Title: Mining to end on Christmas Island to protect from weed and pest invasions
[The Australian, July 17, 2010] FEDERAL Environment Minister Peter Garrett has declared the end of phosphate mining on Christmas Island to protect threatened species. He warned that the island was suffering a "deep ecological malaise". Mr Garrett's decision not to allow eight extra mining leases on the island will probably bring an end to export operations within nine years. Phosphate mining remains the biggest employer of locals on Christmas Island: about 130 of the island's 1500 permanent residents work for Phosphate Resources Limited.
The company chairman Clive Brown, a former state Labor minister, yesterday accused Mr Garrett of pandering to anti-mining interests on the eve of a federal election. There has been an asylum-seeker boom since 2007 when then environment minister Malcolm Turnbull first said no to further mining leases. There are now about 2500 detainees and an accompanying fly-in, fly-out workforce of about 300 people on the island.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship and its contractor Serco have steadily increased the number of locals they employ to 80. Mr Garrett announced yesterday that the proposed leases could not be granted without an "unacceptable" impact on the island's biodiversity.
"This is an island with an ecology under significant threat and which is already suffering as a result of a range of threatening processes, including land clearing, invasive fauna and weed invasion," he said.
A 2007 report into the potential effects of the immigration detention centre found it had been built next to a feeding ground for 90 per cent of the world's remaining Pipistrelle bats, a species now thought to be extinct.
"Clearing of secondary regrowth occurred in 2006 and 2007, when it had been shown that this habitat was used by foraging Pipistrelles," the report of the three-year biodiversity monitoring program to the director of National Parks found.
An expert working group subsequently wrote an interim report, given to Mr Garrett in June last year, which also warned of the "rapid decline to probable extinction" of Christmas Island's few remaining endemic reptiles and seven types of plant species.
"In addition, Christmas Island is suffering dramatic losses of the Red Crab (which is) not only its most conspicuous and remarkable species, but also the pivot of the island's unique ecology, which is of international significance," the interim report said.
"Our assessment reflects recognition of the more pervasive effects of the many pressures on the Christmas Island ecosystem, and the enormous challenge that these pose for implementing appropriate management responses on the island."
The interim report found invasive species such as the yellow crazy ant had wreaked havoc and that major works, such as the construction of the Immigration Detention Centre, had seriously overloaded the capacity of the system.
A final report is with Mr Garrett's department.
Mr Brown said the island's economy was underpinned only by mining and detention of illegal immigrants claiming asylum.
"Given that both political parties are committed to slowing the inflow of refugees and other country processing facilities, this decision represents the death knell of the island's economy," he said.