On Saturday 25 March 2023 are you voting for the Clarence River system and the towns, villages and businesses which depend on its waters? Here are some of the community groups & candidates who think you should

 

Nymboida River, one of the twenty-four tributaries of the Clarence River and the principal source of drinking water for most residents in Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour City local government areas. IMAGE: Arden E, YouTube 2015

The Clarence Valley’s rich biodiverse landscapes have nurtured and supported generations beyond count and down the years communities — as well as the grass roots organisations they support — across the Clarence River Catchment have worked hard to protect that which gives them life and livelihoods.

Because in places such as the Clarence Valley with its variable river systems; the aesthetic, environmental, social, cultural and economic values of its communities are intertwined. Healthy rivers, clear running creeks, intact temperate & subtropical close & open forests along with ancient remnants of the Gondwanaland forests, arable soils found in smaller valleys and the larger floodplain, as well as a long coastal zone providing tourism opportunities, all combine to provide a population of est. 54,180 men, women and children living in the catchment area with a solid local economy which keeps the local government area vibrant and its over 4,000 businesses productive. Businesses whose products and services make up est. 17 per cent of the wider Northern Rivers regional economy. [Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021, idcommunity 2021]

Make no mistake. The Clarence Valley relies on the fact that its air is fresh, free-flowing waters clean, main primary industries sustainable and its landscapes pleasing to the eye of tourists. For without those four things the Clarence Valley regional economy would not be worth anything like the over $2 billion it is consistently valued at despite the ongoing pressures of war in Ukraine and global pandemic [National Institute of Economic and Industry Research 2021].

It is also not just Clarence Valley residents that rely on good stewardship being applied to land and waters within the Clarence catchment area. An est. 78,738 people and 6,174 businesses in Coffs Harbour City local government area rely on the urban water infrastructure within Clarence Valley local government area to supply them with town water.

However, constantly growing population pressure and the commercial interests of often large-scale and/or state-sponsored industries (particularly construction, mining & forestry) has seen Clarence catchment landscapes being altered in ways that are becoming destructive.

Forestry now covers 20 per cent of Clarence River Catchment land and by 2022 there were a total of 18 existing mineral and gold mining leases, along with more than 41 mining exploration leases, in the catchment area. [NSW Government, Industry NSW, 2022] It should be noted that mining leases are on the traditional lands of three First Nations peoples.

Under threat are the streams, creeks and rivers which feed the longest coastal river on the Australian east coast, the Clarence River. Also under threat are the remaining tracts of native forest, as well as the tree cover on the Clarence Catchment’s steep hills which help anchor rock and soil to the hillsides and prevent it sliding down and choking the waterways that weave their way among them.

Since the 1990s there have been a number of government contracted reports concerning the Clarence Basin and its waterways. All have highlighted concerns still held today and largely unaddressed – the risks that mining activity, large scale forestry, soil erosion and water turbidity pose to the environment and waterways of the Clarence Basin.

Right now in March 2023 Clarence electorate residents have the opportunity to make their voices heard when they cast their votes this coming Saturday at the NSW State Election.

On Friday morning 17 March 2023 the Clarence Catchment Alliance (CCA) — a non-partisan, not-for-profit, community volunteer group established in 2018 as a response to increased mining exploration activity — held a press conference close to Whiting Beach, Yamba.

Clarence Catchment Alliance had invited members of the media, sitting MPs, candidates standing at next week’s state election, representatives from other community & business groups, as well as members of the public as observers, to this event.

The purpose of the press conference was to draw attention to the growing alarm about mineral extraction projects within the Clarence River catchment and any expansion of this activity across its 24 sub-catchments.

The event began with a Welcome to Country by Yaegl emerging elder Diane Randall, the press conference taking place on traditional Yaegl lands.

It was followed by an introduction from Shae Fleming one of the CCA organisers and then went onto comments by various speakers from other groups including the Clarence Environment Centre and the Yamba District Chamber of Commerce. Brief presentations were made by candidates standing in the Clarence electorate as well as candidates standing in Coffs Harbour and Lismore electorates. There was a general consensus that the waters of the Clarence River catchment area needed to be protected.

Unfortunately the Nationals candidate for Clarence, Richie Williamson, did not attend. However, given the strong pro-mining, pro-barely regulated land clearing, pro-native timber harvesting and pro-state and private forestry policies and practices of the Nationals as partner in successive NSW Coalition governments, that is hardly surprising.

What was surprising was the rider added by the Labor candidate for Clarence to his general support of protecting the Clarence catchment area. Leon Ankersmit stated that the Labor Party would not allow him to sign the CCA pledge of support as the party was in favour of mining in Northern New South Wales.

The following is a brief summary of concerns articulated by some of those that spoke at the press conference, in no particular order.

