Environment

Communities throughout NSW are battling an expanding coal seam gas (CSG) industry and new government guidelines that allow coal and CSG mining in most of the state.

Independent filmmaker and anti-fracking activist Zeb Parkes has been fined $500 by the City of Perth for taking part in a rally against gas fracking on April 21. Parkes intends to defend the matter in court rather than pay the fines.

The Wilderness Society released the statement below on April 27. * * * Koalas must be included on the national threatened species list as part of Environment Minister Tony Burke’s 30 April announcement, especially in NSW’s Gunnedah region and the Pilliga Forest where they face the additional threat of expanding coal mining and coal seam gas operations, according to the Wilderness Society.

The Student Environment Action Collective (SEAC) of the University of Sydney hosted a public forum titled “Our Water, Our Land, Our Future” on April 19. The forum discussed the effects of coal seam gas (CSG) mining and the campaign against it in Sydney and NSW. Speakers included the NSW Farmers’ Federation’s Brianna Casey and Charles Thomas, along with Jacinta Green of Stop CSG Sydney.

If you are thinking of challenging a mining development in the courts, be prepared to go through the financial wringer. You might think you have an open-and-shut case, that the federal government has shirked its responsibilities under environmental legislation. But if the finding goes against you, the government and the mining industry will see you bankrupt.

Environmentalists seem to realise that they have some stake in a fight such as the Ecuador-Chevron lawsuit. That case, which Chevron has recently moved to an international arbitration panel to try to avoid a multibillion-dollar penalty handed down by Ecuadorian courts, is about whether a multinational oil corporation will have to pay damages for pollution, for which it is responsible. Most environmentalists figure that would be a good thing.

No Fracking WAy held its first rally against fracking and unconventional gas extraction in the state on April 21. The demand was for a moratorium on unconventional gas until it could be proven safe for human health and the environment.

Right now, there is an opportunity to slash Australia’s carbon emissions by 5 million tonnes a year in one stroke. The city of Port Augusta in South Australia has all the right conditions to make it Australia’s first baseload renewable energy hub. The two coal-fired power stations at Port Augusta are getting old. Industry experts say they may be forced to close as soon as 2015.

One of the big challenges facing Cuba as it designs climate change adaptation policies is the preservation of its coastal ecosystems against the predicted rise in sea level and increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events. With the country’s 5500 kilometre of coastline and 4000 cays and islets, almost everyone on the Cuban archipelago feels their life is tied to the sea in one way or another. “It’s lovely, but it is also dangerous,” said 78-year-old Teresa Marcial, who lives on the coast in Santa Fe, in the northern outskirts of Havana.

Campaigners against the mining companies’ push to open up the Kimberley region in WA to vast gas and mineral exploitation told a public meeting on April 19 that this was the “Franklin Dam campaign of our time”. The forum “Saving the Kimberley: Our Land or Gasland?” was organised by Stop Coal Seam Gas, Sydney.

The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) has demanded that BHP Billiton surrender its lease on the Norwich Park coalmine, near Dysart in Central Queensland. The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) combine announced early this month that it would shut down the mine because it was allegedly losing money. BMA has laid partial blame on the long-running industrial dispute with mineworkers in Queensland for losses at Norwich Park and other mines in the state.

Hundreds of committed citizens of Keerrong and The Channon form a human map of our roads and creeks. The legal system and governments have failed us. Now we're taking a stand. We won't let gas miners contaminate our water, air and land with toxic chemicals.