tarkine mine go-ahead, page-4

Thanks plucker just pasted in the abc announcement to make it easier for all to read. This is huge for VMS!


Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has rejected a bid by conservationists to lock out mining from Tasmania's Tarkine region.
Mr Burke has rejected the National Heritage Council's advice to list more than 400,000 hectares of the Tarkine on the National Heritage register.
He says it would have been "disastrous" for potential mining jobs in the area if he had followed the council's advice.
"From purely environmental terms, it would have been something that would have been a wonderful thing to be able to do but you have to take into account the impact on people and taking that impact into account meant that I simply couldn't go with the Heritage Council's recommendations," he said.
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Mr Burke made the announcement in Tasmania's north-west this morning.
A two-kilometre stretch of coast in the far north-west has been placed on the list, due to Indigenous heritage values.
Environmentalists had wanted heritage protection for 433,000 hectares of the state's north-west, which is covered with temperate rainforest which provides a habitat for endangered species.
Unions have campaigned to exclude mining leases.
Mr Burke has already approved a magnetite mine, but has applied conditions aimed at protecting Tasmanian devils and quolls from being killed by traffic on new roads through the area.
The decision is likely to infuriate the Greens but is seen by Labor sources as helpful for the party in the marginal Federal seat of Braddon.