Environmental News 17.1.15 Part I: NSW - Land of BIG COAL and...nothing else :( HELLO! Big Coal is gobbling up NSW rapidly - they already own some 350,000ha in some of the State’s most productive farming and grazing districts according to a new analysis of the government’s Land and Property Information database by Lock the Gate – and, farmers continue to walk away from their land and stock agents are reporting alarming drops in cattle sale yardings. “We’ve lost so much country, and a lot of it is good country. Most of it is under management by the coal companies.” Said Singleton stock agent, Roger Fuller who added that over one quarter of the prime land country in both Singleton and neighbouring Muswellbrook is now owned by coal companies. Apparently, these companies are forced by law to buy properties that would be significantly impacted by their operations and then they buy extra adjacent land as a buffer against potential conflicts, or to help pave the way for future expansion. Gunnedah, Boggabri and Narrabri have also seen significant land acquisition following development of coal projects and there is now less grazing land on the market – especially the good red basalt country where stock are usually grazed during the winter months. “The biggest impact from coal here is on land values, especially with all the carbon offset country purchased by miners in last five years.” Said Scone stock agent, Jim MacCallum. “They also lease a lot the country back to people in the district, but, when country is leased back to landholders it is never run the same as it was when people owned – little money is spent on it, the land is not maintained at the same level from a weeds and fencing perspective and a lot of country that was owned by four or five families previously is now owned by one company, and they generally only employ one person to manage it all.” Things have gotten so worrying that in September, outgoing chair of NSW independent approvals body, the Planning and Assessment Commission (PAC) Gabrielle Kibble took a departure from convention and gave some unsolicited advice to the government on policy. “The NSW government should undertake some more detailed work or refinements to identify and protect those highly valuable, fertile black soils where mining should be prohibited,” the PAC found. Lock the Gate’s Georgina Woods agreed adding that individual project assessment fails to account for broader regional impacts from coal development. “Coal project approvals in Muswellbrook have been treated on project by project basis by the planning system, where one mine was been considered as a separate entity from a neighbouring mine.” She said. “But at a landscape scale there has been massive change and we are now having to live with that change.” theland.au/news/agriculture/general/news/big-coal-crowds-out-cattle/2721331.aspx?storypage=0
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 21:24:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015