Coal & Gas Field Free Gippsland
The areas highlighted in red indicate existing licences for coal and unconventional gas exploration in Victoria.
In April 2012, the Victorian and Federal governments jointly declared that experimental technology could turn Gippsland into a coal export region the size of the Pilbara.
Shortly after, the Minerals Council of Australia declared in a submission to a government inquiry that ‘there is enormous potential for Coal Seam Methane (CSG) industry in Victoria’.
Victoria is experiencing a rush of exploration for ‘unconventional’ gas and experimental new coal projects, with large swaths of the state now under coal, coal seam gas, shale gas, or tight gas exploration licenses.
Local communities in Gippsland are standing up and demanding a Coal and Gas field free Gippsland.
“Country and city, united we stand, protect our water, protect our land.”- Elaine Armstrong, NSW CWA President speaking to a rally in Sydney
Declaring your community Coal and Gas Field free
Governments all over Australia have shown that they are unwilling to stand up to fossil fuel industries and protect local communities from the harmful effects on their health to safeguard our water, to conserve our ability to produce food and to address the reality of climate change.
It is now up to ordinary people to challenge the power of the fossil fuel industry and defend the things that are most important to us.
In northern NSW, an exciting movement is growing. Faced with the imminent threat of CSG fracking, all different kinds of communities are declaring their roads and towns ‘gas field free’. This process involves a town meeting where the people present decide whether they would like to declare their home gas field free. The next step is to go door-to-door and survey the entire community asking the question: ‘do you want to declare your community gas field free?’ The results are collected and in every case between 90and 100% of the community has said yes. The majority of the Shire has now been declared Gasfield free, defended by the community and the resistance is spreading into neighbouring regions.
This community strategy for resisting inappropriate and dangerous mining projects takes the power away from governments, influenced by the fossil fuel lobby, and gives the power back to local communities in deciding their future.
People power can stop the Coal and Gas expansion in Gippsland!
For more information…
ABC: ‘CSG By Tbe Numbers’
CSG Free Norther Rivers
Lock The Gate
Lock the Gate Gippsland
Crikey: CSG Straight From The Farmers’ Mouths
Friends Of The Earth
SMH: Tests Reveal Contaminated Water Near Gas Site
Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Managment
Getup! CSG page