Tarkine mining

[taswegian]

Until we put a price on conservation values the earth will continue to be scratched and degraded until what? What will the end result be?

A rehabilitated area is never the same as an area that hasn't needed rehabilitation.
I have worked on many rivers and streams in Tasmania and seen results of well meaning advice given by past experts that was the best available practice at the time.
Time has proved them wrong and looking back 50 years on those decisions/ advice look ridiculous. Particularly when one sees the mess those water bodies are in now.
Rehabilitation of those areas is costly and yet never puts the river and the riparian area back to how it would look if it remained in its original state.

I survey boundaries of blocks for sale. Blocks that have beautiful bush and sometimes amazing conservation values.
The owner needed to know his boundaries so he could put it on the market. So the saying goes.
I pass later and see it cleared of bush and scrub and all that goes with that type of landscape, and a big for sale sign.
I can only imagine the owner wanted to extract every last dollar and then more as he sold on.

What that did was to deprive a person wanting land with medium or high (depending on the example) conservation values buying such and paying more for the land due to those now lost values.
There are buyers wanting those values and are prepared to pay for it.
The problem is someone may well buy said land, clear it anyway and resell and make the profit the previous owner wanted to but didn't.

I have surveyed blocks purely for conserving, and I must say it is not easy to cut up land purely on its conservation values. The planning schemes don't make such direct provision for that type of development.
To subdivide is to develop. But to do nothing but admire the beauty and set land aside for future populations is not seen as 'development'.
It all starts to get technically bogged down in interpretations of what this or that term means.

I use all mod cons as someone pointed out most do.
I also appreciate we need access to these resources if I am to continue to have an 'improved lifestyle', whatever that means.

Why do we 'waste' so much money then on things like saving the Tassie Devil? Or eradicating rabbits from Macquarie Island, or foxes from impacting Tasmania?
Why do people make money from eco tours to showcase those iconic places?
They must have something in mind when they do that.
There must be something in our DNA that gives us a desire for such objects, places.

At our current rate of waste recycling I wonder how much of our precious natural resources just get buried and forgotten.
There's plenty more in the ground so lets just dig it up and make some more waste!

Back to my opening statement.
Until we see the value of our natural assets, (that cost us nothing to get) then I see little change in current state of affairs

[Son of a Beach]

Mining or tourists. I'm not sure which is worse.

I don't like having either in the 'wilderness'. Both are probably great for the economy, but the economy is not why I live in Tasmania.

I wouldn't make much of a politician.

[stepbystep]

Sooooo, how about that mining business!?

A few protests today, anyone attend? I was far too busy working on an issue related to the Tarkine

I'll be up there again from Sunday to Wednesday, if anyone sees a film crew come and say hello. I could do with some extras.

[wayno]

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/20 ... -news.html

TASMANIA'S mining industry is breaking records and the decision to open up the Tarkine means the state is now on the cusp of a new golden era, mining supporters say.

[Hallu]

lol that is pathetic... It's not hard to break the record for mining since it's never been a huge mining state, and it's even easier if you don't take inflation into account and compare "old dollars" with "new dollars". There's also no way that Tasmania could sustain a "mining boom" without bringing a huge chunk of workers from outer state... And the fact that Tassie miners have life-long careers is in no way a good thing, it makes the government feeling guilty over the unemployed once the ore runs out, and make stupid decisions...

[lokulin]

Just my 2c as one of those recently youngins (although I'm now in my mid 30s) that are leaving Tassie addressing some of the comments about how the mines might bring the promise of jobs. Building mines are not going to bring me, or the majority of my friends who have left, back. I am living in Melbourne because this is where the smart jobs are (I used to work in high availability IT and am now in IT/NRM research). Most of my friends that have left Tassie are in a similar boat, either IT or medical professionals that would have few options of meaningful employment if we were to return. Mines just aren't going to bring those kinds of jobs to Tassie. At best, they are going to bring short term, low to medium skill labour. Sure some of that money from that employment might trickle in to the local economy in the form of some local services, but a lot of the revenue from service based economy is going to go straight back to mainland cities or overseas. And once the mines are exploited, where does that lave Tassie? Even more low/medium skill workers out of the job. No. I don't believe mining from Tassie will give the economy the boost it needs. At best it will be like a short hit of crack, boosting the local economy in the short term, but in the long term it will just leave it worse. Tasmania (and to a some extent the rest of Australia) has been addicted to easy, exploitable resource money to long. If we don't change our attitude soon we won't be the smart country that used advances in agricultural science to ride the sheep's back, but another economic backwater that once relied on exploitable resources to build infrastructure we'll no longer be able to afford. So, yes, as much as I would like to move back to Tassie, and as much as I wish Tassie's economic and social malaise would lift, if mining starts, and even more of our wilderness is destroyed, it won't be encouraging me (or people like me) to move back there, in fact it may well be enough to keep a lot of us away. In short, I believe that for long term growth Tassie needs to focus on building on its wealth of natural beauty, focus on sustainable industries, and to continue on trying to build new, smart businesses and research facilities to attract back some of the brains that have been drained from the state.

