When in 2008 we raced to beat the last of the coal rushes in Queensland, luck came our way as huge greenfield thermal coal projects like ‘China First’ grew to be less financially viable by the day and opening up the Galilee Basin turned out to be a dinosaur’s dream.
We were on the edge of a storm, which turned out to be a fizzer and now that it seems for now to have passed, well, aren’t we lucky!
As people were shocked to hear that a declared Nature Refuge could be mowed down for lumps of coal, donations of time and money came to help our cause.
But what about forests in the way of ‘extensions’ of existing mines such as Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Mine on the NSW Liverpool Plains? The storm is brewing now in Leard Forest, where clearing is about to recommence in the critically endangered White Box woodland. Once the trees are felled, the ecosystems of threatened fauna and plant species it sustains won’t come back. Hundreds were arrested trying to stop that new mine’s initial devastation. Now the battle begins anew.
Having looked carefully into the issue, the Bimblebox Alliance Inc. has decided to offer a donation in support of those who are trying to stop the Leard Forest from being cleared.
And more recently we have also donated to help the Pilliga Protectors to save the extraordinary Pilliga Forest from Santos’ planned industrial gasfield and its threat to the Great Artesian Basin. The Pilliga is the largest and most intact woodland in eastern Australia, an island in the surrounding cleared agricultural land, and an essential recharge area for the GAB. It provides a refuge for glossy-black cockatoos, barking owls, eastern pygmy possums, koalas, red-capped robins, regent honeyeaters, the unique Pilliga mouse and many other woodland fauna species, as well as 900 plant species. Twenty-five nationally listed and 48 state listed threatened species call the Pilliga home. Santos’ gasfield poses serious threats to this beautiful place. The heritage of the Indigenous Gomilaroi people is also at risk, as well as the livelihoods and futures of local farmers. The TBA has made this donation to assist in the prevention of this enormous destruction.
More information on the Pilliga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilliga_forest, https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/coal-seam-gas/santos/stop-coal-seam-gas-threats-to-the-pilliga-forest, https://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/pilliga-forest, http://northernriversguardians.org/?page_id=5192