Quick Submissions Needed to the Council Budget please

Due 4pm 22nd May 2026.

Please support Tweed’s precious environment by making a quick submission to the Council Budget 2026. Feel free to copy and paste from the following or add to as you see fit.

Dear Tweed Shire Council,

I strongly support increased funding in Council’s budget for maintenance of Tweed’s Littoral Rainforests and the Cool Towns Program.

The Cool Towns Program has multiple benefits to the environment, the community and the economy. This is a key priority to ensure Tweed’s urban areas are attractive economic drivers, comfortable liveable spaces, and portray the environmental integrity fitting for the internationally significant environment of Tweed. read more

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Microplastics with your coffee.

Council voted 3 to 4 against the proposed single use materials policy, which would have banned plastic lined cardboard coffee cups at public markets on Council land.

Councillor James Owen, voting against the policy, said “Any Councillor who votes for this policy is against small businesses.” No Councillor James Owen, that’s not true. The other Councillors are against waste, single use plastics, and we reckon that if the small business owners of the market coffee shop stalls knew they are ingesting millions of nanoparticles of plastic with every cup of coffee, they themselves wouldn’t drink from a plastic lined cardboard coffee cup. read more

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[nefanews] Local Land Services Amendment (Private Native Forestry) Bill 2026

The Shooters and Fishers Party seek to stop Councils that require consent for PNF in rural zones (most private native vegetation) from doing so, such as Kyogle, Tweed, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie-Hastings, ect.

They don’t want logging to be subject to the same scrutiny as most other developments that require DAs – such as actually having to survey for threatened species, complying with Council requirements, notifying neighbours, and assessing impacts. They just want to comply with LLS’s tick-a-box assessments.   read more

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M’Arts, Food Forever

Talk & Community Forum.

Food Forever!

Building a local food movement for the Northern Rivers with Michael Shuman.

Sat 23 May, 2–4:30pm at MJArts Precinct, Mur’bah.

Only $5 entry (kids free).

Ideas, skills & action needed!

Scan QR or get tix @ Humanitix.

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Forest Frontline Forum

On March 21, at the Southern Cross University campus, hear from frontline campaigners and local experts who know the forests best, to hear about the plan to secure protection for Richmond River Koala Parks.

This is a chance to understand what’s at stake – and how protection is possible when our community stands together.

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The Caldera

NASA: “The image can be seen in 3 dimensions (3-D) by viewing the following left image with the right eye and the right image with the left eye (cross-eyed viewing).  

When stereoscopically merged, the result is a vertically exaggerated view of Earth’s surface in its full three dimensions. 

“The Tweed Volcano is one of planet earth’s biggest volcanoes.

Volcanic eruptions lasted about three million years, ending about 20 million years ago. 

The volcano basin has been hollowed out by the streams, creeks and river, forming an “erosional caldera.” read more

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Tell Council: “YES, do that.”

They are asking, so tell Council “YES” to going back to crockery and cutlery at events and markets.

When the single use plasticised-cardboard take-away coffee cup goes through the temperature change of being filled with the hot liquid, thousands of micro and millions of nano sized plastic molecules fracture and fragment away from the plasticised-cardboard, into your cup of coffee. Almost all plastic we ingest passes through us, though the <1% we retain accumulates primarily in the brain. Lets not ingest plastic. read more

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NSW Government’s Forest Industry Action Plan, Consultation Report Released

Stakeholder Consultation Report, attached, interesting bits highlighted for quicker reading.

Highlights:

Submissions from more than 1500 individuals and 160 organisations.

Viewpoints and evidence in support of environmental concerns tended to submit that:

• Native forest harvesting in NSW has major impacts on biodiversity and endangered species and should cease as soon as possible.

• Healthy, protected and intact forests are intrinsically, socially and culturally valuable.

• The forestry industry does not have the capability to deliver beneficial environmental outcomes. read more

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Please make your Submission to the TSC Draft Development Control Plan

The opportunity to ‘Have Your Say’ on the Tweed Development Control Plan closes 5pm Friday!

We’ve attached the CEC submission document for your interest, and for copy and pasting all or parts of as your own submission which is allowed and we encourage.

Please do make a submission, it is quick and easy on the Council website (link here: www.yoursay), or forward the attached CEC submission expressing your own support for it (email to tsc@tweed.nsw.gov.au).

To the General Manager Tweed Shire Council, read more

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The Draft Tweed Development Control Plan – Have Your Say

The Tweed Development Control Plan (DCP) is the Plan by which Council Controls Building and Development Works.

