Save Straddie

NATIONAL PARK NOT MINING

North Stradbroke Island is the only sand island off the South-east coast of Queensland not protected against the environmental devastation of sand mining.

Fraser Island is World Heritage.  Moreton Island is National Park.

There are three mines on North Stradbroke Island, all owned by Unimin Australia Limited, a Belgian owned multi-national company:-

1. Enterprise, also known as ’Devastation South’ which will run out of minerals by 2027 if allowed to continue.  2. Yarraman (Devastation North) which runs out of minerals in 2013. Together, they employ around 200 people mining for zircon, rutile and ilmenite. 3. The third mine, Vance, a silica sand mine (Devastation West) employs only  15 people. Less than half of the mines’  employees live on the Island.

All three mines are continually on the move. Areas in the path of the mines are completely cleared of  vegetation, much of which is burned. Then the sand dunes, many of which formed over hundreds of thousands of years and which consist of complex layers are destroyed in the process of extracting the minerals.

On 20 June, 2010 the Premier, Anna Bligh, announced that her Government would legislate to end mining  and that 80% of the Island would be declared National Park by 2027.

Unfortunately, the Premier’s announcement to ‘end’ mining  is a sham. If her Government simply applied  existing mining laws, mining could be brought to an end by 2013 (at the latest) when  Yarraman  runs out of minerals.

Instead,  her Government  is likely to extend expired Bjelke-Petersen era mining leases to allow mining to continue on Enterprise mine, the largest and most destructive mine that has ever existed on the Island. As a result of  Bligh Government indecision,  Enterprise already has been allowed to operate  on a lease which expired on 31 October, 2007 !

All three Island mines are situated on land which the Premier announced will become National Park by 2027.

The Premier’s announcement means that her Government intends to assist Unimin, a foreign owned company that has shown contempt for our laws, to destroy or damage more of Straddie’s forests, wildlife, ancient dune systems, creeks and other waterbodies – before declaring it National Park !

In May, 2009 the miner told the Australian Securities Exchange that half of the mining jobs will go anyway after Yarraman comes to a close, leaving only around 100 jobs.  Once mining ends, there will still be at least five years work rehabilitating the three mines – filling in the vast 100 metre deep mine hole at Enterprise, decommissioning the sites and revegetating all three mines. The Government is holding in excess of $40 million to help ensure that Unimin carries out its rehabilitation obligations.

If employees did not want to be engaged in rehabilitating  land damaged by mining activities, Unimin has nine other mine sites in Queensland and forty around Australia.

The primary focus needs to be on the future of the Island. Enough damage has been done by mining. Science tells us that in order for the damaged areas to recover to a reasonable standard, it is essential that all remaining original landscape remains intact, to nurture the recovery of the damaged areas. It is therefore time that mining was brought to a speedy end. The idea that you would allow mining in areas that will become National Park is grossly irresponsible and verging on governmental insanity.

1. Save old growth forests, woodlands and other plant communities in the mine paths.
2. Preserve the Island’s remarkable bio-diversity
3. Hydrology – the extensive aquifer must be protected, not put at risk.
4. Protect the unique Island koala
5. We need more National Parks for Greater Brisbane
6. Create an economy based on preservation not destruction
7. Citizens’ rights before miners’ rights
8. Areas being mined are zoned ‘Conservation’ in the Planning Scheme
9. The Global Context
10. It’s Stradbroke’s Turn

On 4 December, 2009, Unimin Australia Limited, which now owns and controls CRL and  all mining operations on the Island, was charged with two criminal offences relating to illegal sand mining on the Island since 2001, the year it commenced mining on the Island. In June an additional criminal charge was added. There is a hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 7 September, 2010.

The criminal charges followed a lengthy investigation by the now defunct Environmental Protection Authority ( EPA )  and a decision by the Supreme Court on 30 November ( Unimin Australia Limited v State of Queensland 9409/09 ) which rejected Unimin’s legal arguments aimed at legitimizing its past actions and allowing it to continue to sell Island sand to the building construction industry.  The criminal charges involve Unimin’s unlawful removal, over the past decade, of substantial quantities of non-mineral sand and its sale to the landscape and construction industries in Brisbane and beyond. In the Supreme Court case, Unimin admitted selling the sand but claimed it was authorised to do so under mining law. The Judge rejected the claim. Unimin appealed but on 2 July, 2010 the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. The Court found that the sale of the sand was unlawful, irrespective of whether some royalties had been paid. The Court further found that the opinion of a public servant that the sales were lawful because the sand was a mineral was both wrong and irrelevant to the Court’s findings.

After the initial hearing of the case on 25 September, 2009, it came to light that the Judge was not made aware of a disturbing feature of the case put forward by Unimin. It had informed the Court that the Redland City Council approved of its business of selling this sand for landscaping and building work. This was untrue. Unimin knew this. It had in fact been told by the Council that the proposed sale of this sand was an inconsistent use in a ‘conservation zone’ under the Redlands Planning Scheme and that if it lodged an application for approval of such a proposal, it would be ‘impact assessable’. It was given a list of issues that would have to be addressed in any application. Unimin concealed all of this from the Court. Unimin also failed to inform the Judge that the Council had unanimously rejected an application by a Unimin subsidiary to remove sand from other mining leases on the Island and sell it on the mainland for building construction purposes.

Unimin’s actions in misleading a Supreme Court Judge should be sufficient for the Government to refuse all applications for renewal of expired mining leases on the Island and to cancel unexpired leases. The company has shown it is not a fit and proper corporation to be trusted to carry out mining on the Island – all mining leases are situated in Conservation zones under the Redlands Planning Scheme, approved by the State Government in 2006. There are about 20 expired or soon to be expired Island mining leases and all un-expired leases are held either by Unimin or subsidiary companies owned and controlled by Unimin. The leases take up more than half of the Island and the public is excluded under threat of prosecution for trespass.

See the Courier Mail article in the media clippings section for more information about the criminal charges.

We are pleased to have the support and involvement of leading Queensland environmental groups in our campaign to bring an end to sand mining and for most of the Island to be declared National Park. A big thanks to the following organisations who have distributed the e-blast to their members, spread the word about the on-going destruction of North Stradbroke Island via their websites and newsletters and alerted the media to the loss of precious green space-

• Friends of Stradbroke Island (FOSI)
• Queensland Conservation Council (QCC)
• Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (WPSQ)
• Fraser Island Defenders Organisation (FIDO)
• Moreton Island Protection Committee (MIPC)
• Community Alliance for Responsible Planning (CARP) Redlands.

These groups have urged their members to send the e-blast to the Premier and to forward it to their friends, family and contacts so they can do the same. This will encourage the Government “to do the right thing”. 

We have also received support for our advertising campaign messages  (eg see ‘newspaper clips’) from these leading environmental organisations, whom we thank-

• Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS)
• The Wilderness Society (Queensland)
• Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)

If you are a member of an environmental or like organisation we would welcome your support and involvement in this ‘think globally, act locally’ campaign.