Greenwash deception Persists!

Sari Russo

THE Rainforest Reserves organisation has been campaigning hard to stop the Deception, Greenwashing, and Spin reported to community members who believe that supporting the windmills built in the tablelands rainforests will assist in the reduction of carbon emissions.

The Wet Tropics Community has yet to learn these projects will stop access from Ravenshoe to Tully and that the Jirrbal aboriginal custodians will have to ask permission to access the industry site. The public must be made aware that the coastal ranges or the rivers and creeks are approved to be large-scale heavy industrial sites.

The Greenwashing spin that has been promoted regarding these projects has led the environmentally-minded members of the community to believe that they are not supporting a heavily industrialised site but are supporting a farm that is green, clean, and renewable, that this Project will be nature positive, or that offsets and mitigation ‘will fix it.’ This is deceptive to our Government and the public. The change of land use to a ‘wind farm’ offers our Government and the public a perception that this proposal will address climate change to replace fossil fuels, reduce emissions, and produce high energy output.

A community member of Mission Beach asked the question on social media regarding the article published in our March 16 edition, ‘What next? Wind Turbines are becoming environmental disasters.’ This is a small confirmation of the lack of understanding of the damage to our native rainforests that these projects will do.

The concerns for the rainforest have been raised by Rainforest Reserves Australia https://www. rainforestreserves.org.au/ who have committed to doing exemplary work on maintaining the biodiversity of our native rainforest with their focus on caring for injured and orphaned Cassowaries, revegetation projects, operating a large nursery for native trees to be grown and planted back into the Tablelands Cassowary Rehabilitation Facility, promote and campaign to protect Australia’s wilderness and wildlife from industrial development and more https:// www.rainforestreserves.org.au/whatwe-do

Qld State Planning Code 23 allows proposed wind developments to be assessed without community consultation, and avoidance of assessment under the Nature Conservation Act.

There have now been 783 submissions made regarding the Columbine from individuals, organisations, networks and local Government.

Some concerns raised by these submissions:

• Construction and operational impacts of the Project and the cumulative effects in the context of other wind farm projects in the region;

• Loss of habitat, survey effort and impacts from the introduction of weed and pest species contributing to the reduction of MNES species, including koala, magnificent brood frog and red goshawk;

• Indirect impacts to the Wet Tropics Queensland World Heritage Area and its associated Outstanding Universal Values, including clearing of wet sclerophyll forest;

Last week Apple, under guidance from their CEO Tim Cook chose to abandon their multimillion-dollar electricity purchase agreement with Twiggy Forest - backed Windlab’s proposed Upper Burdekin Wind Farm. This is because of the catastrophic ecological impacts the Project will inflict on threatened wildlife onsite, including Endangered Koalas, Sharman’s Rock Wallabies, Greater Gliders and Red Goshawks. The community are asking Twiggy Forest to do the right thing and throw the Upper Burdekin wind farm project out – or Forrest will forever have blood on his hands for driving our wildlife closer to extinction.