SaB submission period extended

The public submission deadline for comment on 'Seeking a Balance - Conservation and resource use in the Northern Flinders Ranges' has been deferred until January 29th, 2009

See the most recent posts below for more information about Seeking a Balance.

Over the weekend the Save Arkaroola campaign placed an advertisement in the Weekend Australian (see at left), while the Wilderness Society ran its own on page 3 of today's Advertiser (below)

Today the Arkaroola Sanctuary released its own 'From the Ark update' announcing the postponement of the submission deadline. Notably, this included the following -

Arkaroola has received advice that the consultation process requires submissions to specifically address the management policies and zoning framework proposed in Seeking a Balance. So please when you Have Your Say, be sure to evaluate the document and make recommendations that can be considered in any revisionary process. We need to balance passion with purpose — to achieve a much better level of protection for Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, and by inference, the Northern Flinders Ranges.

Now, it would be nothing short of outrageous should the State Government attempt to ignore submissions on Seeking a Balance that simply say 'we do not want to see any mining in the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, and to the extent that Seeking a Balance allows this I/we oppose it' - or even 'Please, just don't mine Arkaroola' - rather than addressing in detail a complicated mish-mash of zones that contradict existing legislation and don't even provide continuous 'whole of landscape' corridors for the local biota. I trust they will not attempt to do so.

In fact, given the clear conflict with the existing Class A Environmental Zone and no explanation of what the mining 'infrastructure' the new plan is prepared to see installed across the northern Flinders (in all but the limited areas assigned to Zone 1 in their plan) it's hard to work out what SaB actually means! (Click here for details)

So, I would argue that the Seeking a Balance process is flawed enough without any hypothetical figure in the state government attempting to say 'well, we're opening up the area to mining, and you must limit your comments to discussing the framework we've set up for this - but in choosing to comment you might perhaps hope to tweak our boundaries a little!'


the albert namatjira approach


But as no-one will want to see a submission wasted, and as I've advised before in this journal (see below) that submissions don't have to be long-winded or overly-detailed, I will also advise that they should at least contain wording to the effect that "I write with reference to your 'Seeking a Balance' document - and this is what I think of your proposed mining Access Zones..." and then propose what you'd wish to see for the area.

If we have to see the world through their framework let's take the Albert Namatjira approach - and paint the ranges purple!

(In SaB's mapping purple indicates Access Zone 1 - where the mining industry is most restricted - more zoning details )