Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 30 July 2021

Foundation Wins Public Access to takayna rainforest and rebuffs MMG claims

The Bob Brown Foundation has gained back public access into takayna’s threatened rainforests. Forestry Tasmania has advised that access is now available on Helilog Road.  After two months of public road closure, the foundation will this weekend host an ‘open day’ event into the rainforests threatened by MMG’s proposed toxic metals waste dump.

“The BBF rejects claims by MMG that a paste-fill plant alternative is not viable. They would say that, wouldn’t they?

MMG’s refusal to build a paste-fill plan highlights the need for an independent assessment, including into worker safety for all the options and the company’s failure to have future-proofed their mine,” Bob Brown Foundation’s Jenny Weber said.

“Paste-fill is accepted mining best-practice, taking into account worker safety. That is why it is the option of choice for tailings disposal overseas and elsewhere in Australia as MMG has now acknowledged.

We call on MMG to release all its reports, unredacted, into the paste-fill option as well as all alternative options. We also call on MMG to open its facilities at Rosebery to independent assessment. MMG’s closed shop, as when it refused entry for scientists into the rainforest in June, must be opened.

There must be a rigorous, independent, and expert assessment by the government. If the government doesn’t do it, we will notwithstanding the obstacles. Leaving it to MMG, which reasonably has its decisions influenced by costs and profits, is not in the Tasmanian public’s best interests,” said Ms Weber.

“The proposed waste dump would destroy more than 180ha of undisturbed old growth rainforest, as well as other mixed forest and heathlands at McKimmie Creek. This proposed waste dump would destroy high calibre rainforest and negatively impact threatened species – the masked owl, the wedge-tailed eagle, the Tasmanian devil, and the spotted-tail quoll.

MMG is putting the environment last.  The real danger here is to climate and biodiversity in an age where global warnings are telling us 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction, many within decades unless biodiversity loss is reduced.

This weekend we will reclaim these public forests and help the public see what is threatened by this proposal,” Jenny Weber said.