North Queensland Conservation Council

The bush. There’s nothing more Australian than that. It is a part of our heritage and our soul. But even the bush is not sacrosanct when it comes to human activity. The push for clearing for development, agriculture and resource extraction does nothing but increase in pressure as population and demands for yet more extravagant life-styles grow. Hard-fought-for laws, designed to protect our precious vegetation and the extraordinary biodiversity that it supports, are being whittled away.

NQCC is committed to working with others throughout Queensland and Australia to protect our vegetation. That said, during the last year or two most of our energy has gone into working on issues associated with coal mining and export, particularly the proposed Adani mine in the Galilee Basin and its associated Abbot Point port expansion.

Click on this link for all our posts relating to Vegetation Management and here to check our archive for older posts, or visit our links page for groups in our region whose primary focus is vegetation management.

Despite the massive weight of scientific evidence showing that our addiction to fossil fuels, by increasing carbon emissions, is exacerbating climate change and threatening the survival of our planet as we know it, we keep on producing and consuming more and more of the stuff!

And in north Queensland we not only consume more and more of it, we help others to develop and feed the habit. North Queensland has the shaming 'honour' of being the world's largest coal exporting region. (Australia is not the world's biggest producer but is one of the largest exporters and, as of 2009, Hay Point, Abbot Point and Gladstone between them were already shipping nearly 60% of the total.) Over the last decade, perhaps in a desperate rush to make as much money as possible before the world wakes up to alternative (clean) energy, mining companies vastly increased the rate of exploitation.

At the same time, Queensland's farms and towns are facing the onslaught of the race to exploit coal seam gas regardless of its known dangers. Fortunately, CSG is not a big industry in our region, while the February 2016 decision by AGL (a major CSG producer 'down south') to pull out of CSG and coal fired power stations is a huge win for the conservation movement.

The continuing fall in the price of coal (as of February 2016, forecast to stay at around $43/tonne through until 2020) is leading to slow- and shutdowns in this industry worldwide as reported in the SMH. Nevertheless, the push to stop extraction and use of fossil fuels cannot afford to slacken off and NQCC continues to campaign strongly to this end. Click here for our most recent posts relating to Coal and Coal Seam Gas, and visit the separate Abbot Point Update page for details of NQCC's legal action against the coal terminal from June 2014 onwards. There are a few more blog posts on the topic in our archive, at this link.

The Burdekin Dry Tropics Natural Resource Management (NRM) Plan was officially launched on 26th August. It is the only one of its kind in the region and forms the blueprint for how the community can work together to protect and sustainably manage our natural resources for the next 10 years. Read the Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM Plan here.