The Official Launch of the Lock the Gate Campaign

Hundreds of farmers in southeast Queensland have vowed to lock their gates to keep coal and gas explorers at bay. Representatives of eight farmers' and residents' organisations joined the Six Degrees campaign of Friends of the Earth outside the Queensland parliament on Monday to launch the Lock the Gate campaign. They are opposed to miners' plans for up to 40,000 coal seam gas (CSG) wells and massive new coal mines on the rich agricultural lands of the Darling Downs.

The farmers say that in the short term, mining companies, protected by state legislation, have extraordinary rights to enter land for exploration and mining, disrupting farm operations. In the longer term, the mining could irreparably harm underground aquifers and degrade land forever.

According to Six Degrees spokesperson Drew Hutton: 

The whole weighting of environmental legislation, of impact assessments, of environmental approvals and of land access laws are weighted completely in favour of the mining industry and against farmers.

This is the most radical transformation of rural Queensland since the 19th century.

Dulacca farmer and community leader Lee McNichol said: 

The scales of justice are seriously tilted against the farming community, the community in general, and against good environmental regulation.

We have to make a stand now to address some of these issues.

Organic farmer Graham Back said widespread mining activity would make it impossible for growers to access certificates as organic growers.

John Erbacher of Wandoan said the district was expected to host Australia's biggest coal mine and CSG exploration: 

For the generations of the future, we need food, (but) do we need coal?

Graham Clapham of the Save Our Darling Downs group said landholders are angry and confused about the CSG industry: 

We're angry because the government has forced us to the drastic step of locking our farm gates and we're confused because we can't understand why our government is so keen to grant unlimited rights to foreign multinational mining companies that are not available to Queensland citizens.

Dayne Pratzky of the Western Downs Alliance said miners have been locked out of their rural residential estates near Tara and Chinchilla, home to 3000 people: 

If the government want to take us on ... they can try and bulldoze us, but they're going to need a lot more than a piece of paper and a bulldozer to get into our homes.

They're our homes, it's where we live, it's not an industrial zone.

Support the Lock the Gates campaign here.

Or find out more information: 

• Why we are calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas
• Will coal seam gas ruin the Great Artesian Basin?
• The industrialisation of Queensland's best farming land
• Why coal seam gas and intensive farming are incompatible

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Listen to the 'Lock the Gates' podcast, from community radio station The Wire.