Taking the Higher Ground – Chalumbin Win for Environment 

In a win for the environment, the proposed Chalumbin industrial wind project on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland has been rejected. Communities throughout Queensland are facing similar, environment-destroying proposals.  

This is a great win for the Community who have fought for years against this environmental vandalism. I’ve visited the area twice in the last 6 months, spoken to residents, and then represented their concerns in the Senate on a number of occasions. 

The rejection is a rare win for the environment over virtue-signalling green power schemes that simply do not stack up on an environmental or economic basis.  

Wind and solar are unreliable sources of power, poor investments when you remove the subsidies provided by taxpayer’s money, and terrible for the environment despite the sales pitch of ‘green’ energy, which is disinformation. We’re also seeing these so-called ‘renewables’ projects halting for financial reasons, with investors pulling out of large-scale wind and solar projects both in Australia and overseas, owing to their unprofitability.  

Local environmentalists made a fierce, years long campaign against plans to turn Chalumbin into a wind installation.  

Wind Farm (15/05/22). Top of ridge line that used to be in pristine condition now smashed.

Installing wind turbines is massive environmental vandalism. From grinding the tops off mountains for 250 metre high wind turbines to gouging 70-metre-wide roadways to access them and for the thousands of kilometres of transmission lines that run through national parks and private land. The net-zero plan for wind and solar cannot supply our energy needs and will destroy the natural environment Queenslanders love the most.

Wind turbines create disturbances to the air that prevent soaring birds from flying in the “tail” of these turbines. Kaban wind turbines near Ravenshoe are so large the disturbance interferes with soaring birds like Black Swans, Sarus Cranes and Brolgas for as much as 5 km.

Brolga (a member of the crane family) in flight. This species is found across tropical northern Australia, QLD, and parts of western Victoria, central NSW and south-eastern South Australia

This Labor government, with the blessings of both the Greens and the Liberal party, is accelerating its push to turn pristine Australian bushland into an industrial landscape for the Net Zero agenda. The foreign-owned Chalumbin industrial wind development would have put up monstrous 250-metre-high towers with the third longest blades ever seen in the world. The turbine blades are big bird killers and the noise from these machines is known stop wildlife breeding.

The Hypocrisy of Industrial Wind and Solar

The primary threat to wildlife globally is habitat loss. Koala and other endangered wildlife habitat has been taken. While the Greens talk frequently about saving the koalas, they pick and choose which koalas they care about. This vandalism must stop.

Top of ridge line that used to be in pristine condition now smashed. Chalumbin would have had 146km of new roads like this and Upper Burdekin will have another 150km of new roads

At the end of a mining operation, the mine can be filled in and remediated. In fact, legal contracts require it. This isn’t the case with the destruction created by wind and solar. They are not required to make good afterwards or remove toxic waste. There’s no replacing remnant forests or a mountain top after it’s been blasted off and bulldozed to make way for wind turbines.

The Chalumbin proposal was given a corner-cutting approvals process reserved for ‘renewables’ by the Queensland government. It set its sights on destroying 1000 of the remaining 8000 hectares of the buffer zone between rainforests and open plains to the south. The wet sclerophyll forest is home to the spectacled flying fox and northern great glider.

Chalumbin is not the only wind site needing our protection

As Nick Cater commented in his article in The Australian, 22 April 2024:

“Bulldozers were ripping swathes through hundreds of hectares of remnant native forest at nearby Kaban, blasting 330,000 tonnes of rock and dirt from the sides of hills to build access roads and turbine pads bigger than football fields.

All of this was occurring without a squeak from environmental groups, every one of which appeared to have swallowed the renewable energy Kool-Aid and, in some cases, its cash.”

Nearby Kaban excavations have disturbed arsenic found naturally in local rock formations. We simply don’t know what effect this will have on native wildlife in the years ahead.

The Woodleigh Swamp is an important wetland. Thousands of swans and brolgas normally rest here each year. Locals say that since Kaban opened, only a few kilometres away, the swamp has been almost deserted. Kaban and Chalumbin environmental impact statements make no mention of the catastrophic effects these installations have on uplift capacity for migratory and soaring birds, nor abandonment of natural upland habitat, despite a wealth of papers proving the link.

Sarus Cranes are only found in the far north-east of QLD in Australia

Common sense has prevailed for Chalumbin. Finally, it’s being recognised that you can’t save the environment by destroying thousands of hectares of forests as wind and solar projects will. But what about all the others that are in the pipeline?

It seems impossible that the equally sensitive Upper Burdekin project just 4.8km from the boundary of the Wet Tropics World Heritage area.

There are at least 30,000 hectares of remnant forest still earmarked for clearing across 52 wind farms on the Great Dividing Range in Queensland under current proposals.

This is the disgraceful reality behind the climate change agenda. A reality most Australians never get to see.

How do the Greens feel about vulnerable Greater Glider habitat being cleared in Far North Queensland? Will they say it’s for the Greater Good?

Critically endangered native plants making way for concrete, fibreglass, and steel that will be consigned to the scrap heap in 12-15 years is acceptable by-kill for the Green Agenda? Really?

Destructive projects like the Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro in prime platypus habitat at Eungella must be ruled out.

This should not be a case of rewarding the squeaky door. Projects like Smokey Creek Solar that were quietly approved against local protests because they didn’t have a talented nature photographer like Steven Nowakowski to tell their story must be revisited and put through the full environmental assessment.

I congratulate the local environmentalists for their campaign to preserve this unique environment. We support Friends of Chalumbin and Steven Nowakowski. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Steven and thank him for his work capturing these fragile and beautiful ecosystems. The environmental movement is waking up thanks to environmentalists like Steven who’re getting out and filming and recording the truth of the destruction of nature.

The government must stop killing the environment to “save it”.

Media Release: Environment Wins Over Destructive Chalumbin Wind Project

The proposed Chalumbin wind project on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland has been rejected on environmental grounds. This rejection calls the entire net-zero transition and other projects into question. Common sense has prevailed – you can’t save the environment by destroying thousands of hectares of forests as wind and solar projects will.

After local environmentalists made a fierce, years long campaign, which I wholeheartedly supported, Minister Plibersek looks like she is managing appearances rather than the environment.

30,000 hectares of remnant forest will still be cleared across 52 wind farms on the Great Dividing Range in Queensland under current proposals. Destructive projects like the Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro in prime platypus habitat at Eungella must be ruled out. Projects like Smokey Creek Solar that were quietly approved against local protests because they didn’t have a talented nature photographer like Steven Nowakowski to tell their story, must be revisited and put through the full environmental assessment.

Congratulations to local environmentalists for their campaign to preserve this unique environment. The net-zero plan for wind and solar cannot supply our energy needs and will destroy the nature Queenslanders love the most.

The government must stop killing the environment while claiming they’re saving it.