[frenchy_84]

You make some very valid points lokulin, but i just wanted to chime in regarding employment of "higher skilled jobs". While on the surface mining appears just to employ unskilled truck drivers this isnt the case, onsite you have engineers, geologists, geotechs, enviros, HR, surveyors which are all degree qualified positions. They also require additional consultants from offsite. There is also the trickle down affect on the economy, if you look at Mackay for example (where the closest mine is about an hour and a half away), yes there are alot of cashed up bogans however they underpin an economy that is going thru growth of over 10%. There is positivity in the economy that all professions beneift from, engineering firms who solely do mine compliance vehicles, medical centres that make a fortune just out of mine medicals, to all the subdivisons that bring with it jobs for trades. While I in no way think any 'boom' in tas mining will be of the proportions of what is happening in Mackay, there is a benefit to the wider community not just the dump truck operators.

[lokulin]

You make some very valid points lokulin, but i just wanted to chime in regarding employment of "higher skilled jobs". While on the surface mining appears just to employ unskilled truck drivers this isnt the case, onsite you have engineers, geologists, geotechs, enviros, HR, surveyors which are all degree qualified positions. They also require additional consultants from offsite. There is also the trickle down affect on the economy, if you look at Mackay for example (where the closest mine is about an hour and a half away), yes there are alot of cashed up bogans however they underpin an economy that is going thru growth of over 10%. There is positivity in the economy that all professions beneift from, engineering firms who solely do mine compliance vehicles, medical centres that make a fortune just out of mine medicals, to all the subdivisons that bring with it jobs for trades. While I in no way think any 'boom' in tas mining will be of the proportions of what is happening in Mackay, there is a benefit to the wider community not just the dump truck operators.

Fully appreciate that there are higher skilled jobs in mining. What I would say tho is, where do these high skilled people go once the mine has been exhausted, or even more likely, becomes unviable? They move on to wherever the next mine is. There is example after example of towns around Tasmania (and Australia) that were once a thriving mining economy but are now backwaters, have become virtual ghost towns, or in some extreme cases like Poimena in the Blue Tiers don't even exist any more. So, the high skilled workers are the first to leave, then the rest slowly follow, meanwhile there is an unemployment problem the state has to deal with. Boom and bust can be great for those that have the resources to exploit it, but it can wreak long term havoc on communities (look at what happened to the coal industry in the UK as another example). Personally, I think Tasmania has had enough of this boom and bust cycle associated with exploiting natural resources and deserves something better. Sure, you can argue that mining could provide a short term boost, to essentially bootstrap the economy in to something that is more stable and has a longer term prospect but I just don't see it happening as there just isn't any motivation for those involved to contribute any longer than it takes to get the minerals out of the ground.

[Hallu]

You don't need that many high skilled people permanently on site. They can very well live in Melbourne, and come once or twice a week to inspect the mine. As a scientist I've seen many CSIRO offers on employment sites, a friend working for them, and another one considering it. Both of them do modelling and are never at any site. To analyse the soils and rocks, same thing it takes a long time to do the analysis and draw conclusions from the results, from your lab, without much time (if at all) on site. So I'm not even sure that would bring high skilled jobs to Tassie. I also have an engineer friend who got an offer to work in Karratha, and although it was big money, he turned it down because he wouldn't see himself raising a family there. I'm not sure many engineers would wanna move to Burnie, Zeehan or Corrina or even worse right in the middle of the Tarkine.

On a bigger scale, Tasmania need to cut the lifeline and stop relying on mining as a job saver - it isn't. A healthy economically thriving country or state needs to keep its brightest minds at home, and to attract foreign people. Many of my scientist friends would seriously consider looking for a job in Tassie if it had better universities/research facilities, because the surroundings are so beautiful, great food, great relaxed pace, and less expensive than Sydney or Melbourne. That's clearly a place where you wanna raise a family and make a living. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the innovative, challenging and uplifting spirit the rest of Australia has. Europeans used to dream of going to the US for a top job, but now they'd rather go to Canada or Australia, and yet it's almost never to Tasmania. I hope in the future it will.

