A Hunter Valley environmental group is launching legal action against a major coal mining project, arguing it will worsen climate change and threaten a unique species of legless lizard.
MACH Energy was given approval this year from the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission (IPC) for its Mount Pleasant Optimisation project near Muswellbrook, allowing it to expand and continue mining until 2048.
The IPC delayed its final decision on the project to consider evidence about a new species of legless lizard, named the Hunter Valley Delma (Delma vescolineata), that was found on the mine site.
However, the panel went ahead and approved the project, referring to the benefits for the local jobs market.
The president of the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group, Wendy Wales, said they were working with the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) to challenge the IPC decision.
"It's very difficult, especially for the support industries in Muswellbrook … But the reality of climate change is much, much bigger," she said.
"It feels like we're little people, like hobbits, caught up in a very big and significant action, essentially to save our climate."
Legless lizards have eyelids, earholes, and unforked tongues to distinguish them from snakes, and the Delma species, with its distinctive patterned lips, is endemic to the Hunter Valley and Liverpool Plains.
They were first discovered in 2012 and researchers from the Australian Museum confirmed this year the lizard was a new and distinct species.
"We know that we've got a unique species that's found in two locations, just two general regions in the world," Ms Wales said.
"Apart from that physical destruction of its habitat, the climate impacts of this mine will seriously threaten it and all the rest of the reptiles with extinction.
"Temperature is pretty important for determining the gender of the reptiles, so if you change the variations too much you end up with a species that can't reproduce."
The EDO will argue the IPC made errors and failed to consider how the 444 million tonnes of coal expected to be extracted from the mine will impact climate change.
MACH Energy declined to comment.
