LANDING ON SOLUTION

ONE must surely question the sincerity of our Mayor’s declaration that the soon-to-be-revamped Queensland vegetation laws must not affect land for food production.

For several years now he has been at the helm of a council that has approved hundreds of hectares of some of the Darling Down’s most productive farming lands to be condemned for at least 30 years to alien solar farms.

The adverse impact on the livelihoods and lives of those living in closely-settled rural areas (some homes within 300 metres of installations), have been ignored by this council.

In 2016 a city-based developer/investor’s application for the conversion of 250 hectares of prime farming land to be covered in solar panels was approved at a council meeting where five of our 11 councillors were present.

This asset has since been sold to a company with Chinese interests. One would suggest this is not the actions of elected representatives aiming to protect arable land in their region for future food production.

Land presently used for primary production will be surrendered for subsidised renewable energy use. Such productive soils are a non-renewable resource.

Most accept that wind or solar will become a component of the energy mix in this state, which presently has no guidelines for alternative energy generation.

So why aren’t the enormous areas of semi-arid land or maybe the government-owned abandoned railway corridors targeted for our RET?

If this council is genuine in its stated need to protect our prime farming land and the well-being of those who devote their lives to producing wealth for this nation, against the vagaries of the environment and rules and regulations imposed by an often ill informed bureaucracy, please heed the concerns identified in submissions lodged, before you condemn more hectares to a land change that will alter the ecosystems forever.

What Darling Downs landscape will the TRC target for landfill sites for these large defunct, deteriorating plastic solar panels? Is this to be the pollution of the 2020s? – J ANGEL, Pittsworth