Arkaroola

Seeking a Balance is a beautiful and expensive brochure. But unfortunately it doesn’t really solve the problems of the Northern Flinders Ranges.

It states the reason for the publication is the belief that there is a need to better protect the values of the Northern Flinders. It considers the whole region and then concentrates its results only on the north east sector, focussing in a very large part on the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary.

Under the ‘current system of play’ the northern half of the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary is classified Environmental Class A, while the southern half has a lower level of protection (Environmental Class B), under the South Australian Development Act 1993 last consolidated in 2003.

It is in this Environmental Class A Zone that the problems with Marathon Exploration’s environmentally inappropriate uranium exploration methods and the burial of in excess of 40 tonnes of low level radioactive waste at Mt Gee and similar amounts in the Yudnamutana Gorge only kilometres away came to a head.

An objective of this Act is the protection of the landscape from damage by mining operations and exploring for new resources.

Part of the Act says ‘Mining operations should not take place here unless the deposits are of such paramount significance that all other environment, heritage or conservation considerations may be overridden’ and that ‘exploitation of the deposits is in the National or State interest’ and that ‘investigations have shown that alternative deposits are not available on other land in the locality...’.

It is Arkaroola’s belief that the legislation around this existing Environmental Class A Zoning could have simply been strengthened to properly protect the Sanctuary’s central core of ecologically and geologically environmental significance.

AND, there is already a major uranium mine operating on the neighbouring, almost featureless plains at Beverley.

The Environmental Class A Zone on the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary covers the magnificent, rugged and in part inaccessible wild landscape of the well known Ridgetop Area, the Mawson Plateau and beyond. Class B covers the area where sheep were run for 40 years on the old Arkaroola pastoral property until the early 1970’s.

Arkaroola had expected that the new joint initiatives zoning proposals in Seeking a Balance would further protect the Class A Zone from mining. The document certainly raises the issues of the importance of the landscape to tourism, wilderness, culture, biodiversity and mineral prospectivity. But Arkaroola believes that in many cases the proposal weakens the situation, rather than strengthens it.

Under the new zoning proposals much of the existing Environmental Zone A is set to become available for Standard exploration and mining access (Zone 3), while other parts could be mined if approved prior to public consultation.

Other places could be mined underground using surface access immediately adjacent places of high conservation or geological value. We would have expected at least a protective buffer completely around such Geological Monuments.

We feel these constitute a giant step backwards for protection of our State’s natural assets, not only at Arkaroola, but wherever else these zoning proposals are instituted later.

Submissions by members of the public addressing the proposed management of this section of the Northern Flinders Ranges will close on the 19th of December.

Arkaroola believes the Land Management Proposal has been hastily drawn up and that little time has been given for public consideration.

If you would like to make a submission seeking reconsideration of the proposal, one or more of the following areas might be ones you would consider.

There’s a number of issues that haven’t been addressed:

The maps do not show topographical information in sufficient detail to enable clear identification of places, and comparisons between on-the-ground attributes mapped (e.g. biodiversity ‘hot-spots’ or proposed management zone boundaries).
In developing the proposed management zones, were any attributes other than those three Value maps included in the brochure taken into account? (e.g. Heritage issues, both aboriginal and post European exploration).
Additionally, latitude and longitude data is not given. This makes identification of localities particularly difficult and does not aid anyone wanting to make informed decisions.
The proposed Management Zone map appears to split East Painter Gorge laterally into a protected habitat on one side, while the other side of the gorge is open for exploration and mining. This seems an unorthodox conservation method.

Landscape Values:

Where is the justifying background data for the zoning determinations expressed in these maps?

The results of the survey, including all images, their ratings and comments from 683 respondents, can be downloaded as a PDF document from here. It can also be downloaded from http://scenicsolutions.com.au Internet site.

The project was initiated by Department of Environment and Heritage as ‘part of a program of ‘assessing the natural attributes of the Arkaroola region’ and so as to not prejudice results, was widened to include the rest of the Northern Flinders Ranges.

A number of issues arise from the survey

Accuracy of the pictorial survey. Does a voluntary internet survey provide an accurate survey by demographics or statistics?

Communications in remote areas. Because of poor telephone communications some people in northern regions couldn’t access the internet survey or were unable to see the large volume of photos.

The survey was later opened to ‘part of the State Public Service’ for comment.

Criteria for assessing landscape value. Arkaroola was assessed at a time when it had experienced 10 years of drought and due to the terrain much of the spectacular vistas on the 600 square kilometre sanctuary were bypassed.

The survey results indicated that lack of vegetation tended to result in lower levels of perceived attractiveness. If this is the case the relatively barren Mawson Plateau should have scored much lower than the better vegetated area to the south that scored lower. Where is the background information for these results?

People’s perception of scenic values is subjective. It would appear difficult to accurately measure this in such a survey.

How was the Mawson Plateau valued so highly when the surveyor didn’t go there?

On the basis that a large number of visitors to Arkaroola are from interstate and Overseas, why was there no proportional representation of these people?
Despite all this, the survey concluded that it would seem difficult to sustain a case for mining in the Mount Painter region.

