Thousands of people from communities around the state rallied in Sydney’s CBD on Saturday, March 24th, calling on the NSW Government to prioritise clean water, air and land over coal and gas projects, and to repower NSW with renewable energy to tackle climate change.
The #Time2Choose march was led by First Nations people and followed by horseback riders, connected through Farmers For Climate Action, knitting nannas, quite a few people from Pittwater, Doctors for the Environment Australia, as well as champions for our environment.
Glen Morris, the Inverell farmer who rode his horse across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2016 to protest against new legislation to increase vegetation clearing came to town again, this time bringing his mates.
"We need vegetation on farms to protect healthy soils and rivers, and yet the State Government plans to allow important native vegetation to be cleared more easily," Mr Morris said in a statement in 2016.
The legalisation featured last week when it was found the Land and Environment Court ruled the NSW Government’s land-clearing laws invalid because they were made unlawfully. The Nature Conservation Council, represented by public interest environmental lawyers EDO NSW, launched legal challenge against the government’s land-clearing codes last November.
NCC had argued through its barristers Jeremy Kirk SC and David Hume the codes were invalid because the Primary Industries Minister failed to obtain concurrence of the Environment Minister before making the codes, as is required by law.
The reintroduction of the land-clearing laws that the Land and Environment Court ruled invalid on Friday, the 9th of March were later that same day passed by the government again. The pushing of the same legislation through a second time, within hours, was cited as a missed opportunity to redress what even farmers have stated they do not want and has already led to massive illegal clearing.
“By waving these laws through a second time without even pausing to consider the consequences, Premier Berejiklian has gone against the wishes of voters and the advice of leading scientists,” NCC CEO Kate Smolski said on March 10th.
“Ms Berejiklian has also squandered an opportunity to give the state’s 1000 threatened species a fighting chance of survival.
“The government’s own experts have warned 99% of koala habit on private land is left exposed to clearing by these laws and that there would be a spike in tree loss of up to 45%.
“There is devastation because of climate change all across NSW,” Mr Morris said yesterday. “We can’t afford to destroy any more healthy land.”
It’s not just the permission to bulldoze what’s left of habitat for the state’s 1000 threatened species.
Organisers of the Time2Choose rally pointed to the proposed CSG mining in Narribri, the Southern Highlands Hume Coal project, and Shenhua Mining’s attempts in the Liverpool plains as among the threats to the state’s environment and communities.
Add to those the latest super-pit in the Hunter Valley, United Wambo, currently being reviewed by the Independent Planning Commission (IPC), with a report on the Commission’s findings expected at the end of March. The mine will clear a large area of a nationally critically endangered forest that exists only in the Hunter. The IPC may also make a decision mid-year on Korean company KEPCO’s proposed open cut coal mining in the Bylong Valley, a beautiful and secluded part of the Hunter which has never before been mined. The mine will also cause 10 metres drawdown in the productive Bylong alluvial aquifer, putting its viability at risk along with the farms it supports.
A Land and Environment court decision is pending in the case Wollar Progress Association brought against Peabody’s Wilpinjong mine extension in the upper reaches of the Hunter.
A Current Caricature - Photo by a Pittwaterian
Pittwater Online News is Published Every Sunday Morning: 8 a.m.
