Man locks himself to plant in mine protest

BRISBANE: A man has locked himself to machinery in an environmental protest at a railway construction site of the Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland.

Barney Jackson used a steel elbow lock to attach himself to a concrete batching plant near Belyando yesterday morning.

The $A2 billion ($NZ2.14 billion) mine is being built by Indianowned Bravus Mining and Resources, formerly known as Adani Australia.

The company is building its 10 million tonneayear capacity thermal coal mine in the Galilee Basin, and it could be expanded to six times that size.

Bravus is also building the rail line that will be opened to other companies if it gains approval to mine coal in the region.

Jackson strung out a banner with the words ‘‘Water is Life’’ on it in protest against the company’s water extraction rights.

‘‘I grew up on Magnetic Island on the Great Barrier Reef and I’ve seen the damage and pressures that are being put on the reef, something that the Adani coal mine will exacerbate,’’ he said in a statement.

‘‘If anything is sacred, water.

If there is no water we all die, humans included. ‘Water is life’ says it all.

‘‘Growing up in north Queensland where water is often very scarce, Adani having a licence to take unlimited amounts of water makes me very concerned.’’

Bravus said work was continuing on the site despite Jackson’s protest, which it noted was more than 300km inland from the Great Barrier Reef.

Bravus said its project had to comply with Queensland environmental regulations.

The Indian company changed its name to Bravus from Adani Australia on Thursday. — AAP

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