Bob Brown Foundation not giving up over Tarkine roadblock fight against mining company MMG

The Bob Brown Foundation has lodged an appeal in the court battle over a Tarkine lease granted to Chinese mining company MMG. LATEST FROM COURT >

Tarkine campaigner Scott Jordan. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The Bob Brown Foundation has lodged an appeal in the court battle over a Tarkine lease granted to Chinese mining company MMG.

In 2021, former resources minister Guy Barnett granted the company a mining lease over Heililog Road, extending 100 metres on either side of the road, so MMG could have access to its proposed, controversial waste dam.

Last month, the foundation – which said it believed the lease was granted to exclude protestors from the site – lost a Supreme Court case to have the minister’s decision reviewed.

On Thursday, the foundation announced it had lodged an appeal, which would be heard by the Full Court of the Supreme Court.

The environmental group plans to argue that legislation does not allow leases to be granted for the purposes of blocking access by protestors, media and the public to forested public land.

“It opens the way for a minister to award public land to any miner who wants to hide their secrets and environmental destruction from public view and scrutiny,” takayna/Tarkine campaigner Scott Jordan said.

Over the past few years, the foundation has run an ongoing campaign to stop MMG’s Tarkine tailing dam plans – arguing the valley is home to a number of threatened species including the Tasmanian masked owl, the swift parrot, the Tasmanian devil and the spotted-tailed quoll.

Follow @ambervwilson

Originally published as Bob Brown Foundation not giving up over Tarkine roadblock fight against mining company MMG