JOHN EDWARDS (Clarence Environment Centre): It’s not coal or iron that worries me – it’s heavy metal mining. Ore get trucked from mine sites but processing minerals begins at the mine. The evaporation ponds produce a toxic sludge which permanently contaminates the soil and remediation is merely covering that soil with more soil. Leaving a time bomb behind when the mining company leaves. (Signed the CCA pledge)

SUE HIGGINSON (Greens MLA): The community here worked hard to shut down the Timbarra Gold Mine after it leaked cyanide into the Clarence River. However mining leases are still being granted in river catchments. Local seafood, dairy, sugar cane, livestock, crops, and tourism, and the industries that serve them, need clean water. (Signed the CCA pledge)

SHAE FLEMING (Clarence Coastal Alliance): We already have healthy water based industries here. They need protecting. (Signed the CCA pledge)

JAMES ALLAN (current President, Yamba Chamber of Commerce): Degradation of our waterways leads to degradation of our businesses. I support No Mines in the Clarence catchment. There are few jobs in mining. Re-opening the Drake mine would only create fifty jobs. (Signed the CCA pledge)

BRETT DUROUX (Indigenous Australia Party candidate for Clarence): I grew up in Cangai, raised in the old ways. The bush is a place of beauty and healing for so many people. Miners needs are not as important as our needs. My response to proposals to mine in the Clarence Valley is “NEVER!” (Signed the CCA pledge)

NICKI LEVI (Independent candidate for Clarence): Water is sacred, water is precious, water is life. Our priorities should be to protect the air in the Richmond Valley and water in the Clarence Valley. (Signed the CCA pledge)

DEBRA NOVAK (Independent candidate for Clarence & current Clarence Valley councillor): If elected I pledge to lobby hard for a moratorium on mineral mining just as we successfully did with coal seam gas mining. Nothing is more important than protecting the water. (Signed the CCA pledge)

GREG CLANCY (Greens candidate for Clarence & current Clarence Valley Council Deputy-Mayor): I have been protesting against threats to the rivers for a long time. Mining in this wonderful environment is “not on”. Parts of the Mann River are already dead zones because of previous mining ventures. (Signed the CCA pledge)

LEON ANKERSMIT (Labor candidate for Clarence): I’m proud of the sustainable industries that rely on a healthy river like prawning and fishing. Our land is precious and its such an important job to protect our river. (Refused to sign CCA pledge)

MARK RAYNOR (Legalise Cannabis Party candidate for Clarence): We need to find new industries and new crops not start new mines. (Signed the CCA pledge)

TIM NOTT (Greens candidate for Coffs Harbour): Mining is being done the wrong way - mining near waterways produces industrial level pollution. (Signed the CCA pledge)

ALISON WATERS (Animal Justice Party candidate for NSW Upper House representing Northern NSW): They are our waterways and our catchments. We need to protect them. (Signed the CCA pledge)

VANESSA ROSAYRO (Animal Justice Party candidate for Lismore): Mining just doesn’t affect our lives. It affects marine and plant life and the lives of local animals. (Signed the CCA pledge)

Background

NSW Perrottet Government in full election mode 9 months out from the state election and its hypocrisy is showing beneath a cloak of environmental concern

ARR News, 20 June 2022:

Australian Rural & Regional News has asked a few questions for the Ministers, set out below the release.

Matt Kean, NSW Treasurer, Minister for Energy (NSW), James Griffin, Minister for Environment and Heritage (NSW), Dugald Saunders, Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Western New South Wales (NSW), Joint Media Release, 19 June 2022

Farmers around the State will be supported to adopt additional sustainable practices through a groundbreaking $206 million program delivered in the NSW Budget.

Treasurer Matt Kean said this landmark investment will reward farmers who voluntarily reduce their carbon emissions and protect biodiversity.

“This is great news for farmers and the environment. This funding will help improve biodiversity and lower emissions across NSW, and our farmers will receive tangible benefits for sustainable land management practices,” Mr Kean said.

Mr Kean said NSW has an early mover advantage to secure a leading position in the emerging global marketplace for low carbon food and fibre from producers who are also improving our biodiversity.

“This new era of natural capital could unlock up to $10 billion of ‘Environment, Social and Governance’ financing in Australia,” Mr Kean said.

“Natural capital will reduce farmers’ risks from climate change and biodiversity loss while improving long-term farm productivity.”

Minister for Environment James Griffin said the Sustainable Farming Program will help to shore up the long-term health of the environment and the agricultural sector.

“This $206 million new program is completely voluntary. We’re proposing to develop an accreditation scheme for farmers who manage their land for biodiversity and carbon, while enhancing their productivity,” Mr Griffin said.

“Just as we know what the Forestry Stewardship Council certification system represents, this is about developing an easily recognisable accreditation for sustainable farms.

“We know that investors and consumers are increasingly looking for sustainably produced products, and this program will support our producers to meet that demand.”

Many farmers are already undertaking sustainable practices as part of their day to day operations and this program represents an opportunity for diversified income, with the program offering farmers payments to secure and maintain accreditation.

In turn, the accreditation has potential to increase their market access globally, helping farmers sell their products at a premium and access emerging environmental markets. The accreditation will not impact existing accreditation schemes such as those used to access the European beef markets.

Accreditation could be achieved by actions such as restoring habitat, fencing for dam and riparian areas, rotating crops, and using best-practice feed and fertiliser practices.

Minister for Agriculture and Western NSW Dugald Saunders said the program will be developed in close consultation with farmers and landowners.

