The state’s peak environment body is urging the NSW Independent Planning Commission to reject has the Mt Pleasant Coal Mine Expansion because of the biodiversity and climate impacts of the project are too great. [1]
Nature Conservation Council Campaigner Wilson Harris said the mine extension should be rejected on its climate impacts alone.
The discovery recently of a new species of legless lizard—the Hunter Valley Delma—on the project site added weight to arguments for the commission to reject the proposal.
“We are in the midst of an extinction and climate crisis, with hundreds of species facing a bleak future if we continue allowing destructive fossil fuel projects,” Mr Harris said,
“Approving this coal project will probably condemn this species to extinction before we have even understood the role it plays in the complex web of life in the Hunter.
“It is hard to imagine anything sadder.”
The Nature Conservation Council has made a submissions to the IPC opposing the project and standing up for the climate and threatened species. Submission closed on August 30.
REFERENCES
[1] Mount Pleasant coal mine decision delayed after legless lizard discovery, ABC Upper Hunter, 23-8-22