Press release – 29 May, 201430 May, 2014 Sydney/Maules Creek: Greenpeace has today intervened to stop Whitehaven Coal controversially razing Leard State Forest. This afternoon at 13.00, a number of activists entered the threatened forest and headed into the canopy to halt the bulldozers in their tracks.“Just two weeks ago, the Baird State Government allowed Whitehaven Coal to change its plans and destroy this precious forest while the animals are totally vulnerable during hibernation,” said Greenpeace Campaigner Nic Clyde. “Minister Stokes has already expressed his frustration at Whitehaven and it’s clear that company’s new management plan is an extraordinary work of fiction, suggesting among other things, that bulldozers should ‘gently’ push trees over in order to protect wildlife. In reality, the government has issued Whitehaven a license to kill animals in their sleep.”
Greenpeace is joining calls from NSW Labor and the Greens on newly installed NSW Environment and Planning Ministers – Rob Stokes and Pru Goward – to immediately stop the winter slaughter in the Leard State Forest.
Whitehaven’s now defunct first Biodiversity Management Plan stated that “clearing of areas for mining will be undertaken predominantly late summer and early autumn periods in order to avoid key breeding/hibernation seasons for threatened bat and bird species known to reside in the Leard State Forest.”
Whitehaven’s new Biodiversity Plan has been described by ecologist Phil Spark as a fairy tale that “will end as a nightmare for the forest community.”
“There is a huge question about how this mine came to be approved in the first place given that in 2011, the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet described the Leard State Forest as “irreplaceable”, with “ecologically unique values” ,” said Clyde. “Unless the Government acts now, within days, the forest will be gone forever.
NSW Minister for Planning, Pru Goward, has authority delegated to her to revise Whitehaven’s Biodiversity Management Plan for the Maules Creek coal mining development. This allows her to prohibit the winter clearing of habitat for threatened species in the Leard State Forest.
Greenpeace demands that the same conditions that apply to neighbouring coal mines, apply to the Maules Creek Project – i.e., no clearing of native vegetation outside of late summer and early autumn, in order to avoid key breeding/hibernation seasons for threatened species in the Leard State Forest.
Contact:
Elsa Evers 0438 204 041 or Jessa Latona 0488 208 465
Images and video:
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Additional images from the Leard Alliance can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/leardstateforest/