[frenchy_84]

Well Hallu, I guess you and I have obviously worked at different mine sites, seeing as the mines you have been to have all skilled workers in an office interstate. But the type of education required for the positions created aren’t particularly relevant, and verges on the side of elitism. An argument that the jobs are only for the uneducated so therefore the developments should be stopped is ridiculous. Tasmania has a brain drain problem as most regional areas do, it also has a lot of middle class people leaving looking for work and a disproportionate amount of lower class, that struggle for employment or live off welfare. Now, mining may not bring back intellectual elite however it will give the middle class a reason to stay and give the lower class a chance to move up. And I said it before regarding tourism, however it extends to all higher tech industries, and the argument that we should be looking at that rather than mining/forestry. How is allowing mining projects going ahead, stopping these other high tech industries that are our states salvation also starting? I don’t see how it has to be one or the other.

The mercury articles mentions 16 proposed mining projects within the state, so in reality I doubt more than 3-5 within the Tarkine will get to the stage of moving dirt. So once these 3-5 locations have been exhausted and rehabilited, we will have 3-5 small patches of forest that aren’t quite the same as they used to be. In the scheme of things I believe that the benefit that mining provides to the community far outweighs this cost.

[wayno]

no ones saying anything about the chinese economy in the boom and bust cycle.
everything depends on their economy maintaining its current rate of consumption,
thers a lot of debate as to how long that will last, you cant assume it will be indefinite, when their economy starts to contract all arguments about how sustainable the mines are in aus will be more academic..
the state govt sound like they've scored the goose that laid the golden egg opening up mining in the tarkine... but for how long will it be like that. the worst thing is to spend up on developing minds and you find the chinese economy collapsing, or the american economy collapsing and affecting the chinese economy.

[frenchy_84]

So we should avoid all industries that go thru booms and busts? that just leaves public servants... i think tassie already has plenty of them

[wayno]

if you put a lot of your eggs in one basket , then see what happens when the industry you have most of your eggs in contracts.
commentary says aus escaped the worst of the global recession because of their mining industry as a lot of other industrial sectors were affected, they havent seen the worst of what the recession is doing to other countries..
what will happen across australia if the mining industry collapses?

[frenchy_84]

but as i said before "How is allowing mining projects going ahead, stopping these other high tech industries that are our states salvation also starting? I don’t see how it has to be one or the other."

[wayno]

depends on where the govt are putting their focus, are they spreading their focus or just putting most of it on mining?
can be harder to promote ecotourism when people travel through landscapes of mines. just go to chile and see where they mine and build dams, you have open cast mines next to glaciers there... but they have no end of landscape .
in smaller countries its a different story if you have smaller scenic areas and you start mining them and developing access to them...
aus has a big choice on where they can put their mines to try and avoid areas of high environmental value.
nz isnt so lucky there, there's a big overlap between conservation areas and mineral resources. in the end the public won out of govt to stop further mining in conservation areas...
pursue as many options for developing the economy as you can and dont let the govt be blinkered by the big short term financial gain of mining. and switch off to other options.
i'm not saying ecotourismnis the only other option or the exclusive option, its just one example and its one that can conflict with mining.

[photohiker]

So once these 3-5 locations have been exhausted and rehabilited, we will have 3-5 small patches of forest that aren’t quite the same as they used to be. In the scheme of things I believe that the benefit that mining provides to the community far outweighs this cost.

Except it isn't just '3-5 small patches of forest that aren’t quite the same as they used to be'. It's 3-5 patches of ground that are nothing like the forest they used to be, a stack of degraded exploration sites, a bunch of roads, untold numbers of extra road-kill, and loads of other impacts including weeds and potential for spreading disease to the native animal populations in the area. The history of mining rehabilitation is loaded with promises but very short on delivery.

People don't want to see their kids leaving Tasmania for opportunities on the mainland, and that's a natural sentiment. Do we have to turn Tasmania into another mainland to try and prevent them leaving? It won't work you know...

