The Wilderness Society revealed on February 23 that the Queensland Department of Minerals and Energy is pushing for 10,000 hectares of Starcke to be gazetted as a mining reserve. The 225,000 hectare wilderness area was acquired the day before from controversial north Queensland developer George Quaid.
When Premier Wayne Goss introduced the Starcke Acquisition Bill in September 1993, he told state parliament: "This legislation will ensure that this important piece of coastal land will be protected from both overseas sale and inappropriate development ... we believe that the purchase of this land will add significantly to our National Park estate."
The proposed mining reserve includes the northern half of the rugged Starcke Range and the country draining into the largest mangrove area between Cairns and the northern tip of Starcke.
"So much is at risk if the government takes this dangerous proposal seriously", said Greg Sargent, spokesperson for the Wilderness Society.
"The streams that drain northward from the Starcke Range through the proposed mining reserve are flanked by remnant rainforests. The mangrove forests those streams feed contain some of the tallest specimens in Cape York. It is little wonder this wild wetland has been included on the Register of the National Estate.
"But even more precious is the seagrass pasture that lies offshore. It is the refuge for the largest population of dugong [an internationally threatened marine mammal] left on the planet. If Starcke is mined, what are their chances of survival?
"We believe that the Department of Minerals and Energy has introduced the mining reserve as a hard-hearted bargaining point in the negotiations currently under way between the Queensland government and the traditional Aboriginal owners of Starcke. If they do not agree to this obscene proposal, they may not get other traditional land returned to them as Aboriginal freehold."