Conservationists have been contesting the Venture Minerals/Mt Lindsay mine proposal for some time now, but one essential aspect lacking in the campaign has been a befitting description of the area they are attempting to protect.
If you are driving from Tullah to the lower Pieman River you will pass directly under the magnificent emerald heights of the Parsons Hood / Mt Lindsay massif.
Often cloaked in characteristic mist, the unbroken rainforest skyline dominates the wild landscape of the southern Tarkine.
Home to some of the grandest Myrtle and Sassafras trees in the state it is primeval temperate rainforest at its finest, and well worthy of such a committed campaign.
Recently granted as a lease to Venture Minerals, public accessto this splendid rainforest is now prohibited, with “trespassers prosecuted” signs fixed on the boom gates.
Currently Venture Minerals has shelved their ore projects in the Mt Lindsay area claiming ongoing delays and disruption of legal challenges from the Tarkine National Coalition.
Whilst persistent delay tactics can win campaigns, the reality is that the iron–ore market price has sunk below the $90 per ton, ($60 per low grade), which makes all small iron-ore mines across the world financially unviable.
Massive corporations such as the ones operating in the Hamersley/Pilbara region of Western Australia have a monopoly when world ore demands are low, as they have big contracts and the ability to ride out slumps in markets.
The tin/tungsten component of the Venture mining project is also subjected to fickle world markets.
Venture Minerals Ltd claim to have the finances to undertake this project but serious doubts would be seeping into investors’ minds as their stock share price has been stagnantly low for some time.
How apt is the company title? The dictionary defines venture – “a risky or daring journey or undertaking – a business enterprise involving considerable risk.
It would be a safe bet to suggest that if the Venture Mt Lindsay project does ever get the green light it will be granted the same corporate welfare of tax and royalty exemptions as Shree Minerals and other companies have received.
This equates to more environmental destruction with little gain to Tasmanians, and notably the historical pattern continues with any financial gains destined to leave the state.
Furthermore, there will be no question that the magnificent rainforest within the proposed mining zone will be destroyed, probably dozed into the tail pits, which won’t become available to the specialty timber industry in another statement of ongoing wasted resources in Tasmania.
Fortunately the splendid rainforest of Mt Lindsay is safe whilst the ore market is depressed.
Hopefully the continuation of the low ore commodity prices will be the saviour of this Tarkine treasure.
EARLIER on Tasmanian Times
