The public meeting yesterday in Cooroy achieved a greater public awareness of the alarming flaws within the intended Cooloola National Park development program, as well as an understanding of the distinct steps needed to address those flaws.
Presentations to the meeting demonstrated:
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the significant landscape impacts of the proposed development, and its consequent failure to measure up to any credible 'eco-tourism’ standards.
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evidence that this misrepresentation is being protected by inadequate definition and sheer unavailability of the facts necessary to properly evaluate the development actions and potential impacts. These relate to both ecological and social matters of vital public interest.
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this factual opacity is compounded by promotional rhetoric that is critically inconsistent and in parts quite evidently disingenuous.
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these factors combine to clearly illustrate that ‘eco-tourism’ is used as a label to disguise the ushering in of damaging forms of commercial development to Cooloola National Park, and potentially into all Qld. National Parks.
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the Kabi interest is essentially ancillary to the primary commercial objectives, yet it is amplified beyond that real status to be a barrier to due public scrutiny. Evidence was also provided of the deeply flawed representative integrity of the prominent Kabi proponent(s) to the development plan.
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the specific part of the Nature Conservation Act (NCA) that enables this mal-formed deception, the ALP’s repeated promise to repeal this specific part of the Act, and it’s failure to uphold that promise due to its evident capture by Industry lobbyists.
In summary, the meeting conveyed the imperative that the current form and process of the Cooloola Plan must stop, and that the NCA must be reinstated to its original form (pre 2013) as Government(s) cannot be trusted to interpret the current provisions in good faith with the public interest.
To achieve these objectives attendees were requested to share the information and to clearly and forcefully present their objections upon the current situation to all levels of Government.
We ran short of time to look at our alternative options plan. Another event coming up?
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