Message to French government: "Keep out of Kakadu"

The Wilderness Society
Environment Centre NT
Australian Conservation Foundation
Greenpeace
Friends of the Earth

Media Release
26 April 2005
19th anniversary of Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Australia's leading environment organizations have joined forces to send a message to the French government not to allow its nuclear subsidiary Areva to develop an new uranium mine in the heart of World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. Earlier this year Areva signaled its intention to push for the new uranium mine at Koongarra.

Mining has been blocked for the past five years due to a legal moratorium on negotiations between the mining company and the area's Traditional Owners which expires on 26 April 2005 (today). 

This day also happens to be the 19th  anniversary of the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine which has so far killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands. The moratorium has been in place for five years.

Peter Robertson, Campaign Coordinator for the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory (ECNT) said the proposed Koongarra uranium mine would be close to the internationally famous Aboriginal rock art site and tourism destination, Nourlangie Rock.

"For the French government, which prides itself on its cultural awareness, to push ahead with this mine would be equivalent to an Australian company going to Paris and bulldozing the Louvre for the recovery of picture frames."

Greenpeace Australia spokesperson James Courtney said that there would be an international outcry if the French government went ahead with the mine. 

"After the experience of Muroroa and the Rainbow Warrior the last thing the French government needs is another nuclear-related PR disaster in the southern hemisphere."

ACF anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said two landmark official reports on Kakadu, one by the Commonwealth of Australia (Fox report 1977) and one by the World Heritage Committee (1999) had clearly rejected the Koongarra uranium mine because of its impacts on the natural and cultural heritage of Kakadu.

"In its formal response to the 1999 World Heritage Committee report, the Howard government 'accepted in principle' the recommendation that Koongarra be incorporated into Kakadu and mining be precluded.  Now is the time to relay that message to the French government."

TWS Campaign Director Alec Marr said the recent protracted campaign against the proposed Jabiluka mine, which ultimately succeeded, showed the Australian public cared deeply about Kakadu and its natural and cultural values.

"Why would we sacrifice such an exceptional environment which is already earning millions through tourism and has the potential to earn more with appropriate tourism development?"

FOE spokesperson Michaela Stubbs said the nuclear industry had shown itself time and again to be incapable of preventing deadly and environmentally damaging accidents, leaks and proliferation.

"Wherever you see the nuclear industry operating you see people and the planet placed at unacceptable risk.  From the accident-prone Ranger uranium mine, to Chernobyl,  to all the stockpiles of highly radioactive waste piled up around the world without any safe disposal, to the secretive nuclear weapons manufacturing centres across the planet — this is a dirty and dangerous industry that we don't need and the planet cannot afford.