Queensland Coastal Wetlands Up For Sale

Similar to the recent Greenpeace gathering in the Whitsunday’s, last night’s gathering of a group of Bowen residents heard that under the Bligh government, heavy industry was invading the coastal wetlands of Qld in direct contravention to international treaties and federal government plans to protect the Great Barrier Reef.

“Anna Bligh is an environmental vandal,” said Jenny Stirling Qld spokesperson for the Greens. “She is responsible for overseeing the wholesale destruction of sensitive Qld coastal wetlands by making them available as sites for heavy industrial projects such as QERL Shale Oil and the Chinese Aluminium Corporation (Chalco) in the Whitsundays.”

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In early 2008, the intergovernmental treaty on wetlands, the Ramsar Convention, launched the ‘Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People’ campaign. The Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

“At the same time the Rudd government pledged $225 million towards ensuring the quality of the water that flowed onto the Reef. Yet here we have Anna Bligh’s government trading the rich and irreplaceable bio-diversity of our wetlands for dirty, toxic industries that will undermine the health and well being of nearby communities”, Maria Macdonald, community spokesperson from Bowen.

“If the previous experience of the failed Stuart Shale Oil is any guide, the 20 times larger shale oil project in the Whitsunday’s promises to be an environmentally unsustainable, economically irresponsible project that will require huge government subsidies while destroying nationally significant Goorganga wetlands.  Similarly, Chalco will poison the beautiful Keela Valley which has formally met the criteria for Ramsar listing” Mrs Macdonald said..

Summing up the feeling at the Bowen meeting, Jenny Stirling said: “Anna Bligh is a fraud when it comes to protecting the environment and people’s health: she waffles on  about saving cuddly koalas but then oversees these sorts of developments. It’s all green wash”

For further details, please contact: Jenny Stirling (04 170 123 11)

Maria Macdonald ( 07 47866110)