donated a box of Rich Land, Wasteland books.

Can you help, in even a small way?

Any donation above $2 can be claimed against your income tax. Please support the legal challenge to the Ashton S-E Open Cut by downloading and printing the donation form here.

The wide west

May 20, 2013May 17, 2013 by Fred Baker

Last week I left my highlands to travel to the flatlands. The very, very flat lands. So flat they are grand, in scale and scope.

I went at the invitation of the tireless Anne Kennedy of the Great Artesian Basin Group and the Coonamble Action Group and I went to talk at the Coonamble Show about the book and the issue, which out here is CSG, the threat is Santos, and at risk is the Great Artesian Basin itself.

This is bore-dependent country; there’s not been much joy from the rain lately.

Anne and her group have done wonders in raising awareness here, as they have been doing for years re capping bores. Anne and her husband Neil kindly put me up at their ‘Yuma’ property and took me to the Show.

That’s the house ‘oasis’ on the right, and Neil tells me that the wiry balls fretting at the fences are ‘roly-polies,’ not tumbleweed. Thinking of Triffids, I hope they can’t climb.

The Show was a nostalgic treat for me — ah, the smell of Pluto Pups on the breeze! — the Coonamble Action Group are fantastic, and despite hiccups like the 100 Rich Land, Wasteland books ordered by Anne being lost — twice — one lot arrived minutes before my afternoon talk, and the day was a success. They sold 48 books!

Coonamble is awake and on guard; the Landmark branch even displays and sells the Lock the Gate signs. What a difference one small persistent and passionate woman can make; and she now has really strong local support, informed, innovative and keen.

Driving out next day, I passed other properties where the roly-polies were not kept in check, had jumped the fence, and were biding their time, playing ‘doggo’ amongst the emus.

As I said, this is seriously flat land; the blue cotton bales floated in mirage water on the horizon.

I was heading for Burren Junction, where Sonya Marshall is trying to wake up her region to the looming threat to their water. My route took me through Pilliga and on a long dirt road with foot-thick dust.

Sonya and Mick’s property, ‘Teranna’, is even more drought-affected than Coonamble, so even more dependent on their bores. They kindly hosted me that night and told me a bit about their area.

I hope the talk at the Burren CWA Hall raised the alarm levels. The audience was small but involved, and the post-talk dinner at the pub was both enjoyable and enlightening.

Next day, a different route to Pilliga took me through vast paddocks of impressive perspectives.

Just outside Pilliga a mass of Winnebagos and minor mates were clustered around the Pilliga Bore Baths; the adjacent lagoon and wetlands were indeed warm, with carp swimming in them!

I wonder if the tourists realise what will likely happen to these pressurised bores if Santos succeed in their CSG plans for the Pilliga?

I did drive through the edge of the Pilliga and got a small sense of its magic. After calling in at the interesting NP Pilliga Discovery Centre in Barradine, I vowed to go back for a week at least to ‘taste’ the Pilliga in more detail.

Time to speak up for Nature: it can’t

May 2, 2013May 2, 2013 by Fred Baker

Many of you will have seen the Bimblebox documentary, partly about Paola Cassoni’s fight to save this Queensland nature refuge, but also a pretty shocking overview of the coal and gas rush in Australia, and its consequences, for global warming, for the Great Barrrier Reef — to name a few small impacts!

It’s now BB-Day; whether you saw the Bimblebox film or not, I ask everyone to spend a few minutes of your time and speak up for the creatures of Bimblebox, and the principle that Nature matters more than a short term coal mine to fatten Clive Palmer’s pockets!

You may like to look at some of my past posts here, here and here on Bimblebox to get a feel for this special place.

The BB team have now waded through the 4000 page Supplementary EIS to produce a simple submission that you can tailor to suit yourself if you like. I’ve done mine.

Comments must be in by 6th May, so time is short. Let’s make this THE submission avalanche of 2013!

Clive Palmer is loud and gets a lot of press. His concern for Nature is such that he dismissed the discovery of the endangered Black-throated Finch at Bimblebox, saying something like it had wings and could fly elsewhere.

The creatures of Bimblebox cannot fight the likes of Clive Palmer, who also said he would ‘kick arse’ to get this project though. It’s up to us to speak out for them.

We want 5000 submissions to show the Newman government that this China First mine must not proceed in its plans to destroy Bimblebox.

You can make your submission here.

Then please share on Facebook and anywhere else you can.

Send the following text by email to your contacts:

Say no to Clive Palmer’s massive new coal mine

Billionaire Clive Palmer is still pushing to get approval for his proposed China First coal mine (oherwise known as the Galilee Coal Project.)

If it is allowed to go ahead, this project will destroy the Bimblebox Nature Refuge, impact on our precious groundwater resources and help open up the whole Galilee Basin to more coal mines.

Over the life of the mine, the coal from the China First project will generate greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to nearly four years of Australian total annual emissions! It would need to be transported over farmland and shipped through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

While the owners of the mine stand to make large profits, it will have negative economic impacts on other, more sustainable, industries.

Please share the link and the text with friends, colleagues, family and any organisations you are part of. Can we reach 5000 submissions against this mine? Not without your help. After you’ve signed the submission, please share it on Facebook, Twitter and email.

Thanks for your support,

The Bimblebox Team

P.S. you can also download, print, sign and send a slightly longer submission at our website. Why not print 10 or 20 and head to the local markets with a clipboard and pen?