A quick look through google earth (as stated by Senator Milne) clearly shows the sort of activity that has caused breaches in the environmental conditions for Great Southern’s plantations on the Tiwi Islands. Condition 3 of the approval states;
The proponents will not undertake future clearing on treeless plains, riparian areas, water courses, or rainforests, and the following buffers are incorporated into site selection
- wet rainforest patches: 400m
The video shows how close the landclearing and plantations are to the high conservation value rainforests, in this case their is a 100 metre buffer rather than the 400 metres as stipulated.
Unfortunately, the google earth image is old and does not show the real extent of land-clearing on the Tiwi Islands. Similarly, the date of the land-clearing is uncertain due to the lack of transparency surrounding the project. Land-clearing and breaches that have occurred since 2005 are not shown although we are aware of their existence (and they look very similar to the example in the video), as is the Commonwealth Investigation team which is investigating the breaches.