[wayno]

a lot of places where mining is done in aus the environments arent as sensitive or as visible to nearby populations
what is really going to be done to address the seensitivity to the area?
are you going to get a company used to mining in the desert come in and apply lip service to the sensitivity of the environment?
places in nz are a timebomb, they have mining tailings dams that if they burst will just lay waste to delicate environments down stream. the miners go on about how safe they are but theres nothing safe about their contents which will remain there for a long long time... it a problem in a wet environment whre the water can carry toxic material a long way through the environment.

[Hallu]

How is allowing mining projects going ahead, stopping these other high tech industries that are our states salvation also starting? I don’t see how it has to be one or the other.

Hum that's exactly what we've been talking about for 5 pages now. Protecting the Tarkine would have been the first step towards National Park status, and then World Heritage status. Both mean more tourists and money for the state. Why was it stopped ? Because Mr. Burke thinks mining is a priority... So yeah, mining is harming the Tarkine, preventing it from getting a protective status. Granted, it has more to do with Burke's stupid decision than a real action from Tasmanian miners, but still. And again, tourism is more important than mining, because it's an infinite resource... Another problem is the symbolism of this action : to Tasmanians working in high tech industries it's a clear message, it means "again we're gonna focus on stuff like mining or logging, not on tertiary jobs". And once you have those high tech industries, you don't even need mining anymore...

In France we have both rare earth elements and shale gas, two very lucrative sectors right now. Rare earth elements are used in electronics, shale gas for, well, where gas is useful, but the French government refuse to exploit them, it's too damaging to the environment, and tertiary jobs + agriculture are enough so support the economy. And yet there is unemployment in France, about 3-4% higher than in Tasmania... Over there, it's the agriculture that outweighs everything, and destroys the environment. And the government never takes measures against them. Same with mining in Australia, it's like a tradition you can't touch... Remove that from the equation, see the big picture, and you see that what Australia is doing is just plain stupid : they have amongst the most beautiful places in the world, and they don't protect it enough (Queensland and the great barrier reef is of course first in line...). They have huge uranium resources and yet they'd rather pollute their environment with ridiculous coal power plants instead of nuclear (which is way cleaner than coal when done properly). They could also produce electricity with solar thermal plants, which produces vapor by concentrating the sun rays on water. Since they're already building a huge desalination plant in Victoria, why not use the extra water to produce clean electricity as well and remove those crazy coal plants near Traralgon... Instead they can't even take the decision of closing the oldest coal plants in Australia...

All this to say that the Australian government is basically just a sissy... they never take bold measures, they just follow the trend and are scared poo... of losing the next elections... Just grow a pair...

Last edited by Hallu on Mon 18 Feb, 2013 9:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

[lokulin]

a lot of places where mining is done in aus the environments arent as sensitive or as visible to nearby populations
what is really going to be done to address the seensitivity to the area?
are you going to get a company used to mining in the desert come in and apply lip service to the sensitivity of the environment?
places in nz are a timebomb, they have mining tailings dams that if they burst will just lay waste to delicate environments down stream. the miners go on about how safe they are but theres nothing safe about their contents which will remain there for a long long time... it a problem in a wet environment whre the water can carry toxic material a long way through the environment.

Just like to point out that desert ecosystems can often be just as fragile as any others, if not more so.

[wayno]

i dont doubt it. but is it more of a case of out of sight out of mind more regarding the damage in the remote desert mining sites. and once the mines are closed who will pass through the area afterwards compared to how many will pass through the tarkine
and how far can the damage spread in a dry environment compared to a very wet one.

[clarence]

Mr Burke is currently pushing for the 400 000 odd ha of forest to be preserved through the forest peace deal process. In this context I believe he made a very balanced decision on a state-wide conservation basis.

The Tasmanian economy will be flat out affording the start up costs of turning 400 00ha into reserves without any more on the horizon. The economy here is buggered, and limiting further development opportunities at this stage would be foolish. Do Tasmanians want hospitals and schools and roads (like the rest of Australia), or more than half the land mass in reserves that will be a net financial burden to the state? Maybe the other states of Australia happy to keep bankrolling the Tasmanian economy because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy as Australia's big National Park/World Heritage Area.

These areas cost money to manage effectively, and quite frankly areas like the Tarkine, as amazing as they are, simply don't stack up in getting tourists through the state in any great numbers.

The West Coast has a very long and diverse mining history.

There may be some opportunities to cash in on ecotourism, but the hard line conservationists seem hellbent on opposing development of any nature in Tasmania, including ecotourism.

[wayno]

hopefully the tax laws will change, theres talk of states being able to retain tax spent in the state instead of it going to the state of the head offices of the companies it's collected from...

