The Albanese Government is funding a predicted mining boom that will have devastating consequences for the environment, writes Sue Arnold.
AUSTRALIA HAS BEEN called the ‘the world’s unsustainable mine’.
The recent announcement of significant federal government funding for the rare earth elements (REE) mining industry further supports this descriptor.
As leading global ecologist Professor Corey Bradshaw writes on ConservationBytes:
Australia is for the most part a 7.7 million km2 “mine” to the world — we, of course, dig up our minerals and ship them overseas and we export shit-tonnes of coal.
…soil degradation from erosion, depletion, chemical fertilisation, salination and toxification is a massive global problem — ~ 12% of global agricultural supply has declined from soil degradation alone over the past 50 years.
Undeterred by scientific concerns, the Federal Government has invested a combined total of $11 billion in the expansion of the Critical Minerals Facility, managed by …