Convenor's Reports

Environment Centre Northern Territory This past year has been a very successful one for the Environment Centre, both in a campaign sense and organisationally. The campaign front this past year has seen many achievements including the following:

Major Campaigns

» Darwin Harbour

We have worked with a coalition of other community groups towards the development of "A Community Vision for Darwin Harbour" which has had huge community support. The 'Community Vision' was launched at a public meeting held at the University in May. ECNT, in collaboration with the other groups prepared the information leaflet 'Darwin Harbour: Mangroves or the Gold Coast?' and thousands of them have been distributed in the community by us as well as individuals from a variety of groups in the community. Many hundreds of people have signed up to receive Darwin Harbour Alliance information.

Community pressure also saw the Northern Territory Government begin to prepare a Strategic Plan for Darwin Harbour. The public consultation phase of the Strategic Plan demonstrated overwhelmingly that the public does not want further development of the mangroves or foreshore of Darwin Harbour. Recent announcements that the Northern Territory Government will pursue plans to dam the Elizabeth River signal that the Harbour will continue to be a major focus of ECNT's campaigning.

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Mining

» Jabiluka

ECNT continued to play a key role in the campaign to stop Jabiluka throughout 2000. No further construction work took place at Jabiluka this year and the project looks increasingly unlikely to proceed.

This year ECNT contributed to the preparation of the document "Kakadu Under Threat" which was distributed to World Heritage Committee members in June and outlined our concerns about the impacts of the proposed Jabiluka mine on Kakadu. ECNT was also represented at the World Heritage Bureau meeting at the end of June. The issue of Jabiluka is firmly on the international agenda and will be addressed at the World Heritage Committee meeting in December in Cairns. ECNT will be attending the meeting and outlining our ongoing concerns.

In addition to World Heritage work ECNT has responded to hundreds of information requests about Jabiluka, has lobbied both North Ltd and the mine's new owners, Rio Tinto, to abandon the project and has continued to highlight the impacts associated with the proposed mine both locally and nationally.

» Ranger

ECNT followed up the leak of 2 million litres of contaminated water from the Ranger uranium mine early this year, putting considerable pressure on the Northern Territory and Commonwealth Governments to prosecute the mine operators ERA. Many of our longstanding concerns were vindicated by this incident, which highlighted the inadequacy of the regulatory regime for mining in the Kakadu region. Following the incident the regulatory system was tightened up slightly, addressing some of our concerns. ECNT continues to contribute to forums like the Alligator Rivers Region Advisory Committee to reduce the impacts of mining in Kakadu, despite the fact that we believe that mining is incompatible with Kakadu's values.

» South Alligator

ECNT helped to publicise the fact that abandoned uranium mines in the South Alligator region were exposing people and the environment to contaminated tailings uncovered by burrowing animals. This situation is now being addressed by Parks Australia North.

» Koongarra

ECNT welcomed traditional owner's rejection of exploration activities at Koongarra in early 2000. ECNT continues to work to ensure that Koongarra is never mined- in July we met with the Vice President of French nuclear subsidiary Cogema (100% owner of Koongarra Ltd) to let them know how unpopular the Koongarra proposal is. In August we also welcomed news that Koongarra Ltd had closed their Darwin office.

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Landclearing

This year ECNT stepped up its work on landclearing. In June ECNT engaged John Brock to prepare a detailed report on the status of landclearing in the Northern Territory which will be used to inform future campaigning. This report, "Clearing Moves North" is about to be published and will be available on the ECNT website. Additionally we have printed and are distributing 5,000 postcards asking the Chief Minister to introduce meaningful landclearing controls and to protect areas with high conservation values in the Northern Territory.

On another front Sally Jacka has recently begun work on a report for us which is looking at opportunities for expanding the protected areas system across the Northern Territory. ECNT has been closely following the Ord Stage 2 development and prepared a detailed submission to the EIS. Following initial approvals of Ord Stage 2 ECNT appealed the West Australian Government's decision under the WA Environment Protection Act and is still awaiting the outcome of our appeal.

ECNT is coordinating a broad community forum of groups concerned about the expansion of irrigated agriculture, particularly cotton, in the Top End. This group has received briefings from the Northern Territory Government and industry and will continue to examine the planned expansion of agriculture and forestry across Northern Australia.

This year ECNT and Environs Kimberley successfully sought 3 years funding for future work on landclearing, ensuring we will be able to run a very strong campaign on the issue.

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Other Campaigns

Weeds

Distribution of the ECNT publication "Weeds of Natural Ecosystems" to a wide variety of groups and individuals across North Australia, from Kununurra to Cooktown, is continuing. This publication is a core text in courses at Northern Territory University and Katherine as well as being used by land managers on Aboriginal communities, employees of Lands Planning and the Environment and members of most Top End Landcare groups. The information in this publication is obviously filling a huge gap. We are now planning a second edition. As part of Weedbuster Week we arranged weed swaps, with the assistance of Greening Australia, where we swapped beautiful native local plants for weeds from people's gardens. Over 80 plants were exchanged in this way.

Waste Minimisation

With several local government representatives, ECNT wrote to the Northern Territory Environment Minister regarding the disposal of chemical waste and the enforcement of chemical filters legislation for industry. This has lead to specific regulations being drafted. ECNT has been involved in ongoing communication with Darwin City Council, particularly to persuade them to encourage residents to take up home composting as a way of reducing landfill and creating better gardens. We are still working on this matter. As a way to cut down excessive use of plastic bags, we have sold through our office and local markets several hundred cloth shopping bags featuring our beautiful swimming turtles logo.

Climate Change

ECNT has been an active member of the Climate Action Network Australia and held a forum at the Museum in July examining the implications of climate change for the Northern Territory. ECNT has also been negotiating with the Australian Greenhouse office for funds to establish a renewable energy campaign in the Northern Territory.

Throughout the year, the coordinators have addressed a variety of environmental issues as they arose. These have included jellyfish harvesting at Borroloola, the Mt Todd gold mine closure, pestcide and herbicide use, the proposed acacia plantations on the Tiwi islands by Sylvatech, the onward march of cane toads and the proposed prawn farm at Shoal Bay.

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Achievements

Organisationally some of our achievements have been as follows:

Future Activities

2001 is set to be an exciting year for the Environment Centre. Over the next year we will:

Finally we would like to thank all our members, supporters, volunteers and Management Committee members for their contribution to our efforts this year.

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