FARMERS have demanded new bans on mining exploration in major food-producing areas, including in the Gunnedah Basin.
The land lock-up move came at the NSW Farmers’ Association’s conference in Sydney yesterday, where 350 delegates backed the call to ban mining and coal seam gas exploration in prime agricultural land. The farmers also called on the state government to extend its moratorium on coal seam gas activity in the Great Artesian Basin area of Australia, in the wake of problems in Queensland.
The farmer lobby group says productive agricultural land and water resources are finite and need to be conserved – and that’s where the bans should be. The farmers’ moves received support in different quarters from the Greens and from local MP Tony Windsor.
Premer farmer and new farmers’ association president Fiona Simson said there was an urgency to act.
“The message we’re hearing from farm families and regional communities is loud and clear. They are no longer willing to tolerate their rich, fertile soils being dug up at the whim of a mining or coal seam gas company,” Mrs Simson, who is also the mining taskforce chairwoman, said.
“High levels of community concern about the scale and intensity of existing mining activities in areas such as the Gunnedah Basin and the Hunter Valley has presented NSW Farmers’ with an opportunity to bolster its approach to the issue.
“We are not opposed to mining but we do believe there should be limitations on where it can take place,” she said.
The farmers believe mining companies are being granted too much flexibility to access and dig up their land and leave through the current licensing regime.
“Once a mining or coal seam gas company is given the right to access a farmer’s property, that farmer has little confidence that they will ever be able to use the land and water resources for farming again,” Mrs Simson said.
NSW Farmers is also calling on the state government to amend mining and petroleum legislation to ensure mining and petroleum titles are not transferable.
“Mining and petroleum titles, or parts of leases, can currently be transferred, which may mean landholders could have to deal with multiple companies and revised plans for future exploration and extraction, giving them little – if any – planning
certainty,” Mrs Simson said.
The group also voted to support an extension of the 60-day moratorium on coal seam gas exploration until more information was available on its effect on the Murray-Darling and Great Artesian basins.
The current moratorium has just come to an end.
All of Australia’s rice, 95 per cent of Australia’s oranges, 60 per cent of Australia’s pigs, 50 per cent of Australia’s apples and almost 50 per cent of Australia’s wheat is grown in the Murray-Darling Basin, and the Great Artesian Basin is one of the largest natural underground water reservoirs in the world.
“We can’t afford to risk permanently damaging these basins, which are so important in Australia’s role in the global food security challenge,” Mrs Simson said.
Mrs Simson wants an independent inquiry into the environmental impacts of coal seam gas drilling and extraction in both basins.
She said little progress had been made to understand the impact of coal seam gas.
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