[frenchy_84]

Except it isn't just '3-5 small patches of forest that aren’t quite the same as they used to be'. It's 3-5 patches of ground that are nothing like the forest they used to be, a stack of degraded exploration sites, a bunch of roads, untold numbers of extra road-kill, and loads of other impacts including weeds and potential for spreading disease to the native animal populations in the area.

But wont tourism in any number big enough to provide a benefit to the community bring a stack of degraded tourist sites, a bunch of roads, untold numbers of extra road-kill, and loads of other impacts including weeds and potential for spreading disease to the native animal populations in the area.

And also the arguement that mining should not be approved because of its boom and bust nature... isnt tourism in that same boat? And i just dont see what is going to bring the hordes of tourist needed, yes there is a really nice coast line (degraded by 4x4 tracks though), then there are the few buttongrass plains where you can see stuff. Then its a whole lot of driving thru myrtle forests with a intesting feature every now certainly nothing as big of a draw card as cradle

[photohiker]

But wont tourism in any number big enough to provide a benefit to the community bring a stack of degraded tourist sites, a bunch of roads, untold numbers of extra road-kill, and loads of other impacts including weeds and potential for spreading disease to the native animal populations in the area.

The difference is that the impacts are controlled by deciding what type of tourist developments are allowed in which areas. In the mining scenario, the control is in the hands of a company whose sole object is to find and exploit the most lucrative minerals regardless of impacts on the landscape and native flora and fauna.

[frenchy_84]

Mines still have to go thru a strict environmental approval process too. Not listing the whole tarkine under heritage listing doesnt suddenly give a free for all, so mining companies can do as please. I dont think anyone would argue that that should happen, I would like to see each possible application approved/rejected on its own merits rather than have a blanket no mining of a region which arguable most does not deserve heritage listing.

[Hallu]

Well sorry but despite the 4WD tracks degrading the coastline, to me it's the most beautiful coast in all of Tasmania... It's not the biggest tourist magnet because you can't really swim there and the weather is rainy most of the time but it's just amazing. Burke isn't taking a balanced decision, the balance is clearly tilting towards mining. And yes at first glance the Tarkine sucks. It's not not as spectacular as so many peaks or cliffs in Tassie, but it's like the Otways in Victoria. Once you're in it, it's an amazing feeling. But should we only preserve the places that could potentially attract the greatest numbers of tourists ? Of course not, conservation is based on the importance of one ecosystem, and this one is damn important. Not only is it one of the oldest primeval rainforest in the world, it's also one of the last places for healthy Tasmania devils where Devil facial tumour disease hasn't taken its toll... It's a classic debate for conservation of forests all over the world : they're not spectacular scenery, they don't offer amazing views, but they're extremely important for the wildlife and plant diversity they harbor.

Preventing the NP or WH status just so a couple of open cut mines can be opened and barely create a couple of thousand jobs is pathetic. Many countries in Africa or Asia realized that it even brings more cash to protect their wilderness and open them to the tourists than just destroy it for resources such as mining, farmland, or logging. Is Australia too stupid to realize that too ? The key is not to think of how "sexy" it looks to attract tourists, it's to present it like one of the last primeval forests in the world, completely untouched by mankind. And that, as Wayno suggested, can develop ecotourism, which doesn't need that many tourists to become economically viable. And Tasmania isn't dying, it's not like they need to put mines everywhere just so they can survive for Christ's sake, it's in one of the most developed and rich countries in the world... I mean come on, on the list of countries by Human Development Index, Australia is second only to Norway...

[wayno]

when nz govt were looking at mining in national parks . from the outset htey said they were only going to look at very select places and try and do keyhole mining as opposed to open cast. the vast majority of the national parks were going to be left alone, tehy didnt turn around and just make all the land subject to possible mining...
even so the nz public came out so strongly against it they just gave up on it...

its just laziness to fence off such a small area and allow the rest of the land to be left open to consideration for mining... it gives the miners the upper hand to go for the best value land regardless of its environmental value....

[Hallu]

9 of the 10 proposed mines for the Tarkine are open cut mines. Nice big ugly holes in the middle of a wilderness... I'd rather have them blow up Cradle Mountain for coal like Americans do, at least it's less damage to the wildlife...

[frenchy_84]

how is it damaging to the wildlife?

[Hallu]

Are you kidding ? In the simplest way, it's a giant whole in the ground ! You're destroying the whole food chain : plants, insects, rodents all the way up to predators...