Help protect Channel Country rivers and floodplains
Campaign update: Win for wildlife as oil and gas banned from Channel Country!
22 December 2023
Today's long-awaited decision to ban new oil and gas in the Channel Country is a huge win for the region's diverse wildlife and the future health of the Lake Eyre basin.
Conservationists have welcomed the decision by Premier Steven Miles, which follows years of opposition by Traditional Owners, graziers and environmentalists to oil and gas projects in the region.
The Palasczcuk Government has released the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for the Queensland Lake Eyre Basin for public consultation. The RIS outlines options for protecting the rivers and floodplains in the Queensland part of the Lake Eyre Basin (aka Channel Country), which it promised to do at the 2015, 2017 and 2020 elections.
The Channel Country hosts some of the last remaining free-flowing desert rivers left on Earth, which supports an abundance of endemic wildlife and migratory birds that rely on the region's extensive wetlands for their survival.
The Channel Country also supports cultural connections tens of thousands of years old, one of Australia's largest organic beef producers, and a budding tourism industry.
If approved, new oil and gas development will potentially cause irreversible impacts to the regions ecological values by altering flood flow regimes that sustain this almost pristine landscape, which will devastate the regions endemic wildlife, migratory birds and First Nation Peoples cultural values.
Due to the high risk of irreversible impacts occurring to the regions ecological, hydrological and cultural values, it's vital that new oil and gas development is permanently banned in the Queensland part of the Lake Eyre Basin.
As they best reflect the need to prohibit new oil and gas development from the greatest possible extent of the Channel Country, QCC strongly supports implementation of Spatial Option 3 and Regulatory Option 4 as outlined in the RIS.
Make a submission
The submission process for giving feedback to the Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement for the Queensland Lake Eyre Basin has now closed - thank you to the hundreds of supporters who made sure their voices were heard.
All photos credit to and courtesy of Kerry Trapnell.
