SLA’s next Thursday Forum, with voluntary conservationist Carmel Flint, will look at how coal and gas developments are transforming our rural landscapes into industrial zones, and how we can use the beauty and joy we find in places under threat, like the Pilliga Forest, to help defend them.
The Forum will follow the SLA AGM at 7pm
CARVING UP THE BUSH
The Pilliga Forest and the Leard Forest are two incredible patches of public bushland near Narrabri in north-western NSW.
Carmel Flint, who has been working on forestry and mining issues since 1995, will describe the unique and beautiful value of our bushland remnants, the creatures which inhabit them, and the threats they are currently facing.
The Pilliga Forest is the largest temperate woodland in eastern Australia and is the southern recharge area for the Great Artesian Basin. In spring, it bursts into bloom and puts on an extraordinary wildflower display. It is a mighty refuge for biodiversity.
Leard Forest is the largest patch of vegetation left on the heavily cleared Liverpool Plains, and is located in beautiful country just to the south of Mt Kaputar. It contains one of the largest and most intact patches of critically endangered Box-Gum woodland left in Australia.
These two unique public assets, and the farmlands surrounding them, are now threatened by mega-coal and coal seam gas developments.
In the Pilliga, Eastern Star Gas is currently proposing to drill 1,100 coal seam gas wells across an area of 85,000 hectares, to clear at least 2,400 hectares of bushland and to construct 1,000km of pipelineto export gas from the port of Newcastle. This is the biggest coal seam gas proposal ever put forward in NSW. It will be the first ever LNG export facility from this state.
Four huge open-cut coal mines are proposed for the Leard Forest. The mines are expected to clear at least 5,500 hectares of native bush, including large areas of Box Gum woodland.
SLA hopes that Carmel’s presentation will encourage people to get more engaged with our beautiful bushland, and to use the joy that we find in nature to inspire us to protect it from proposals like these.
The SLA Thursday Forum is on 7 July at Kent House, 141 Faulkner Street, opposite Central Park, after a short AGM at 7pm. All welcome, light refreshments to follow, gold coin donation appreciated.
