Coal seam gas, mining and native vegetation on NSW Farmers' agenda

THE Mid North Coast district council of NSW Farmers will hold its annual general meeting in Wingham next Tuesday evening.

Coal seam gas mining, coal mining and native vegetation issues are on the agenda.

 

Meanwhile, NSW Farmers said the poor results of a state-wide audit of coal and gas exploration licences highlighted the need for an increase in compliance for all exploration activities.

 

The organisation said more than half of the coal exploration licences audited (13 out of 20) were found to be non compliant and all had room for improvement.

 

The coal seam gas industry didn’t perform much better with 13 out of 22 exploration licences found to be non-compliant and all having room for improvement.

 

NSW Farmers’ president, Ms Fiona Simson, said some 1000 exploration licences for minerals had not even been picked up in this report despite the government committing to a state-wide audit of current exploration licences.

 

Ms Simson said NSW Farmers strongly supported a review of exploration licences and endorsed the audit’s recommendation to amend petroleum legislation to address industry risk areas.

Wingham Chronicle