Southern Downs residents are urged to attend a public meeting on Wednesday if they are concerned about the potential impacts of mining on our region.The meeting from 7pm to 10pm at the Warwick Town Hall will provide community members with a wonderful opportunity to gain an insight into the impacts to communities from the mining boom presently sweeping Australia and the options open to landholders who wish to protect their properties from mining.
“We have secured a fantastic range of presenters for this event who will provide both scientific research and personal accounts on the issues associated with coal seam gas and mining operations,” Southern Downs Protection Group president Dawn Heath said.
“If anyone is unsure about how these industries may affect them, their neighbours and the wider community, I would highly recommend they come along, listen to our speakers and ask questions before deciding if this is the future they really want to see for the Southern Downs region,” she said.
The cross-section of speakers includes Drew Hutton, president of the Lock the Gate Alliance, an umbrella group for more than 130 community-based groups throughout Australia opposing inappropriate coal and coal seam gas development.
A presentation by Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith will focus on the environmental health footprint of these industries within Australia.
As the senior advisor to the Australian based National Toxics Network (NTN) and a member of the UN Expert Group on Climate Change and Chemicals, Dr Lloyd-Smith is also the co-author of the NTN report on chemical impacts of hydraulic fracturing in Australia.
Cecil Plains grain and cotton farmer and ecologist Ruth Armstrong, who was approached by Arrow Energy in 2010, will provide a landholder’s perspective on mining.
As a past committee member of the Basin Sustainability Alliance, she will highlight the issues that coal seam gas activities presents to agriculture and the rural environment.
Brian Monk, a landholder on a 5200-acre property at Kogan near Tara, will also present on the impacts from the activities of coal seam gas mining and underground coal gasification, which affect his family, his property and his community.
As a law-abiding citizen, Mr Monk had never undertaken any form of activism until, through no choice of his own, this industry and their associated impacts came to him.
The final speaker will be Innes Larkin, the spokesperson for the Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic group. As an outdoor education teacher and now owner of an ecotourism lodge in the Scenic Rim, Innes is passionate about the natural environment and has been involved in growing the movement against coal and coal seam as in his region, culminating in the successful Kerry Blockade in January.
Attendees will have an opportunity to ask all the guest speakers questions at a forum to be held at the end of the evening.
For further information on this event, or on the Southern Downs Protection Group, call 0459 133 132 or 0422 014 668 or email sdpg@live.com.au
