Stand for takayna

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Dear Minister Plibersek,

Chinese state-owned mining company MMG's proposal to use takayna / Tarkine rainforests as a dump for 25 million cubic metres of toxic, acid-leaching tailings waste is truly horrific.

Minister, you have the power to reject this project. I urge you to protect takayna/Tarkine in a World Heritage listed National Park instead.

takayna/Tarkine has been verified as having both National (Australian Heritage Council, 2013) and World Heritage values (Hitchcock 2013).

The proposed 140-hectare tailings dam in the takayna / Tarkine rainforests will be seventy times bigger than the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It will be filled with toxic, acid-leaching mine waste pumped over the Pieman River and into the rainforest.

MMG has several alternatives for disposing of future waste from its Rosebery mine which is outside the takayna/Tarkine rainforest. The forest is habitat for several species of fauna listed by the Commonwealth as either rare or vulnerable to extinction - including the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Eastern Quoll and Tasmanian Devil. The Commonwealth list also includes the giant Tasmanian Masked owl which experts have found living and breeding in the threatened forest.

The forests that will be demolished by this tailings dam proposal is critical breeding habitat for the Tasmanian Masked Owl.

Since July 2021 surveys of these forests by the Bob Brown Foundation has sighted the owl and collected more than 400 passive audio recordings of it calling in the night, including begging calls which indicate young owls and therefore breeding in the forest. Experts on Masked Owls have concurred with this evidence and state that the surveys proved an unusually high record of this cryptic and elusive owl species. They state that proposed MMG operations “would absolutely constitute a significant impact on the species due to the very high likelihood of nest abandonment and breeding failure due to encroachment on the nest area, noise and light disturbance”.

Please halt the planned tailings storage facility and associated roads and drilling by MMG. A win-win outcome is available. Not one job need be at stake. Nor should the rainforests or Masked Owls, who have no alternative, be at stake.

Please use your powers under section 324JJ of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to place takayna / Tarkine onto the National Heritage List in accordance with the recommendation on the Australian Heritage Council, September 2012.

Your sincerely,
[We'll insert your name here]

Stand for

takayna

Help stop MMG's toxic destruction

takayna under threat

Whats at risk

Masked Owls threatened

Threatened species in danger

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Tell Minister Plibersek to Protect Tarkine Rainforests