Ostara 1999 Newsletter NSW Environmental Issues and Updates

Timbarra

Timbarra is an area of NSW State Forest that is being threatened by the gold mining industry. The issue for the wilderness area is that the forest is home to a number of rare species, and shold be protected to ensure their continuing survival.

The following is an excert of a letter that is being sent to Bob Carr, the NSW Premier. I have been given permission from the Timbarra Action Group to reproduce this letter, and have been asked that if you would like to support the action and help save Timbarra, that you use the points made in the letter, and others, as a starting point to write your own letter.

"Dear Premier,
The Timbarra Wilderness is an isolated high, undulating plateau if intruded Ademellite, containing a number of significant features. The plateau is detached from the Great Dividing Range apart from a narrow connecting ridge in the north and has hance been able to provide a significant refuge for wildlife from human impacts and ferla predation. There are 28 vulnerable and rare species known to occur in the forests of the wester sector of the nominated area. These include mamals (Hastings River mouse, Yellow bellied glider, Tiger quoll, Rufous bettong, Golden tipped bat, Greater broad nosed bat and Brush tailed rock wallaby), birds (Glossy black cockatoo, Powerful owl and Sooty owl) and amphibians (Stuttering frog and Glandular frog). The wilerness contains a major overlap of biogeographical zones, with faunal representations of coastal, inland, temperate and sub tropical regions converging. The area is the only single site able to provide key habitat for the threatened Hastings River Mouse, easters Chesnut mouse and Brush tailed wallaby.

The Wilderness Action Group requests that you:

• Take the steps necessary to ensure that the Timbarra wilderness is adequately assessed and publicly exhibited by the end of 1999, for declaration by the end of 2000;
• Reserve all wilderness on state forest in wilderness parks; and in the meantime;
• Continue the current halt of logging in NPWS identified wilderness on leasehold and state forest indefinitely.

The forest process should assess and protect key wilderness areas in NSW, such as Timbarra. These areas have hitherto not been assessed and no forest assessment can be considered adequate or comprehensive unless all wilderness values are assessed aand protected as required by the National Forest Policy Statement, 1992. The enduring values of wilderness should not be prejudiced by the short term gold mining interest."

Jabiluka Action Group Profile

• JAG is an organisation committed to stopping the proposed uranium mine at Jabiluka in the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park.
• We seek to educate people on the dangers of nuclear power and the uranium mining which fuels it. We seek to explain that there is no safe method of nuclear production. All nuclear production destroys the environment and endangers people's lives. With this in mind, it is also our goal to be a part of the world wide campaign to end the nuclear fuel cycle and the production of weapons of mass desctruction which flows from it.
• JAG is an activist organisation that seeks to stop the minr by organising rallies, public meetings, a blockade of the proposed mine site, and other activities which target the company responsible for the mine, Energy Resources Australia (ERA), or its parent company Norths, and any other corporate suppoerted of that company.
• JAG supports the Mirrar people (traditional owners of the land), right to decide what happens on thier land and argues for real land rights for indigenous people.
• JAG seeks to win support from a wide range of community groups including popular parties, trade unions, ethnic, environment, student and church groups in order to build the widest possible network of support for the campaign to defeat the mine. JAG believes that the time to get active is now, if the mine is to be stopped.

The Jabiluka Action Group meets every Wednesday at the University of Technology at 6:30pm. The meetings are held in the Tower Building on Broadway. Everyone who wants to take part in the campaign is welcome. Phone 0415 627 477 or email sydneyjag@hotmail.com

You can join JAG by sending your details to PO Box 1232, Broadway NSW 2007

The NSW Pagan Alliance recently sent a letter of support to the Jabiluka Action Group, and we will be supporting them in helping to educate the community and lobby parliament to have the Uranium issues in Australia properly examined. They sen t us bak a reply thanking us for our support, and will send more material for distribution. When it arrives, I'll pass it on to you all.

There are so many environmental issues in NSW that need highlighting - so we will be showcasing a number of issues and groups in the coming newsletters. If you have a particular issue you would like highlighted or discussed, or you have an environmental group you would like to see explored, let me know. Otherwise, please write about any environmental issues in your area and what you want done.