The Wilderness Society invites Tania Major to discuss Wild Rivers

The Wilderness Society Inc
Media Release
31 June 2009

The Wilderness Society today reissued a long standing invitation to anti wild rivers campaigner, Tania Major, to meet to discuss perspectives about wild river protection on Cape York Peninsula. The invitation will be published in major newspapers on Monday.

Tania Major and Noel Pearson have been leading a campaign against Queensland’s wild rivers initiative. On Tuesday night, Ms Major led a media stunt at a Wilderness Society fundraiser in Sydney, where she claimed that the Wilderness Society had refused to meet with her and other Indigenous people.

The letter reads:

Dear Ms Major,

Since 2007, the Wilderness Society has sought a meeting with you to discuss your concerns about wild rivers protection on Cape York. We again invite you to meet with us at our office in Sydney to discuss these issues.

We are particularly interested to hear your thoughts about the impacts of mining on wild rivers and your understanding or misunderstanding of the impacts of wild river protection on economic development opportunities for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents of Cape York.

We are available to meet anytime next week.

Lyndon Schneiders
National Campaign Director
The Wilderness Society

Lyndon Schneiders, spokesperson for the Wilderness Society said: “Wild Rivers is a sensible river protection framework that prevents strip mining, mega-dams and intensive irrigation in fragile riverine and wetlands areas, while supporting native title rights and sustainable development. There has been an extreme amount of misinformation about the protection of Wild Rivers. We would be pleased to discuss this in detail with Ms Major as soon as possible”.