Section B2 of the plan, ‘Preservation of (Urban) Trees and Vegetation’, applies restrictions on the clearing of vegetation.

The CEC support that the draft includes a new protection level for urban local natives at 3 m or higher, previously 5 m, and exotics protected at 40 cm stem diameter, previously 80 cm.

These new reduced limitations are reflected in Table B2.1, urban vegetation which cannot be cleared without Council approval. read more

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WITHDRAWN! Fingal Mining Exploration Licence Application

Update: The application has been withdrawn.

An exploration licence application to sample the mineral content of the sand that is being pumped by the Tweed Sand Bypass at Fingal Head NSW to the Gold Coast beaches was advertised in the Tweed Valley Weekly Public Notices on 19th Feb.

Minerals sought include Rutile, Zircon and Ilmenite. 

If sampling is successful the aim is to build a processing plant next to / connected to the Sand Bypass to extract these heavy minerals from the pumped sand.   read more

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Takayna/Tarkine Rainforest Update

While a mining company’s scrapping of plans for a tailings dam in Tasmania’s Takayna rainforest is welcome, its revised site reflects how little the environment minister cares. By Bob Brown.

“MMG was flagging the withdrawal of its contentious plan to dump its acid wastes in the Takayna/Tarkine rainforest at McKimmie Creek. That project involved constructing a pipeline from Rosebery, north over the Pieman River into Takayna – discounting the values of the rainforest and its wildlife to zero. read more

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Plasticised-Cardboard Take-Away Coffee Cups: 25,000 micron-sized and 12 million nano-sized microplastic particles are released from the plasticised cardboard into your cup of coffee.

Cardboard take away coffee cups are plasticised, because, if not, the cardboard cup would soak and fall apart when filled with liquid.

When the plasticised-cardboard of the take-away coffee cup goes through the temperature change of being filled with the hot liquid, thousands of micro and millions of nano sized plastic molecules fracture and fragment away from the plasticised-cardboard, into your cup of coffee. [Source: (link).]

Mostly the plastic we ingest passes through us, however, we accumulate plastic nano-particles and studies show them throughout our bodies. read more

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The Wollumbin Caldera – It’s Geological Formation and Flora

The Wollumbin / Mount Warning shield volcano and its erosion caldera is a unique volcanic landform which has functioned as a refugium, over the 20 million years since it’s formation, for a core area of Gondwana rainforest flora.

The Caldera is located in a major climatic transition zone, between temperate and tropical floral and faunal species, giving high species diversity under a wide range of habitats, its volcanic origins and very high localised rainfall make this a very complex and interesting landform. read more

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They are removing the environmental protections from the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act [!] .

Key purposes of the Act until now have been: to ensure that ‘development’ is done in an environmentally sustainable way; to protect the environment; to ensure community participation – they are rewriting it so that they can ignore all of those things.

Example: One of the many changes is a new assessment pathway that is “unconstrained and expressly prohibits consideration of environmental impacts and the public interest.” note the EDO.

The intention behind the changes is to allow development in otherwise environmentally protected areas. read more

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Tweed Landcare UPCOMING EVENT Seed Collection Safari

Join Tweed Landcare and Michelle Chapman for an engaging and informative seed collecting safari bus trip. Contribute to the North Coast Regional Seedbank Project, creating a vital, genetically diverse native seedbank for the entire NSW North Coast region.

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The Tweed Valley: “A deep rich valley clothed with magnificent trees, … ” Oxley: 1823

In 1823 John Oxley was the first European to see the Tweed Valley, and he wrote of it: “A deep rich valley clothed with magnificent trees, the beautiful uniformity of which was only interrupted by the turns and windings of the river, which here and there appeared like small lakes. The background was Mt. Warning. The view was altogether beautiful beyond description. The scenery here exceeded anything I have previously seen in Australia.”

Oxley was sailing up the eastern coast of Australia from Sydney in search of a penal settlement site “for difficult convicts”. Sailing further, they decided on Redcliffe, part of now Brisbane (perhaps explaining something of the Queensland culture of today). read more

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We Are All Ingesting Plastic

Plastic does not decompose back to its original naturally occurring elements. The plastic existing today, if exposed to sunlight, temperature change or abrasion, will degrade into smaller particles, though those particles will still exist, hundreds of thousands to millions of years from now.

The CEC note the growing awareness of the public to the issue of our unwanted ingestion of these plastic molecules, and the retention of these molecules in our bodies.

Bioaccumulation of microplastics in human brains. read more

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Live at The Citadel: The Mushroom Whisperers is an immersive experience, perfect for the intimacy, acoustics and intention of The Citadel.

