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| The story so far: |
In April '06, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie made
a shock announcement of a dam on the Mary River at Traveston
Crossing. Since then, he's handed the reigns of governing
Qld to Anna Bligh and left her with a legacy of dubious
decision-making. Plentiful research has uncovered that
this dam will not provide adequately for Brisbane's water
needs, either now or in the future, and the environmental
consequences will be catastrophic. Now the decision lies
in the hands of the federal government to weigh up the
proposal and decide on the future of the Mary River.
NOW IS THE TIME TO TELL THEM WHAT WE THINK! |
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| So here's what you can do... |
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Use the links below to generate a letter to the key political
decision makers involved in the dam approval.
You fill out an online form, and we print & post the letter
for you. EASY! |
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or pick and choose from the pollies below... |
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Click
here to tell your friends! Get them
all sending letters too. |
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Toss some $$ our way toward the stamps and printing
costs of the massive mailbags heading toward Canberra.
We take Paypal and give big thanks!
Click
here to donate (you pick the amount - large or small,
we appreciate it). |
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| There's a mountain of reasons to object to this proposal.
Get your dam facts straight with these great websites! |
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www.savethemaryriver.com
- official campaign site
www.ourgreatsandy.com
- coastal impacts
www.stoppress.com.au
- activism in pictures
www.swampnews.squarespace.com
- news & articles
www.savethemaryriver.com/shop
- merchandise
www.facebook.com
- visit the Save the Mary River page and become a fan! |
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And just in case you thought the campaign was a few whinging
farmers somewhere in the Qld bush...
here's a few words from some of our high profile supporters... |
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“Building another dam because there isn't
much water in the ones we have, is like seeing there isn't enough
money in your wallet and deciding to buy a bigger wallet".
Professor Ian Lowe, President Australian Conservation Foundation. |
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"This is the sort of thing we have come
to expect from undemocratic and third-world countries, not from
a place like this. This is obviously a river of great value
for its biodiversity, and yet you appear to have a government
with so little regard for considering other options.”
Patrick McCully, Executive Director, International Rivers
Network. |
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"The completion of the Mary River dam
would almost certainly push it (the lungfish) to “critically
endangered”, and in the long term will lead to its extinction
in the wild."
Professor Jean Joss in submission to Senate Inquiry 2007 |
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“I have been absolutely staggered by
the lack of transparency involved in this decision-making process.
I have dealt with a lot of state governments and I have dealt
with a lot of non-transparent processes, believe me, but I have
never quite seen anything like this.”
Professor Stuart White in evidence to the Senate Inquiry
April 2007 |
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“It is time the outdated knee-jerk response
of building more dams and water storages was confined to the
history books. As evidence to this inquiry shows, many existing
dams in south-east Queensland have totally failed to deliver
reliable water supplies whilst causing immense environmental
damage. To keep repeating the mistakes of the past is just plain
crazy, particularly when they are such expensive and destructive
mistakes.”
Senator Andrew Bartlett, Additional Comments to Senate Inquiry
Aug 2007 |
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| and a few other quotes of relevance to the campaign |
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“Except for global warming, there has
been no more drastic alteration of the landscape in the last
fifty years than the damming, regulation and diversion of the
world’s rivers. The truth is that dam proponents would
say just about anything to get a dam project approved.”
Daniel Beard, ex-Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation, the
US government agency that has built more large dams on more
rivers than any other body anywhere in the world . (as quoted
by Fred Pearce in “When the Rivers Run Dry”) |
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“The Rudd Government will tackle the
water crisis with a national plan to invest in water infrastructure,
sustain our farming communities, revitalise our rivers and waterways,
secure water supplies in our cities and towns and ensure that
we become smarter and more efficient in our water usage. The
Government will invest in greater use of recycled water, desalination
and stormwater.”
From the Prime Minister’s National Plan to solve the
Water Crisis” |
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“In our towns and cities, we must secure
water supplies for current and future needs, including from
a range of new sources that rely less on rainfall given the
clear threat climate change poses to traditional water sources.
A key element of Water for the Future is to work with the States
to develop new sources of water that do not rely entirely on
rainfall.”
Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny
Wong, April 2008 |
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“The status of the Australian lungfish
as rare, distinctive and of profound interest to evolutionary
biologists makes its conservation much more important than that
of an attractive species of bird, say, which has many living
relatives. This distinction should be brought to the forefront
in making a decision on the proposed dam.”
Editorial, Nature, International Journal of Science, July
2006 |
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‘Water is finite and making dams won’t
give you more water. The problem was that a lot of water was
wasted and a lot of good agricultural land lost. Let’s
efficiently use water’.
Mikhail Gorbachev, at Brisbane Festival’s Earth Dialogues
forum for resource management and sustainable development |
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