Updated 28th June, 2014
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Protestors at the site of the proposed coal mine. |
Three ministers were among four people arrested at a protest aimed at stalling the development of a new open-cut coal mine in northern New South Wales yesterday.
A group of protestors, who included clergy and lay people from the Uniting, Catholic, Anglican and Brethren Churches, prayed on the site in the Leard State Forest with some locking themselves to a cross. They claim to have stopped mining equipment from entering the site for five hours.
One of the arrested ministers, Rev John Brentnall of the Uniting Church in Liverpool Plains, said in a statement that reducing our carbon footprint in Australia won’t mean much if coal is "causing many times more emissions overseas than what we’re saving at home".
"It’s the poor who suffer the most, through unpredictable weather, extreme weather-related events and rising sea levels," he said. "The rich are benefitting at the expense of the poor. This is an issue of social justice."
The Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) said Whitehaven Coal’s planned mine at Maules Creek is being made possible using finance from the ANZ Bank and is calling on "religious people" who hold accounts with the bank to write to it and request they stop investing in the project.
More than 200 people have reportedly been arrested protesting the coal mine development.
– DAVID ADAMS
