World’s last wilderness under direct threat

IT is with disbelief that I read the words of federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley painting a picture of Australia and Tasmania’s Antarctic future without once mentioning Australia’s disastrous plans to build a giant concrete airport in Antarctica.

The Minister went to considerable lengths to highlight some of the rightly laudable steps the Australian Antarctic program is taking to advance science and the protection of marine areas, but it doesn’t mean anything when we are pouring 115,000 tonnes of concrete over seal and penguin habitat to build a concrete airport in Antarctica. An airport that does nothing to advance science and everything to degrade the magnificent ice continent.

It is incredible to read the Minister’s own words saying, by delivering the RSV NUYINA, Australia will help “conserve and protect the world’s last untouched wilderness”. It is impossible to marry this sentiment to the plan to build a concrete airport, in the same wilderness, that will increase all of humanities disturbance footprint in Antarctica by a staggering 40 per cent. An airport that will require the explosive levelling of petrel rookeries and roads, wharfs, bulldozers right on top of the homes of penguins and seals.

“Untouched” no longer. We should abandon plans to build this airport and the minister should listen to her own words and actually conserve and protect the world’s last wilderness.

Alistair Allan Tinderbox