Maules Creek coal mine protests, down under

No “Coal for Christmas” as Whitehaven Coal Disruptions Continue in New South Wales

from Front­line Action

MAULES CREEK, 24 Decem­ber 2014: A man has sus­pend­ed him­self from a rail bridge cross­ing the Namoi Riv­er block­ing a coal train being loaded at White­haven Coal’s con­tro­ver­sial Maules Creek mine from leav­ing the site. The train blocked at the Maules Creek mine is believed to be the first con­tain­ment of coal from the site after a test train – twice dis­rupt­ed by activists – left the site last week. The rail bridge also ser­vices Idemit­su Resource’s Bog­gabri Coal mine.

Ben Soli­ty, a 31 year old logis­tics con­sul­tant, cit­ed deep con­cerns about the impact the mine will have on water and the cli­mate, say­ing, “Farm­ers need water to con­tin­ue to put food on our tables – so why are com­pa­nies like White­haven allowed to take it with pref­er­ence over farm­ers? Farmer’s jobs are only going to get hard­er for them as the effects of cli­mate change dri­ven by coal takes hold. Why are our gov­ern­ments sell­ing out our water and our cli­mate for a quick buck when food secu­ri­ty is at stake?”

Leard For­est Alliance spokesper­son Phil Evans said, “Aus­tralians do not want coal for Christ­mas – and White­haven are try­ing to sneak it into their stock­ings whilst every­one is dis­tract­ed. Just more slimy behav­iour from this dis­graced com­pa­ny – and project – that has seen Aus­tralians lose faith in min­ing approval process­es in this coun­try.”

 

“We need a stop to this farce imme­di­ate­ly – stop work and then have a good long, hard look at how suc­ces­sive NSW gov­ern­ments, embroiled in min­ing relat­ed cor­rup­tion, have allowed the Maules Creek mine approval to stick.”

Both White­haven Coal’s Maules Creek and Idemitsu’s Bogggabri mines have approval to expand into the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered Leard State For­est this Feb­ru­ary – spark­ing this warn­ing from the protest group.

“They have a bat­tle on their hands if they think local farm­ers, tra­di­tion­al cus­to­di­ans and con­cerned cit­i­zens are going to allow this whole­sale destruc­tion. The for­est, water, cli­mate and cul­ture are all too pre­cious to lose – and we won’t take this lying down.”

The Leard For­est Alliance is a group made up of local farm­ers, promi­nent envi­ron­men­tal groups with a treaty of pro­tec­tion with the Gomeroi tra­di­tion­al cus­to­di­ans of  the area. Over 300 peo­ple have been arrest­ed since the cam­paign began over 2 and half years ago.

UPDATE 09:00: Reg­u­lar police have arrived – no Police Resuce yet. Ben remains in place.

UPDATE 14:30: Ben has just unfurled a ban­ner read­ing “White­haven Coal – No Water – No Future”

UPDATE 16:15: Police Res­cue have arrived on site.

UPDATE 16:35: Police Res­cue are try­ing to get to Ben with a Cher­ry Pick­er sup­plied by White­haven Coal.

UPDATE 17:00: Ben says Police Res­cue are tak­ing apart the bridge to get to him!

UPDATE 18:30: Police Res­cue have begun to cut off the now locked on Ben.

UPDATE 19:30: Ben has been arrest­ed and tak­en to Narrabri Police Sta­tion after 13 hours.

Fur­ther Infor­ma­tion:
Phil Evans, Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son, 0490 064 139

Twit­ter updates @FLACCoal and #Leard­Block­ade

 

Decem­ber 16th, 2014

Protest Halts First Coal Train from Maules Creek Mine

from Front Line Action on Coal

New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia 15 Decem­ber: A peace­ful block­ade has halt­ed the first train load of coal com­ing from the con­tro­ver­sial Maules Creek coal mine on its way to Newcastle’s Koor­a­gang Island coal export ter­mi­nals this morn­ing.

A group of 22 peo­ple met the train this morn­ing. Eight peo­ple have occu­pied and stopped the train and are refus­ing to leave.

The train was stopped dur­ing the night and delayed for over 6 hours by a pro­tes­tor who locked onto loco­mo­tives need­ed to push the coal over the Great Divid­ing Range. The 58 year-old pro­tes­tor, Bruce, from North­ern Rivers, has been arrest­ed. Speak­ing about why he took action, Bruce said:

“Australia’s response to cli­mate change is head­ed com­plete­ly back­wards. “If we can stop this new coal mine we set a prece­dent for the rest of Aus­tralia to stand up.”

Jonathan Moy­lan from Front­line Action on Coal said, “Over the last twelve months, hun­dreds of peo­ple have been arrest­ed slow­ing down con­struc­tion of the Maules Creek mine. The fate of our coun­try, and peo­ple every­where, depends on coal being left in the ground. In the absence of lead­er­ship from the indus­try or the Gov­ern­ment to shut down coal exports and pre­vent dan­ger­ous cli­mate change, ordi­nary peo­ple have tak­en extra­or­di­nary action to stop this mine.

“A grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple are stand­ing up to the coal industry’s plans to ship increas­ing vol­umes of coal and fuel dan­ger­ous cli­mate change. Doc­tors, peo­ple of faith, IPCC sci­en­tists and ear­li­er this month, for­mer Wal­la­bies cap­tain David Pocock, have all tak­en action to halt con­struc­tion at Maules Creek. Even Mal­colm Fras­er last week tweet­ed about Maules Creek, refer­ring to the coal sec­tor as an ‘indus­try of a past age’.

Local New­cas­tle moth­er, Vanes­sa Wieb­ford said, “I want my daugh­ter to have a future with­out the hor­ror of extreme heat and fire, and uncer­tain water and food pro­duc­tion. I am bit­ter­ly dis­ap­point­ed in Australia’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship and their unthink­ing sup­port for expand­ed coal exports at a time when we’re already see­ing alarm­ing signs of dan­ger­ous cli­mate change.

“If they’re not going to act to pre­vent this, then all par­ents have a duty to risk arrest to try and stop it our­selves.

2014 is now expect­ed to break the record as the hottest year in Australia’s his­to­ry. Heat­wave con­di­tions were observed in many parts of the coun­try dur­ing our hottest spring on record this year, and the Bureau of Mete­o­rol­o­gy is pre­dict­ing a return to El Nino con­di­tions at a time when much of Queens­land and parts of New South Wales are already drought declared.

The burn­ing of coal export­ed from Aus­tralia is this country’s biggest sin­gle con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, and pro­duc­tion and export of coal increased in the last 12 months.

“With the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Lima fail­ing to deliv­er the scale of action need­ed, peo­ple around the world will next year have to take their future into their own hands like nev­er before. Ordi­nary peo­ple are step­ping up to do what it takes to stop the fos­sil fuel industry’s dan­ger­ous expan­sion plans,” said Moy­lan.

UPDATE 6:00 am: Coal train is stopped.

UPDATE 8:15 am: The five activists have been low­er from atop the coal wag­on by police.

UPDATE 9:00am: The coal train starts mov­ing again after 3 hours at a stand still.

UPDATE 12:30pm: Four activists released after being processed at Waratah police sta­tion.

Media Enquiries

• On the ground:  Jonathan Moy­lan: 0431 289 766    |    Vanes­sa Wieb­ford: 0409 021 976
• Off-site: Char­lie Wood: 0427 485 233
• Pho­tos Avail­able at: http://bit.ly/13nps8U