“The NSW Government will work with farmers and landholders on options to tap into the emerging natural capital market,” Mr Saunders said.

“Farmers in NSW are already natural capital specialists and should be rewarded for the productive and environmental outcomes they generate.

“This announcement will give farmers and other landholders more options to diversify their income while maintaining ultimate decision making power on how to sustainably and productively manage their property.”

Farmers will receive a payment for reaching milestones on agreed sustainable practices under an accreditation framework.

The accreditation program will be developed in consultation with stakeholders, and complements existing private land conservation programs offered by the NSW Government.

Learn more: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/sustainable-farming

Questions

Australian Rural & Regional News asked a few questions of the Ministers. Their response will be included here once received.

1. When do you expect the programme to actually start?

2. Who will be the 'stakeholders' to be consulted in regard to the accreditation process?

3. Have there been any community meetings in rural & regional communities to discuss this programme? If not, are they planned as part of the consultation process?

A question not yet being asked is 'How does this media release fit with a Perrottet Government farm forestry policy which encourages farmers to log native timber stands on their land for additional income and to support the dying timber industry, thereby further threatening extinction of the NSW Koala population by 2050?'

With less than 50 per cent of native forests on private land in Northern NSW and a deliberately weakened private native forestry code, that’s a clear threat to what biodiversity and undisturbed habitat remains on local farmland.

And for what? For a very few years worth of construction timber, power poles, flooring, furniture and firewood.

Australian Federal Election 2022: second-rate performance artist grabs a koala to cuddle.....

 

This is the image of a former child actor who became Australian Prime Minister, Scott John Morrison. Right now Scott wants Australian voters to believe that he will help save the Koala from extinction. 

IMAGE: Courier Mail, January 2022

However, Morrison is less a prime minister than he is a second-rate performance artist and right now he is playing a set piece role with this particular koala as a prop.  

Here in New South Wales we have some experience of how once the photographers and television cameramen have departed the scene Scott Morrison doesn’t give a damn about koalas - it's called the Regional Forest Agreement. 

Echo, 2 February 2022:

The recently announced $50 million emergency fund for koalas by the Federal Government has been called a ‘smokescreen’ by environmental group North East Forest Alliance (NEFA).

The funding comes from the federal government’s $2 billion bushfire relief fund that was announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on 6 January.

Announcing the koala funding Treasurer Josh Frydenberg referred to the Black Summer fires that raised approximately 10 million hectares of land, with 8.4 million hectares saying that ‘This has been an ecological disaster, a disaster that is still unfolding. We know that our native flora and fauna have been very badly damaged’ (ABC).

A NSW Parliament report in 2020 identified that koala populations across parts of Australia are on track to become extinct before 2050 unless ‘urgent government intervention’. This gives Australian’s now less than 30 years to turn this koala extinction threat around.

However, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that Scott Morrison’s announcement of $50 million for koalas is just a smokescreen to cover-up his Government’s approval for increased logging and clearing of koala habitat, while allowing climate heating to run amok, threatening the future of both koalas and the Great Barrier Reef,

‘Without good policies on habitat protection and climate change no amount of money will save koalas,’ said Mr Pugh.

‘If Scott Morrison was fair dinkum about protecting koala habitat the first thing he would do is to stop their feed and roost trees being logged and cleared. Money is no good for koalas if they have nowhere to live.

Climate action needed

‘The second is to take urgent and meaningful action on climate heating, as koalas and their feed trees have already been decimated by intensifying droughts and heatwaves in western NSW, and bushfires in coastal areas. If the Morrison Government doesn’t take urgent action on climate heating then neither koalas nor the Great Barrier Reef will have a future.

Regional Forest Agreement

‘When the Morrison Government issued an indefinite extension to the north-east NSW Regional Forest Agreement in 2018 they agreed to remove the need for Forestry Corporation to thoroughly search for koalas ahead of logging and protect all identified Koala High Use Areas from logging.

‘They also agreed to overriding the NSW Government’s own expert’s panel recommendations, supported by the EPA, to retain 25 koala feed trees per hectare in modelled high quality habitat, by reducing retention down to just 10 smaller trees.

‘Thanks to the Morrison Government we now have a shoddy process where a few small trees are protected in inaccurately modelled habitat, while loggers rampage through koala’s homes, and if a koala is seen in a tree then all they need to do is wait until it leaves before cutting its tree down.

‘Now Scott Morrison is allowing the Forestry Corporation to log identified refuges in burnt forests where koalas survived the fires.

‘The situation on private lands is just as dire. Morrison did nothing to save koala habitat when his State National Party colleagues declared war on koalas in mid 2020 and forced his Liberal colleagues to agree to remove protection for mapped core koala habitat and to open up protected environmental zones for logging. This too is covered by Morrison’s Regional Forest Agreement.’

‘If he really cared about the future of koalas the first thing Morrison needs to do is amend the Regional Forest Agreement to ensure there are surveys by independent experts to identify core koala habitat for protection before clearing or logging…...

‘The second thing is to stop new coal and gas projects, because to have any chance of saving koalas and the Great Barrier Reef we must act urgently to reduce our CO2 emissions, rather than increasing them.....