Biodiversity:

We believe that there is a major flaw in the data sets used where Biodiversity Values are compared with Mineral Prospectivity, Mineral Occurrences and Mines. This presumes known biodiversity can be directly compared to unknown or possible mineral occurrences. A much better comparison would be Biodiversity Prospectivity comparisons with Mineral Prospectivity – ie comparing apples with apples, rather than oranges!

There are more Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby colonies concentrated along the Arkaroola Creek than anywhere else in the Flinders. However there are no bio-corridors linking these with colonies in the central region around Mt Painter/East Painter Gorge, or those of the more northerly Mawson Plateau.

The Department of Environment’s own NatureLinks program for managing large areas of SA habitat recognizes broad ‘biodiversity corridors’ that enable native wildlife to move to adjacent areas to survive and adapt to environmental change, particularly in regard to climate change.

In the Arkaroola Sanctuary this proposal seems to have been completely overlooked.

Cultural Values:

Seeking a Balance does not appear to address any of the Cultural Heritage of the Adnyamathanha People in any detail whatsoever, and takes into no real account of many sites on Arkaroola.

Tourism Values:

Again the document glosses over the importance of this to the region and does not take into account the ten thousand people who annually travel through and enjoy the scenery via the Ridgetop Tour.   Tourism Values appear to have been based on the Landscape Values Survey mentioned above which concluded that area had only moderate scenic value not supported by the majority of visitors.

The Survey also found peoples’ perceptions were adversely affected by arid lands lacking in vegetation. The number of visitors to Arkaroola annually would debunk this, as would visitors to the Grand Canyon or Antarctica to name but a few.

Geoscience Values:

To the east of Arkaroola Village in Zone 3, is the recently recognised biologically constructed fossil ‘fringing reef’ built at the end of Snow-ball Earth approximately 700 million years ago. It is estimated to be 800m thick compared to the Great Barrier Reef (100m). Should the ‘reef’ have the same level of protection worthy of other proclaimed Arkaroola Geological Monuments (Zone 2A)? The only place in the world these ‘reefs’ are currently known to exist is in the NE part of the Northern Flinders Ranges.

The proposed zoning map also indicates a relatively narrow (higher value) zone ’sliver’ east of the Mawson Plateau.   Is it possible, or practicable to manage very narrow patches of country in isolation from their surrounds?

The Geological Monuments of Mt Gee, Mt Painter and The Armchair are also isolated geological peculiarities.   If underground mining were permitted immediately adjacent to these areas does this give them any real protection, or lower their intrinsic and scenic values? Should they not be surrounded by buffer zones?

The Arkaroola landscape is a very special Geoscience Laboratory. It is the only place where such geology is exposed at the earth’s surface for scientists and students to study. This was recognized by Sir Douglas Mawson a century ago. He convinced his student, (Dr) Reg Sprigg to purchase Arkaroola if the opportunity arose. He described it as ‘one great open-air museum of geological history’ (quotation from Sir Mark Oliphant in Arkaroola-Mt Painter in the Northern Flinders Ranges, SA: The Last Billion Years).

Water Resources:

We are seriously concerned as to where any mining on Arkaroola would obtain the necessary water for such operations.

Marathon Resources P/L have earlier indicated that over the proposed 13-year life of their uranium mining operations, up to 5.5 million litres per day would be required. Just where would this water come from? From aquifers on Arkaroola? From the nearby Great Artesian Basin?

On Arkaroola, water is more precious than any mineral - any interference at all with our scant fossil-water acquifers could well spell the end for our waterholes and be disastrous for the wildlife that wholly depend on this precious liquid. And what of the survival of Arkaroola Village?

The Last Word
Until mining can be achieved sensitively, without surface impacts (temporary or permanent) we believe it has no place in Arkaroola’s mountain landscape.

Please also see other views on the following web links:

Unknown SA Blog Site
unknownsa.blogspot.com/2009/12/class-confusion.html

ABC News - Aug 14 2008 - Senator Nick Minchin
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/14/2335607.htm

The Greens Mark Parnell MLC
markparnell.org.au/campaign.php?campaignn=19

The Sentimental Bloke Blog site
www.thesentimentalbloke.com/search/label/Arkaroola

Flinders Ranges Internet Site
www.flindersranges.com.au/2009/11/03/arkaroola-under-threat-please-help/

Arkaroola Internet site (Mining)
www.arkaroola.com.au/mining.php

Arkaroola Internet site (Mt Gee)
www.arkaroola.com.au/mt_gee.php

Wilderness Society - Arkaroola
secure.wilderness.org.au/cyberactivist/cyberactions/09_09_arkaroola-comments.php?page=28

Landscape Values Survey Results
Scenic Solutions Appendixes (2.7 MB)

Articles in the Media
New Frog Species on Arkaroola Under Threat From Mining (194 KB) - Press Release, June 2010
U-mine decision time extended (236Kb) - Sunday Mail, 3 January 2010
Degradation of Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary (328 MB) - The Advertiser, 26 December 2009