The Northern Territory Government is under pressure to delay declaring a national park in the Gulf of Carpentaria region.
More than one million hectares of land in the south-west of the Gulf that was gazetted as a proposed national park more than 20 years ago is set to be ‘declared’ in the near future.
However, the Minerals Council of Australia now says no announcement on the formation of Limmen National should be made until mining leases are granted. One of two iron ore mines planned for the region is within proposed park boundaries.
“If the whole region is to be declared a national park … that concerns us because we do have a number of companies that have been given licences to explore in that area,” Mineral Council Territory branch president, Peter Stewart, told the ABC. “The area is fairly open tract of old, degraded pastoral land.”
Mr Stewart says the eligibility of the land for national park status should be re-assessed.
“It does not make sense to start looking at declaring national parks on areas that clearly have a resource and potential to be mined,” he said, adding that such a decision would repel potential investment.
Access to the proposed park – which is located approximately 300km southeast of Katherine and 76km northwest of Borroloola – can be difficult and this has contributed to the isolated and wild character of the area. The NT Government says much of the area is rugged with spectacular weathered sandstone formations and intervening alluvial valleys
The Environment Centre NT says the park should be declared and the uncertainty ended … and it says a new Mary River national park should also be declared.
“We have Limmen national park as a park in limbo, we don’t also want to have Mary River Park as a park in limbo that never gets declared,” Environment Centre spokesman, Stuart Blanch, told the ABC. “The Territory Labor government needs to bring to the end of this journey, declaring more parks.”
The government has released its draft joint management plan for the proposed Mary River national park and it says the plan is being finalised in conjunction with the process for declaring the park.
