 |
| World Heritage-listed Wallaman Falls - Image & enhancement by Richard Nowakowski |
The following is a transcript of my news story in the February 28-29 edition of The Weekend Australian newspaper. The transcript of an Inquirer feature will be published separately.
Deep divisions are emerging within the environment movement and the Greens party over mounting concerns that the push for net zero emissions by 2050 has grave consequences for endangered wildlife and biodiversity conservation.
The divisions come amid revelations that the Albanese Government ignored strongly worded advice from its own Wet Tropics Management Authority before approving the controversial Gawara Baya wind farm in tropical Queensland.
 |
| News story in this weekend's The Weekend Australian |
Labor, the Greens and major environmental organisations are united in support for Gawara Baya and scores of other controversial projects in pursuit of net zero as ecologists warn that many are flawed and badly positioned.
World heritage expert and James Cook University adjunct professor Peter Valentine said large areas of Great Barrier Reef catchments and world heritage-listed forests in north Queensland are within regions zoned for renewable energy developments.
 |
| Peter Valentine |
“Nowhere has there been any attempt to moderate the developer's gaze by reference to high biodiversity areas,” Professor Valentine said.
“It is completely unacceptable to let the industry determine where these potentially destructive projects are located, rather than developing strong guidance to ensure they are never developed in high biodiversity areas.”
Professor Valentine said it is disappointing to see so little support from national environmental bodies and the Greens for adequate wind farm planning, with a small Cairns-based conservation group, Rainforest Reserves Australia, left to do the heavy lifting to draw public attention to the adverse consequences of projects.
Labor and Greens senators were joined by Friends of the Earth in attacking RRA late last year following a careless own goal by the group when it admitted using AI to edit submissions about renewables to governments, resulting in publication errors.
 |
| Steven Nowakowski |
The Albanese Government is now back-grounding journalists with suggestions the RRA is funded by the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries; a “dirt file” on the group and its vice-president, Steven Nowakowski, is being circulated. A spokesperson for environment minister Murray Watt told The Weekend Australian the AI admissions had “discredited” RRA, adding: “It’s a shame that RRA, as a group claiming to be pro-environment, would spread so much misinformation.”
Mr Nowakowski said the AI-generated changes were relatively minor – for instance, a reference to the Oakey Solar Farm on the Darlings Downs was changed to Oakey Wind Farm. He rejects suggestions of improper funding: “We've never been approached by Big Coal or other companies. We've never accepted money from them. We're a small group of volunteers who rely on public donations. We've had hundreds of submissions to write with very little support.”
 |
| Editorial in this weekend's The Weekend Australian |
Former Queensland Government Principal Botanist Jeanette Kemp said mainstream environment groups had newly misplaced priorites: “People considered very green are saying that it's just the trade-off we have to make to save the planet. It shouldn't be one or the other.”
Mary River Catchment Co-Ordinating Committee spokesman Steve Burgess said big conservation groups and the Greens had turned a collective blind eye to the environmental consequences of the planned $18 billion Borumba Dam pumped hydro project in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, including excisions from Conondale National Park and the looming loss of hundreds of hectares of critically endangered subtropical lowland rainforest.
“There is active co-operation between Labor and groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation and Queensland Conservation Council to look the other way,” Mr Burgess said. “The QCC came out with a public statement in support of the project when they hadn't even visited the site.”
 |
| Drew Hutton |
Veteran Queensland environmental activist Drew Hutton founded the Australian Greens party in the early-1990s with former leader Bob Brown. He was recently readmitted to the party after taking court action over his expulsion from it in 2025 for posting material on social media about trangender activism that the Greens found offensive.
Mr Hutton is scathing of his party's stance on renewables: “My party has been hijacked by woke issues like transgender rights. The Greens no longer focus on issues the party was set up for, like biodiversity. I can't believe these people who have spent their lives defending our natural treasures are now turning a blind eye to what's happening. Big groups like ACF are missing in action. You expect governments to be bloody-minded but you don't expect these groups to go along with it.”
Mr Hutton said Bob Brown and fellow former Greens leader Christine Milne are alone in the party in drawing attention to the biodiversity costs of wind farms.
 |
| Rainforest Reserves Australia's national map of renewables |
The Greens declined to respond to questions about renewables, instead referring in a statement to the party's efforts in securing recent changes to the federal Environment, Protection and Diversity Conservation Act: “The Greens ended decades-long exemptions for forestry destruction, saved the water trigger, secured new powers to stop illegal land clearing...”
