A "loophole" allowing a mining company to clear land bordering a reserve protecting an endangered native wallaby has been condemned by conservationists.
Mining company Magnetic South cleared 218 hectares of land at Dingo in central Queensland, 130 kilometres west of Rockhampton, between April and September.
The land borders a reserve set aside by local landholders to form a corridor between Walton State Forest and Taunton National Park, which protects the only significant population of the bridled nailtail wallaby in Australia.
Queensland's land clearing laws are regulated by the Department of Resources and a spokesperson said the area was designated scrub, or Category X, and allowed to be cleared without a permit.
Magnetic South's managing director James Xu confirmed the clearing and said it was for agricultural purposes.
"The firebreak and regrowth clearing is for our cattle operation on those properties and not at all within the boundaries of the national park," Mr Xu said.
But ecologist Alexander Dudley, who was contracted by landholder Trevor Naughton to carry out fauna surveys recently, said he was concerned about the potential impacts of the clearing, given its proximity to the wallaby habitat.
"Taunton is extremely important as far as the number of species is concerned," he said.
Mr Dudley said the fact the company was able to clear the land without a permit was "difficult to conceive".
"It [the wallaby] is a species that comes under threat from cats and foxes over large areas and also because of habitat destruction," Mr Dudley said.
"This is another example of fragmentation of habitat and loss of biodiversity."
The bridled nailtail wallaby once ranged in scrublands from the Murray River in Victoria to Charters Towers in north Queensland. It was thought extinct by the 1930s, until it was rediscovered in 1975.
Four years later, the Queensland government set up the 11,626-hectare Taunton National Park to protect the marsupial and its numbers tripled in three years to 1,270 in 2020, according to a CSIRO wildlife journal published this year.
No assessment at federal level
The cleared land is part of one of nine cattle properties bought by Magnetic South and is within its lease for its Gemini project — an open-cut coal mine, rail loop and rail network.
When completed, Magnetic South's rail network will be within kilometres of Taunton National Park.
Threatened species are regulated under the Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, but the onus is on the landholder to refer the matter for assessment.
Magnetic South has not referred the Gemini Project to the federal government for assessment under the EPBC Act.
A Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water spokesperson said Magnetic South had been informed of its obligations.
But a Magnetic South spokesperson said it had taken into account all environmental values in the design, development and operational phases of its mine project.
Long-time local and community advocate Paul Stephenson said the location of the proposed mine was an issue, and more should be done to protect the wallaby and other vulnerable species in the area.
"There are massive loopholes in our federal and state government legislation with respect to new coal mines," Mr Stephenson said.
Proposals assessed through 'rigorous process'
The Gemini project has also narrowly avoided completing an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the state government.
Environmental Defenders Office managing lawyer Andrew Kwan said at a state level, the Department of Environment and Science (DES) had not been requiring a complete EIS assessment for new coal projects producing under 2 million-tonnes-per-year.
The Gemini project anticipates digging 1.9 million tonnes of metallurgical and pulverised coal injection coal each year, which can be used as either thermal or steel-making coal.
It is one of two mines in central Queensland that have not been required to provide an EIS – the second is Vulcan South, near Moranbah.
A DES spokesperson said each application was assessed on a case-by-case basis according to specific criteria.
"Even if new projects do not require an EIS, a robust assessment is still undertaken as part of the [environmental authority] assessment process, including, in some cases, public notification," the spokesperson said.
Queensland Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said the state had an independent regulator "and any proposals assessed is through a rigorous process and in accordance with the law".
But Mr Stephenson said that wasn't good enough.
"This particular mine, Gemini, it's almost progressed to production without an environmental impact statement and without even a referral to the Commonwealth," he said.
"When you have proposed mines like this, there are supposed to be laws at all levels of government to properly assess what those impacts will be."
