By Kate Minnett and Sean Purcell
CAIRNS — Despite the threat of legal injunctions, activists opposed to the building of a private 7.5 kilometre tourist cable car in World Heritage-listed national park between Cairns and Kuranda, north of here, conducted a series of actions in October.
However, 16 members of the newly formed non-violent action group Save Australian Forests for Everyone (SAFE) who were involved in a 10-day action were arrested and fined. Two campaign coordinators were jailed.
The protesters are appealing against their sentences; one activist, who was detained on October 13 by three drug squad officers, strip-searched, interrogated and had her bag inspected under suspicion that she was harbouring drugs for use in the courtroom gallery, has filed an official complaint of police harassment. No drugs were found.
The same day that a large contingent of anti-skyrail arrestees and supporters were attending court, skyrail workers and police trespassed on the privately owned base camp land and chainsawed three-quarters of the branches of a tree in which Manfred Stevens has been tree-sitting for more than 130 days.
Opponents of the skyrail development, the longest passenger cable car system ever proposed anywhere in the world, know that it will set a precedent for similar private developments in national parks.
The system requires 36 pylons of up to 40 metres, 21 of which require the clearing of wet tropical rainforest. Additional clearing includes two "stations" within the World Heritage area. These stations are to have shops and walking tracks constructed. The developer, Skyrail Pty Ltd, was not required to provide specifications for these before being given approval to begin the project. There will also be a "swathe" clearing along several sections of the route. This will entail lopping the tops off rainforest trees and cutting trees down completely to allow the cable to come closer to the ground.
Skyrail will carry 600 people an hour. The cable cars travel at 18 kilometres an hour, and a car will travel over any given section of the rainforest every 33 seconds. Skyrail estimates that it will double the current tourist visitor numbers to Kuranda from 2000 to 4000 a day.
Skyrail will cost $35-$40 million to construct. It will provide between 20 and 30 jobs — an investment of perhaps $1.5 million for each new job.
Although the project involves a massive intrusion into the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and a national park, the project has not undergone an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
A study produced in 1989, which the Queensland government insists on calling the substantive EIA, received a scathing critique from the Commonwealth government in 1990. Because of this critique, the consultants for Skyrail issued defamation proceedings against the Commonwealth but have refused to bring the matter to court. That action is still current and the Commonwealth critique is sub judice.
Some ancillary studies have been done, none of which either individually or in combination amount to an EIA, nor do they attempt to address any of the concerns put forward over the past four years.
The Skyrail project has been opposed by the Wet Tropics Management Authority, the (Commonwealth) Rainforest Management Unit, the Australian Heritage Commission and the Australian Committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It is opposed by the Djabugay Tribal Corporation, representing traditional owners, as well as by Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation. It has been vocally opposed in the Senate by the Australian Democrats and the Greens (WA).
Its sole base of support comes from the Queensland Premier's Department (Office of the Coordinator General) and its subsidiary, the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage.
[Kate Minnett is from the People Against Kuranda Skyrail and Sean Purcell is the coordinator of the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre.]