ACF campaign director Paul Sinclair said ACF supported the fast-tracking of renewables so long as they met the environmental conditions expected of any commercial project.
ACF’s examination of federal approvals for the destruction of threatened species habitat in 2025 showed the mining industry was the worst offender, with 68 per cent of approvals being for mining projects, but renewable energy's share at 23 per cent was significant. Dr Sinclair conceded: “That showed some projects are getting approved that clearly shouldn’t be.”
 |
| Development works at Lotus Creek Wind Farm above and below (Steven Nowakowski) |
QCC acting director Anthony Gough said his organisation was proactively involved in advocating for better nature protection throughout the energy transition.
The proposed Gawara Baya 69-turbine wind farm adjoins the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area south-west of Ingham on a 29,000-hectare site. Twelve vulnerable or endangered species are recorded from its footprint including the magnificant brood frog, Sharman's rock wallaby and red goshawk. The picture-perfect, world heritage-listed Wallaman Falls, a major tourist attraction, will be framed by a line of 250-metre turbines on the horizon.
 |
| Red Goshawk |
Gawara Baya is being developed by Windlab, owned by iron ore mining magnate Andrew Forrest's Squadron Energy. Forrest, a vocal critic of fossil fuels, has emerged as a giant in Australia's renewables industry, with Windlab and Squadron Energy owning 37 operating or proposed projects in four states.
RRA's Steven Nowakowski said of Gawara Baya: “This is the most destructive project of them all. They can go in tomorrow and clear hundreds of hectares of pristine forest. It's magnificent country that doesn't deserve what's coming.”
He said the Environmental Defenders Office refused funding for a failed court appeal by RRA against Gawara Baya last year, with just one other small conservation group, Protect the Bushland Alliance, joining RRA in opposing the project: “That's the response we're used to from big environment players like EDO and ACF. If it was coal or gas going into these areas there would be huge push-back but because it's renewables, they're not interested.”
 |
| Sharman's Rock-Wallaby |
Wet Tropics Management Authority executive director Scott Buchanan warned the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water in a February 2024 letter – four months before it was approved by then environment minister Tanya Plibersek - about the consequences of Gawara Baya proceeding.
The WTMA was concerned about the impact of habitat fragmentation on vegetation communities that provide a buffer to the world heritage area. This buffer zone provided habitat for wildlife of conservation significance including the masked owl and northern greater glider. Clearing for the project could lead to turbine collision and barotrauma impacts on birds and bats. “Constructing 69 wind turbines a few kilometres from the World Heritage Area boundary will have a significant visual impact on the scenic features in the local region,” Mr Buchanan wrote.
The WTMA was concerned there had been inadequate consideration of what it regarded as the “considerable” potential cumulative environmental effects of Gawara Baya and other approved wind farms including Mt Fox, Kaban and High Road: “The number and siting of these wind farm developments will more than likely result in increased level of impacts on fauna.”
 |
| Scott Buchanan |
Access roads transected state biodiversity corridors: “The authority is concerned the development will reduce connectivity across the site and increase the risk of vehicle impacts on fauna.”
The WTMA noted in a 2023 letter to Gawara Baya's developers that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature listed listed the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area as the second most irreplaceable natural world heritage area in the world: “It contains the largest number of endemic vertebrate animals in the world and over 700 endemic plant species.”
The letter said: “Given the proximity of the project area to the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, the authority would like to see a more robust discussion on alternative sites that would have a less potential impact on world heritage values.”
The project's survey efforts were “not adequate to properly assess the ecological values of the site and to address potential impacts”. It said the project should not proceed unless the developers demonstrated it would not contribute to or exacerbate catastrophic fire events.
 |
| Wet Tropics World Heritage Area |
Gawara Bay defends its environmental policies on its website:”Windlab has committed to leading practice ecological restoration and threat abatement programs that not only address the local scale impacts of the project, but support overall better outcomes for regional biodiversity at a landscape scale.”
A spokesperson for federal environment minister Murray Watt defended the government's record: “It is building a cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy system while also ensuring stronger protections for Australia’s nationally significant species, habitats and places. Ongoing climate change is the greatest threat facing nature in Australia, so the transition to cleaner, cheaper renewable energy is critical for the long-term survival of Australia’s native species.”
 |
| Murray Watt |
No comments:
Post a Comment