Blog readers are asked to view the Colong Foundation’s leaflet on the proposed expansion of open cut mining near Cullen Bullen. The Colong Foundation is the longest-serving community advocate for wilderness in Australia. Their campaigns have secured over a million hectares of national parks, most of which is wilderness but a further million hectares of threatened forests in NSW need urgent protection. This includes the local Ben Bullen State Forest. Their site provides the information you need to help secure these areas and others across the nation.
The leaflet below was presented to the Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly, by Keith Muir at the recent Coal and Gas Strategy forum held in Lithgow on the 25 February 2011.
The leaflet below was presented to the Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly, by Keith Muir at the recent Coal and Gas Strategy forum held in Lithgow on the 25 February 2011.
Privatisation by stealth – a unique biodiverse and geodiverse public forest is at risk of exclusive occupation and destruction by open cut coal mining
A 1,088 hectare open cut proposed in the Ben Bullen State Forest 20 kilometres north of Lithgow is endangering the fate of the Gardens of Stone Stage 2 reserve proposal. Coalpac’s huge proposal on the western side of the Great Divide Range will come forward for approval this April. It adjoins the Mudgee (Castlereagh) Highway, and would turn an area equivalent in size to 2,176 football fields into a waste rock heap within the Ben Bullen State Forest, which links the north and south parts of the reserve proposal.
Don’t let this public forest ...
be open cut like this...
Reserve Proposal threatened by destructive precedent
The Gardens of Stone is a biodiversity and geodiversity hot spot. While partly reserved as a national park in 1994, the majority of the proposal’s unique pagoda sandstone formations were excluded due to coal mining leases. The underground mining in the Ben Bullen section will be completed in 2014. Environment groups were recently advised that the Ben Bullen/Wolgan State Forests were next in line for reservation. We thought we were getting somewhere! Only a few minor open cut mines had occurred on the western edge of the proposal. Now the huge Coalpac mine threatens to turn the Gardens of Stone into an environmental disaster zone. Open cut coal mining in indifferent country is bad enough, but the destruction of this outstanding natural area is intolerable. In high conservation areas, it’s time to stop destructive proposals, such as this gigantic open cut in a publicly-owned forest!
Stop it NOW! Please Take Action before the State Election. Send an email or write to to Keneally and O’Farrell urging them to reject Coalpac’s proposed open cut, and to gazette instead the Ben Bullen/Wolgan State Forests as a Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area.
* The Hon. Kristina Keneally, Premier of NSW, email: premier@nsw.gov.au mail: Parliament House, Sydney, 2000
* The Hon. Barry O’Farrell, Leader of the Opposition, email: LOP@parliament.nsw.gov.au mail: Parliament House, Sydney, 2000
Join the campaign email: keith@colongwilderness.org.au or go to www.colongwilderness.org.au
Authorised by the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Level 2, 332 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Posted for Guy Sim
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