ANTI-COAL groups led by Greenpeace are calling for the biggest environmental campaign in Australian history in a bid to disrupt and delay the expansion of the industry.
As a delegation from UNESCO's World Heritage Committee arrived in Australia to investigate the impact of the gas and coal boom on the Great Barrier Reef, a leaked document outlined plans for a co-ordinated campaign of legal challenges and community activism to limit mining expansion.
Titled ''Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom'', the detailed plan says the rapid expansion of the industry - particularly the proposed development of ''mega-mines'' in central Queensland's Galilee Basin, expected to yield 240 million tonnes of coal a year - would have devastating consequences for the global climate. It calls for nearly $6 million a year to fund the campaign. The leaking of the plan to selected business reporters sparked a political backlash led by Treasurer Wayne Swan and prompted mining industry leaders to warn that anti-coal groups were planning economic vandalism.
Greenpeace senior campaigner John Hepburn, a co-author of the draft plan, said he was surprised by the ferocity of the criticism. ''I think they are worried about their declining social licence.
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The Courier
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