Friends of Stradbroke Island

After an unprecedented 5 year long criminal trial, the prosecution of Sibelco for illegal removal of island non-mineral sand is finally drawing to a close. The final hearing date has been set – 22 August, 2014 ! It will be heard in Warwick, as the magistrate hearing the case has been transferred there. The evidence against the company was obtained by the former EPA in late 2008. The evidence included incriminating company records seized from Sibelco’s Stradbroke office.

In the last year the global economic crisis together with new scientific predictions of the rapid escalation of global warming are factors that have radically altered most people’s world view. I am sure most FOSI members consider the island much more in a global context than we did only a year ago. The implications for North Stradbroke Island, already suffering environmental harm from inappropriate development, sand mining and water extraction, and very nearly an oil spill, become ever more unpredictable. Sea level rises, extreme weather events, mining companies ever more fixated on the bottom line and searching for profitable activities, and developers with the same problem, a larger population in Redlands drawing on the aquifer – all these are potential impacts on our poor island. FOSI’s activities over 2008 included involvement in two legal cases. One involved CRL’s attempts to quarry huge volumes of sand from the island (around 500,000 tonnes per annum) for the construction i...

In our last newsletter we reported the unanimous decision of the Redland City Council in August, 2008, to reject a proposal by a Consolidated Rutile Ltd subsidiary to take sand from the island and sell it to the construction industry. Such sand is not a ‘mineral’ under the Mineral Resources Act. The application involved the establishment on the island of a significant new extractive industry, which on the figures provided by the mining company could last for 98 years. The mining company claimed in its application to the Council that up to 10 extra jobs would be created if its proposal was approved. CRL has appealed the decision. In early April, there was a two-day hearing of several preliminary points of law which could bring the appeal to an end. The court has reserved its judgement. However, there has been another development, which will become very significant if the court decides the preliminary points in CRL’s favour. Prior to the State election on 21 March, several FOSI and S...