Gas vs. Farms: New Research Finds Planning Laws Failing Queensland’s Rural Communities

Queensland Agricultural land and gas impact

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday 15 July 2025 As gas projects rapidly expand across Queensland’s most productive farmland, new research finds planning laws meant to protect rural communities are failing. Instead of delivering true “coexistence,” the system grants gas companies unchecked access – leaving farming livelihoods, land, and safety at risk. Published in the Journal of … Read more

Biodiversity Conference Wrap Up

Wando Conservation & Cultural Centre Inc would like to take this opportunity to thank all the speakers, attendees and volunteers. The conference revealed major issues in the Biodiversity Offsets space and was well attended. An incredible amount of information is contained in the videos and slideshows and we hope that they answer any questions you … Read more

CSIRO’s gas bias evident in latest Narrabri social impact survey for SANTOS

“What if we could let those gas companies use the CSIRO brand to regain your trust”: scene from The Juice Media’s CSIRO take-down.

Just as the SANTOS Board recommends $STO shareholders to accept the takeover offer from the Abu Dhabi Oil Company, reports have been circulating about SANTOS’ latest phone survey of public attitudes towards the Narrabri Gas Project. Participants report being pressed by the CSIRO’s phone research company Q & A Research to talk about their feelings … Read more

Whitehaven Coal royalties alleged “arrangement” exposed in NSW Supreme Court

Whitehaven Coal’s scheme to reduce coal royalty payments has been disclosed in a three-day hearing before Justice David Hammerschlag, Chief Judge in Equity of the NSW Supreme Court. It was revealed that for years Whitehaven used the small Canyon Mine near Gunnedah, which was closed and has not produced coal since 2008, to generate fictitious … Read more

Santos’ brine dams in Queensland under the microscope

Brine Dams in Hallett State Forest

Produced water from coal seam gas extraction at Arcadia and Fairview (in the Hallett State Forest) is gathered and directed to centralised water management facilities where it is stored for treatment and beneficial reuse. It is the structures that store this waste that are the focus of this Environmental Protection Order (EPO) placing Santos’ brine … Read more

Upcoming Biodiversity Offsetting Conference will reveal problems and consequences

The clearing of Leard Forest

The controversial planning technique of biodiversity offsetting will come under the spotlight at a conference planned to take place at Narrabri’s Crossing Theatre on Saturday 22nd February 2025. This marks 10 years since coal mining companies started extracting coal from the Critically Endangered Ecological Community of Grassy White Box Woodland at the Leard State Forest … Read more

Whitehaven Lawyers Foreshadow Board to Consider Guilty Plea in Fume Cases

Orange nitrogen dioxide cloud photographed at Maules Creek coal mine.

This week  (Thursday, 31st October), the day after Whitehaven Coal’s 2024 Annual General Meeting, the company’s lawyers are set to make sentencing pleas in relation to four recent convictions in the blasting case that caused workers at Idemitsu’s Boggabri Coal mine to be sent to hospital. Typically this would see the company argue for clemency … Read more

Blasting obscenity: Court’s verdict finds Maules Creek mine guilty on all counts

The long-awaited judgment in NSW Environment Protection Authority’s prosecution of Maules Creek Coal mine blast, which caused the nearby Boggabri Coal mine to evacuate workers in the path of horrendous shockwaves and a wall of dust and fumes, has been delivered by Justice Sarah Pritchard of the NSW Land and Environment Court. 896,256kg (or around … Read more

Santos’ Pilliga Gasfield Still Leaking

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) conducted an Optical Gas Imaging inspection in the Pilliga Forest in June 2024. This inspection was an opportunity to follow up on the work done in eastern New South Wales and Queensland by Clean Air Task Force and ACF in 2023. Several pieces of equipment were found to be leaking … Read more

Gasfield in a Forest Tour – September 2024

As part of the upcoming Pilliga Ultra Marathon, NWPA have committed to providing a guided “Gasfield in a Forest” Tours, travelling into the threatened Pilliga Forest as part of the three day event being held at the Pilliga Pottery. Friday 13th September 2024.8:00am (depart Pottery) – 1:30pm Tour Guides Johanna Evans, North West Protection Advocacy … Read more