A beleaguered wind farm project has changed its name and halved the number of proposed turbines in a bid to gain support from both traditional owners and the government.
Chalumbin Wind Farm has been renamed Wooroora Station Wind Farm and 44 of the proposed 86 250m high industrial wind turbines have been ditched.
Local residents and aboriginal groups in far north Queensland have relentlessly opposed the project on the edge of the Wet Tropics World Heritage area.
Jirrbal’s traditional owners and elders claim the green energy development site would erode a sacred site where women once gave birth.
Environmental groups also worry that the wind farm poses a threat to native, endangered wildlife and will alter the landscape on the edge of the heritage-listed rainforest.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will have the final say on whether the project goes ahead, but Ark Energy, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc, has made significant changes in hopes it will influence the government.
If approved, a 90-mile stretch of forest and wetlands bordering the rainforest will be cleared and replaced with gravel access roads and 86 industrial, 800-foot wind turbines.
The project has now been renamed Wooroora Cattle Station
“After extensive public consultation, we listened to feedback from the community, government and traditional owners and made changes to the project to meet expectations,” said Anthony Russo, general manager of Ark Energy.
“These changes reduce the impact to very low levels. We believe that the benefits of this project to the natural environment far outweigh its impact.
‘Not least, more clean energy in the electricity grid in a relatively short time and a significant improvement of the habitat for protected species on private land adjacent to protected forests.’
Ark Energy says the claim that the site will be built on sacred Aboriginal land is a misconception because of the name of the project.
The company hopes that the new name, inspired by the Wooroora Pastoral Station, where all new wind turbines will be located, will allay concerns from the community.
The region is home to some of Australia’s most endangered wildlife, and traditional owners believe the Chalumbin Marshes projected the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
Now Ark Energy says the wind turbines will completely avoid “wet sclerophyll forests adjacent to the World Heritage area, as well as all known beautiful breeding frog habitats.”
The remaining wind turbines will not be visible from publicly accessible points within and adjacent to the heritage area, the company said.
A local leader who led the charge against Ark Energy and the project said the changes are “important” but the battle is “not over.”
All red X marks where turbines have been removed, while the yellow dots indicate where to go
A beloved native place where women once gave birth to their babies and where endangered wildlife lives may soon be bulldozed to make way for wind turbines
Critics still want the project scrapped entirely. Ms Plibersek has until the end of September to make her final decision.
Many of the species that live in the area where the wind turbines would initially be built are rare or endangered. These include the endangered breeding frogs, which will not be affected now, as well as masked owls, spectacled flying foxes, northern quolls and rare bird and possum species.
Elders believe there are many more yet to be identified that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet.
Sir David Attenborough once described the nearby Wet Tropics region as ‘the most extraordinary place on earth’.
It is the oldest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest in the world, estimated to be about 150 million years old.
The Cairns and Far North Environment Centre, the region’s largest non-governmental environmental organization, wants Ms Plibersek to reject the proposal.
“We know that the rapid roll-out of renewable energy is essential to secure a secure climate future. No one knows that better than the reef and rainforest managers,” said the center’s director, Lucy Graham.
Bordering the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in Far North Queensland, the fate of Chalumbin rests entirely in the hands of Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek
Sir David Attenborough once described the region of the Wet Tropics as ‘the most extraordinary place on earth’
“However, we also know that we cannot afford to perpetuate the extinction crisis and loss of biodiversity through the development of renewable energy.”
Apart from the disruption to wildlife, some members of the local indigenous community, who have lived in the region for 60,000 years, say the project will cause irreparable damage.
Georgina Wieden, a Jirrbal woman, spoke of the agony of losing the potential of what she considers such a culturally important area with Australia rainforest reserve.
“It’s not just about the destruction, the pollution, or how ugly it’s going to get.
“It’s about our spiritual connection to our homes, our country. That’s where we belong,” she says through tears.
Mrs. Wieden revealed that one of her grandmothers was born at the bottom of the chasm in Chalumbin.
“That’s where life comes from,” she said.
There was a fear among the community that the waterways that could be cleared were once sacred grounds where babies were born and initiations took place, but Ark Energy insists it was a misunderstanding because of the project’s original name.
The Jirrbal people have been assured that the land council – Wabubadda Aboriginal Corporation – would send a team to ‘mark’ key sites.
But Ms. Wieden says such a task is not so easy.
Ms. Wieden claims that her elders were not aware of the proposal – something that ARK Energy flatly denies
“It’s not just a matter of walking up and saying this was a campground, that it was a cemetery, or that it was a birthplace or an initiation site,” she said. “There is a ceremony that must be performed before you even enter them.
“You have to talk, you have to practice cultural law before entering and leaving those places. You can’t just walk into Country and think you have a right to be there, because you don’t.’
Ms. Wieden claims that her elders were not aware of the proposal – something that ARK Energy flatly denies.
The Native Title Act of 1993 placed the power to make such decisions with Prescribed Body Corporates – land councils.
The land council acting as trustee for Chalumbin is the Wabubadda Aboriginal Corporation, which signed the wind turbines.
A spokesman for the organization has repeatedly insisted that the Jirrbal people voted with a majority in favor of the land use agreement, but elders are calling for the organization to disclose who has been consulted on their behalf.
“We are the rainforest people. This is where we come from. We come from that rainforest,’ said Mrs Wieden
Betty Cashmere, who also appears in the promotional material, states that the land that will be cleared is “open forest,” not the “rainforest… where my people hunted, gathered, and lived.”
A report responding to as many as 700 community submissions took action against community concerns about the cultural and environmental factors.
The report states that the land within the project area is “managed by graziers for agricultural purposes” and that access for Jirrbal people “has been restricted for many years,” but negotiations have allowed for “some access.”
Indigenous people expressed their concern that cemeteries, where many ‘old people and the elderly’ still reside, would be razed to the ground for the project.
Another entry read, “There’s the creation story. I don’t know how Wabubadda doesn’t know this, there is a Rainbow Serpent trapped in the Koombooloomba Dam.
“It was a custom to bury the placenta after birth. Burying the placenta at Country. That’s what the old ladies did. I was the first in forty years to do that with my son, when my son was born seven years ago.”
Ms Wieden said she has never had any problems accessing the site, and many old people still “go back to the land” to heal when they are sick or need to renew their spiritual connection.
‘We’re not going to see that. It’s part of us. Part of our being. If we don’t have that, what do we have?’
The endangered land borders rainforest (Kuranda National Park in the wet tropics pictured)