Sunday December 14th 3pm & 7pm.

You might have caught Follow the Rain on Netflix;Steve Axford and Catherine Marciniak’s gorgeous stop-motion fungi imagery and documentary, affectionately known as “the Fungi film”.

As a special event for the arts and nature lovers of Murwillumbah, the world-class musicians behind the music to Follow the Rain are coming to perform live at The Citadel. 

Carla (flute & voice) and Romano (violin & piano) accompany additional fungi time-lapse imagery to channel the hidden pulse of the fungal kingdom. Fusion arts and improvisation at its most exquisite. read more

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The NSW Far North Coast Regional Water Supply Project

NRG: The NSW Far North Coast Regional Water Supply Project will be assessing regional options to improve long-term water security in our region. Several information sessions will be held to inform the public about the project. One will be held online; the others will be local drop-in sessions. See details below, as provided by the project:

Online session:  
Wednesday 19 November 2025, from 10.30 am – 12 pm via MS Teams. To register, go here. 

Drop-in sessions: 
Sessions will be held in Tweed Heads, Byron Bay, Ballina, Mullumbimby, Casino, Lismore and Murwillumbah.  read more

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30 years of removing legal safeguards for native forests is destroying what is left of native forest ecologies.

Below is a concise summary of legislation changes over the past 30 years that have removed existing legal protections and increased the destructiveness of logging of native forests.

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1.  Native Vegetation Conservation Act 1997 (NSW) – [Later replaced by the [even worse] Native Vegetation Act 2003:

The 1997 Act claimed to regulate land clearing but instead allowed exemptions for forestry operations from existing regulations under Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (IFOAs).

The 2003 Act relaxed restrictions further, introducing self-assessment for landholders and reducing oversight on clearing activities. read more

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Dear Tweed Shire Council,

I strongly support the proposed funding in Council’s budget for maintenance of Tweed’s Littoral Rainforest remnants, as has been proposed by Councillor Firth and is awaiting a vote of the 7 Councillors.

Regarding the Literal Rainforest remnants:

4 Council owned small pockets of land with trees and related ecologies.

Council is deciding soon that Council can’t afford weed control and basic vegetative management, so they won’t approve it in the budget, so it will continue to be uncared for. read more

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[nefanews] Will the Feds save forests?

There has been some hope that the Federal changes to the EP(BC) Act (the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) may result in improvements for native forests, such as by adopting and applying strong  environmental standards that over-ride RFAs, though an assessment of the new laws by EJA maintains that we will be worse off on most counts (https://envirojustice.org.au/environment-law-reform-scorecard/). EDO also consider that the positives are undermined by extensive exemptions and opportunities for ministerial discretion (https://www.edo.org.au/2025/10/31/epbc-act-reforms-make-it-to-parliament-edos-first-impressions/). It seems that for forests we will still suffer under 25 year old “evergreened” RFAs, applied through nice sounding intents, such as ‘ecologically sustainable’ and ‘adaptive management’, that can actually mean whatever the Governments want (usually nothing). Given that we already have species recovery plans that are meant to apply to forestry, but in practice make no difference, it seems the national standards will be more of the same. read more

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TVW: Planning Reform Fears

Tweed Valley Weekly interview with TSC Councilor Nola Firth about the planned NSW Planning Reforms Bill and its implications:

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NCC: Email your MP, Template, Stop the NSW Government’s Plan to Weaken Planning Laws

This is the most significant reduction in development controls in 50 years, and it’s being done with zero public consultation. If passed, these reforms will be a giant step backward for environmental protections in NSW and significantly undermine the progress we are aiming to achieve. 

If passed this Bill will:

  • Remove mentions of environmental protection and conservation of native species from the objects of the EP&A Act, and shift focus away from community wellbeing and public interest.
  • Introduce of Targeted Assessment Developments as a new fast-tracked assessment pathway — with no guardrails on what type of development could be fast-tracked with minimal assessment.
    • read more

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    TSC October Monthly Meeting, agenda item: Roadside Plastic Litter Pick-Up Pre-Mowing: Admin Staff are Against [ !! ]

    At the next Tweed Council Monthly public access meeting is a plastics issue, namely mowing it smaller vs picking it up first.

    Plastic does not decompose, it may degrade into smaller pieces when exposed to sunlight or temperature change but it will always remain. We either pick it up or live with it as forever litter’. Should Council pick it up or leave it lying around forever?

