PLEA Network

9 August 2017, The Guardian, Glencore’s Wandoan coalmine wins approval from Queensland government.  Glencore’s multibillion-dollar Wandoan coalmine proposal has been granted mining leases years after it was shelved amid falling commodity prices and a ramped-up global response to climate change. On Tuesday Queensland’s natural resources and mines minister, Dr Anthony Lynham, approved three 27-year leases covering 30,000 hectares for the first stage of its $7bn mine near Roma. Doubts about the future of the Wandoan mine had lingered since 2012, amid falling thermal coal prices and a poor market outlook. The approval has enraged environmental groups, who say the government is prioritising a flailing coal industry over communities and putting the state’s agricultural industry at further risk. “For many years local farmers have been fighting this coalmine,” an Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman, Jason Lyddieth, said on Wednesday. “We know that digging up coal and burning it is polluting our air and fuelling climate change. “The Queensland government needs to get serious about preparing for a carbon pollution-free world. It needs to get serious about our water, our land and our air.” Greenpeace said the approval showed the government was more interested in propping up the fossil fuel industry than protecting communities and the environment. “We can either have a healthy planet and thriving Great Barrier Reef or we can have new coalmines, not both,” said a climate and energy campaigner, Nikola Casule. “Our politicians must abandon their coal fetish and instead harness the renewable energy revolution to protect Australian communities and position Australia as an industry leader in this rapidly growing sector.” Read More here