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By CAITLIN CROWLEY
TENSIONS between anti-coal activists illegally camped out on the Carmichael mining lease in Central Queensland and neighbouring graziers are flaring, with increasing reports of cattle and gates being interfered with.
A 21-year-old man will face court in Clermont tomorrow charged with wilful damage, after he was allegedly busted on security cameras tampering with a stock gate on a grazing property, before smearing cow manure on a camera, damaging it in the process.
The vision allegedly shows the man forcing open and then pinning back a cattle gate designed to prevent livestock from wandering onto a public road.
Bravus Mining and Resources installed the security cameras after local graziers told the company the activists’ behaviour had made them fear for the welfare of their people, including young jillaroos, following heated interactions between some pastoral workers and activists about cattle on the land.
“We’re extremely concerned that the activists who are camped on our Mining Lease without our permission have stepped up their dangerous and anti-social behaviour interfering with gates and cattle grazing in the area,” a Bravus spokesperson said.
“For months we’ve raised the alarm about the activists’ increasingly erratic and threatening behaviour towards our workers, Traditional Owners, and public figures.
“Now they appear to want to abolish grazing in central Queensland because farmers and cattle are a ‘limitation of their human rights’.
“Local graziers told us they believed the activists had been interfering with cattle and gates and had allegedly had an angry verbal exchange with a jackeroo, so we installed security cameras to help keep our people, neighbours, and their cattle and property safe.
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“One of these cameras filmed an activist as he sabotaged stock gates, behaviour which has disrupted cattle breeding and let cattle loose into the public road reserve where the valuable animals risk being struck by passing traffic and injured or killed.”
Anti-coal activists have been camping on the Carmichael mining lease without permission for more than 18 months.
There have been a string of concerning incidents involving protestors including the alleged assault of an Indigenous environmental ranger and a Bravus security guard earlier this year.
In a video posted to social media last week, one activist complained that cattle in the area were limiting his rights.
Bravus said it had written to its neighbours to let them know what had happened, warning them to stay alert in case the activists continue to interfere with cattle and gates in the local area.
“It’s time the Queensland Government stepped in and removed the unauthorised protest camp from our mining lease to protect the rights of law-abiding miners and pastoralists to go to work and do their job without fear of activist intimidation, harassment, or sabotage,” a spokesperson said.