    If it’s on the roadside, is mowing it smaller and smaller the best solution? Council Administration Staff seem to think so. read more

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    TSC Notice of Motion: Cr Firth – Accessing Soft Plastic Recycling

    Councillor Nola Firth has submitted to Council the following Notice of Motion:

    In Tweed shire we are currently collectively dumping 320 tons of soft plastic into landfill per year. There is considerable community concern on this issue. Single use soft plastic is recognised as a serious waste of our precious finite resources and as a killer of wildlife on land and in our rivers and seas. This is of particular concern in our biodiverse shire where we have the most threatened species in Australia.
    Federal regulation is urgently needed to address this situation. The report (also on this agenda) on soft plastics recycling indicates the difficulty we as a regional council have in accessing soft plastics recycling. Even within cities it is not yet available for everyone. The primary cause is lack of created demand for recycled plastic despite its problematic plenitude and the willingness of community to recycle it. There is an urgent need for government action to achieve mandatory industry change, recycling support and community education.

    Councillor Firth moves that Council write to the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, the Minister for the Environment (NSW), Minister for Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (NSW), local state members, local federal member, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation and Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia: read more

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    “This is a code red for environmental protection in NSW.”

    NCC: “The NSW Government’s proposed changes to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act opens the way for reckless developments of all kinds. 

    “This is a code red for environmental protection in NSW. If passed as is, the reforms on the table would have devastating consequences.”

    “These extreme changes to our environmental protection laws would strip away environmental scrutiny, making it easier for damaging developments to slip through.

    EDO

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    TSC DCP Review, An Opportunity to Protect Non-Native Trees As Do Other Councils

    The revised Development Control Plan(DCP), when it soon goes on exhibition for Public comment, will be an opportunity to support stronger protection of both native and non-native trees. 

    Greens Councillor Nola Firth comments:

    “Tweed Shire Council compared to other NSW Councils has had scant protection for non-native urban trees. 

    “Non-natives here in the Tweed were only protected if they had a diameter of more than 80cm at breast height. To bring us into line with many other councils and to keep our precious trees intact, the diameter in the DCP is now 40 cm.’ read more

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    Have Your Say, TSC’s New Compensatory Planting Policy

    “The many benefits of trees in urban areas are recognised through Council’s Cool Towns: Tweed Shire Urban Forest Program which aims to increase the average total canopy cover in urban areas from 26.8% to 35% by 2030 and then to 40% by 2040 [!].

    “We’re [TSC] asking everyone to help restore our urban forest when trees are removed.

    “We’ve drafted a new Compensatory Planting Policy to guide how important trees and vegetation are replaced when they’re approved for removal. read more

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    Why the world may be nearing its limits

    From The Nimbin Good Times, by Mark Pestell.

    In 1972, a group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the top five Universities in the USA, published a groundbreaking report that would shape the global environmental debate for decades to come. Entitled ‘The Limits to Growth’, commissioned by the Club of Rome (clubofrome.org), the report presented a sobering possibility: if humanity continued to pursue unlimited economic and population growth on a planet with finite resources, global systems could begin to collapse around the year 2040. read more

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    Looking Forward to the Kinship Festival

    The Kinship Festival is on Saturday 20th of September.

    Knox Park Murwillumbah.

    10am – 4pm.

    This post redirects to the Kinship Festival social media page.

    Recommend.

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    Great Koala National Park

    ON 7 SEPTEMBER THE NSW GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED THEY ARE GOING TO CREATE THE FULL GREAT KOALA NATIONAL PARK, AN HISTORIC CONSERVATION WIN AFTER A 10 YEAR CONCERTED COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN.

    NEFA:

    “This park will protect 12,000 Koalas and enable their populations to recover as their feed trees regrow. This is the sort of action we need if we want to double their population in NSW.

    “This park will also protect the homes of 108 other threatened species from further degradation, most notably for the nationally Endangered Southern Greater Glider, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Hastings River Mouse, and Rufous Scrub Bird.” read more

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    Microbes found in bark enhance benefits of trees

    From the Byron Echo Volume 40#32 January 14


    Australian researchers have discovered a hidden climate superpower of trees. Their bark harbours trillions of microbes that help scrub the air of greenhouse and toxic gases. It’s long been known that trees fight global warming by consuming carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis. But a new study published in Science shows their microbial partners take up vast amounts of other climate-active gases too. The study, conducted primarily by Dr Bob Leung at Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI), and Dr Luke Jeffrey at Southern Cross University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, rewrites our understanding of how trees and their resident microbes shape the atmosphere. For more information, contact the Media Office at Southern Cross University at scumedia@scu.edu.au read more

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    CEC CoOrdinator Rhonda James presenting at the NSW Weeds Conference

    CEC Co-ordinator Rhonda James (pictured left) presented at the NSW Weeds Conference. Rhonda spoke on the keys to the successful 30 year bitou bush management program in The Tweed and Byron Shires.

