Ground support against Coal Seam Gas exploration in the New England is swelling, with a protest last week in Armidale highlighting the plight of our productive agricultural farmland and pristine native habitats.
Armidale Action on Coal Seam Gas, along with members of the community, gathered outside Armidale Library to protest against the NSW Government’s Draft Strategic Land Use Plan which effectively allows for indiscriminate prospecting over five million hectares across the New England for coal seam gas without any community consultation.
Carmel Flint, spokesperson with the Northern Inland Council for the Environment and member of Armidale Action on Coal Seam Gas, has had confirmation from The Department of Industry and Investment that there will be no community consultation and no opportunity for public comment on the extensive Petroleum Special Prospecting Application submitted by the NSW Aboriginal Lands Council for coal seam gas prospecting, that has been lodged across the Northern Tablelands.
“We have been advised by the Department that the application will allow airborne surveys, reconnaissance drilling, rock sampling and geophysical surveys, and may include clearing for access tracks or survey work, but we don’t know what this will mean for the region and if there are partners involved. We really need some information.”
One of the real concerns for protestors is that the prospecting application will be approved before the Draft Strategic Land Use Plan is finalised.
“We are concerned that the prospecting application is preemptive and that the plan that is being discussed today has got so many failings in it. It doesn’t deliver balance, it doesn’t protect our most important farmland and bushland,” said Carmel Flint.
“The NSW Government Draft Strategic Land Use Plan is supposed to sort out the future of our region in terms of what areas can be mined and what areas are off limits but it fails badly in that goal.
“It is a slap in the face to the people of the Northern Tablelands to learn that they have absolutely no opportunity to have their say on this massive gas prospecting application.
“This highlights yet again the dramatic failures of the NSW Government Strategic Land Use Plan, which was supposed to improve community involvement but will instead let a five-million hectare application for coal seam gas prospecting slide through without any input from the public.
Only now are people in the region beginning to learn that Coal Seam Gas Mining is a real threat.
“We all thought we were safe up here and now we are discovering that is not the case,” Ms Flint said.
“People are starting to mobilise and we will see more protests like this.”
Story: Jo Harrison