    Rhonda is notably also the Convenor of the Caldera Environment Centre.

    “Weeds are one of the top three causes of species extinction (along with habitat loss and feral animals).”

    Tweed Shire Councilor Cr. Nola Firth (pictured right) was later interviewed by Tweed Valley Weekly Editor Johnathon Howard on this issue, link to article here: https://calderaenvironmentcentre.org/thursday-coming-tweed-shire-council-monthly-meeting-a-trio-of-environmental-concerns/ read more

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    Three-quarters of all listed weeds in Australia are escaped garden plants!

    Petition from Invasive Species Council for Action on the sale of weeds from nurseries.

    Australians know that weeds like lantana are choking our streams and bushland. 

    An astounding three-quarters of all listed weeds in Australia are escaped garden plants, sold legally to unsuspecting shoppers in nurseries or online.

    These weedy plants have already contributed to at least four extinctions.

    The current system of self-regulation expects passionate home gardeners to have a botany degree or pay close attention to warnings in fine print to stop their garden plants from spreading into the surrounding landscape. read more

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    Submission In Objection. The Caldera Environment Centre OBJECT in the strongest possible terms to Redbank power station being permitted to burn vegetation from land clearing and from native forest ecologies:

    1. We object to the proposal on ecological grounds. 

    Ecological systems are collapsing around the planet. We are living in the age of The Ecological Crisis, the collapse of the ecology, the collapse of the systems of interrelated and interdependent lifeforms on this planet. In that context we must rescue and protect ecologies, in this case forest ecologies.

    Native vegetation ‘biofuel’ is literally the native forest ecologies, destroyed and pelletised to use as fuel for furnaces. Native Forest ‘biomass’ for furnace fuel for electricity destroys ecologies and IS Ecologically Unsustainable. read more

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    Tweed Shire Council August Monthly Meeting. “A Trio of Environmental Concerns”

    The upcoming TSC monthly meeting is Thursday August 21st.

    Note the following agenda items:

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    ‘Greenwashing’, Parliamentary Inquiry, “Submissions Welcome”

    CEC: “Claims by government agencies that Native Forest Biomass Fuel, fuel for furnaces in the generation of electricity, is ‘Ecological Sustainable’ comes to mind as ‘greenwashing’. The Parliamentary Inquiry however is unlikely to look at the governments own inflated and misleading greenwashing claims, claims which are enabling and subsidising their policies of destruction of native forest ecologies.” And “We have lost faith in the institution of Government in its current composition to protect nature, because of their greenwashing gaslighting and deception, on, for example, the fraud of the ecological sustainability of native forest biomass furnace fuel for electricity generation.” read more

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    STOP CLEARING AND BURNING FORESTS FOR ELECTRICITY, Don’t allow Redbank

    NEFA: Please object to the Restart of Redbank Power Station by burning 850,000 tonnes of native forests each year, obtained from landclearing. SUBMISSIONS NEEDED BY 5:00pm on Monday 18 August 2025. MAKE YOURS NOW.

    This month NSW’s Independent Planning Commission is deciding whether to approve a massive increase in landclearing in western NSW to burn 850,000 tonnes of ‘biomass’ each year into a disused coal powerplant at Redbank, near Singleton in the Hunter Valley.

    This will be Australia’s first conversion of coal fired powerplant into a wood fired one. read more

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    The Tweed River District Official Tourist Guide, Murwillumbah – The Centre of Tourist’s Routes.

    pdf – Scenic Beauties of the Tweed River District, Official Tourist Guide, Murwillumbah – The Centre of Tourist’s RoutesDownload

    “The Upper Tweed affords scenes of beautiful fertile valleys, lofty mountains and hills, bold cliff and rugged bluff, all having rich and varied vegetation.

    “… a great wealth of choicest timber trees, including Cedar (red and white), Teak, Beach, Baligum, Sasafras, Cudgera, Black and Redbean, Rosewood, Beefwood, a large variety of Fig trees, and numerous varieties of giant scrub trees, besides the various giant hardwoods in the forest areas.

    “Of this wonderful scenic district, Murwillumbah, on the Tweed River, between a horseshoe range of mountain peaks and the sea, is an ideal centre for tourists. read more

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