The faux environmentalist is easy to spot: he loves industrial wind power and couldn’t care less about the environmental destruction it causes. Faced with the rampant slaughter of birds and bats, he initially denies the evidence and then pushes the moral equivalence button, claiming that more birds are killed by cats, cars and skyscrapers. Ignoring the fact that cats, cars and tall buildings don’t kill apex predators like Eagles, Hawks and Kites. And also ignoring the fact that cars and skyscrapers deliver benefits in the form of transport and accommodation that make modern, civil societies possible. Whereas, heavily subsidised wind power delivers nothing but chaotically intermittent electricity and rocketing power prices, as a result.

Now, in a turn for the better, Australia’s environmentalists – those with an actual interest in preserving the environment – are attacking the so-called ‘Green’ groups who have long been in the employ of the wind and solar rent-seeking class and, in the process, have started promoting the obvious and inherent benefits of safe, reliable and affordable nuclear power.

One group, Rainforest Reserves Australia is leading the charge, with its defence of Queensland’s pristine rainforests – being destroyed by the wind industry. Rather than merely bemoaning the fact of that utterly pointless destruction, this group of campaigners is promoting the obvious solution: always-on and ever-reliable nuclear power.

The disgraceful capture of the Queensland conservation movement by billionaire renewables proponents is now apparent for all to see
Rainforest Reserves Australia
Press Release
5 May 2024

The Guardian article by Graham Readfearn ‘It’s going to be messy’: advocates balance climate action and conservation amid Queensland’s green energy boom’ published on Sunday 5 May 2024 highlights the disgraceful shift Australia’s conservation sector has undertaken in the last 15 years to back the renewables industry over the conservation of precious habitat. The charities quoted in the article (ACF, QCC, WWF Australia and Cafnec) are all funded directly or indirectly by proponents of the renewables industry. It’s a total capture by the heavily funded renewables corporations and the Labor/Greens government who have successfully infiltrated and manipulated the strategic direction of conservation charities we once relied on to defend nature.

Do their supporters realise how very little they’ve done to conserve habitat threatened by wind farms in Qld? Not one conservation charity responded to the disastrous revised Lotus Creek wind farm (Central Qld) proposal, now approved, which is overseeing broadscale habitat destruction upon which an abundant koala population survives.

There is no evidence that destroying Queensland’s high elevation mountains for big wind farms will prevent global climate change. We are destroying our last mature forests for renewables. We will lose threatened species and destroy biodiverse ecosystems forever. The cooling forests will be replaced by roads that introduce weeds, ferals, pests and dry the forest. Spinning turbines will cause bat and bird death in highly biodiverse regions. Meanwhile, our coal exports continue to grow. Overseas, in China, coal power plants continue to be built.

Don’t these “environmental” organisations know that rule #1 of saving any species from extinction is “don’t destroy their habitat”? Especially when doing so will only add to the climate change that the wind & solar industries will supposedly address. Don’t they realise that China had 3092 operating coal power stations in January 2023 and accounted for 95% of the global new coal plant construction in 2023, adding 47.4GW in capacity?

Any reductions in carbon intensity in Queensland (which are unlikely anyway with population and economic growth) are rapidly negated by China’s growth in coal consumption. Either the people proposing to destroy carbon sequestering forest for wind turbines are pathologically delusional or being paid to advocate for the expansionist wind industry.

Moreover, the highest biodiversity habitat, and climate refuges, are on the Great Dividing Range, not in regrowth forests which are generally what the cattle industry is clearing in Queensland. Environmental charities are clearly being paid to advocate for ecosystem destruction on behalf of billionaires and foreign companies. There is no other explanation.

What is worth more? A forest left alone? Or a forest that can be destroyed for fake green energy and renewable energy certificates sold for a healthy return? A wind farm is very handy for big polluters to use as an offset – simply arrange a pre-purchase agreement and carry on with polluting business as usual. When hefty renewables-backed donations continue flowing towards the moneyed-up conservation sector and your job in one of these orgs depends upon it, the mantle of green energy is willingly embraced. It really is that simple and that sad.

But we are not fooled, and the regional communities are waking up. These so-called conservation groups do not stand for the protection of wild places or threatened species. Instead, they stand for industry, specifically green energy (and consequently gas, increased rare earth mining, coal exports to create the infrastructure). Green energy and conservation are not the same thing, and a proliferation of wind turbines along our Great Dividing Range will not result in better quality habitat elsewhere. Between agriculture and wind and solar, there won’t be any habitat elsewhere, just a smattering of National Parks. What will become of our wildlife?

Just 9 years ago, the Qld state government advocated for the creation of nature refuges along Queensland’s Great Dividing Range as it was recognised this landscape was climate refugia. The western side of the ranges, now slated for wind farms, is where threatened species might have lived in peace, on protected land that remained cool as the climate warms, if this sensible policy direction was maintained.

There is no mention of nuclear by Readfearn as a possible energy solution. Nuclear is consistently framed by Australian media as a ‘right wing’ energy form. Yet nuclear is objectively a good source of low-carbon emitting energy. It takes up much less area than low- energy density renewables and nuclear waste can be safely interned in the earth. But the public is constantly bombarded with fear campaigns about nuclear energy that are not factual. Nuclear has killed fewer people than wind farms – this is a fact. But people have no idea because the issue is framed as a political one. Yes, there is a place for wind and solar. And we think there might be a place for nuclear, particularly if it means our precious forests can be saved. What do you think? Let’s talk about it.

While conservationists are right to decry the destruction of 131ha of critical habitat at Lee Point (NT), thousands of hectares of intact habitat at Lotus Creek, Clarke Creek (and in the future Mount Hopeful and Specimen Hill) are being decimated for wind farms out of view in central Queensland with no coverage from the media. Here on these Central Queensland ranges, only last year a large population of koalas lived in peace and thrived. Greater Gliders moved between the plentiful tree hollows of these cool forests and bird and bat life flourished. We know because we ground-truthed these remote sites ourselves. Left alone, nature thrives. Now the lives of threatened wildlife are being upended by human interference for wind farms: haulage roads being blasted through habitat, land clearing, mountaintops flattened and giant wind turbines installed, set to decimate raptors and bats.

Guardian journalist Graham Readfearn, despite our entreaties, has never visited the site of Lotus Creek, Clarke Creek or the proposed Gawara Baya wind farms in Queensland. Nor has Re Alliance, WFF, Cafnec, QCC or NQCC.

It’s easy to say ‘sacrifice some forest’ to wind farms if you’ve never seen them, but we have. Every mature tree, every intact forest along the Great Dividing Ranges in Queensland is precious and needs to be saved. Saving forest is climate action.

So let’s take a closer look at who funds these so-called conservation organisations and the interests involved. Afterall, they are powerful lobby groups that shape opinion and influence political direction but are not required to be transparent about donations.

WWF Australia (who state in their annual report they want Queensland to be a ‘renewable energy export super power’): 2022–2023 total income $47,686,407

WWF Australia donations from renewables proponents:

Major donors over $10,000 (exact donation figure unspecified): Boundless Earth (Mike Cannon Brookes–owned renewables organisation), European Climate Foundation

Links between WWF Australia Board of Directors and renewable energy organisations:

New President of WWF Australia Judy Slatyer was a Director of Climate Leaders Coalition and is currently Chair of NSW’s Net Zero Emissions & Clean Energy Board

Former President of WWF Australia Martijn Wildjer is Chair and Governing Board Member of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP)

Australian Conservation Foundation: 2022–2023 total income $18,128,201

ACF donations from renewables proponents:

Major donor is Boundless Earth

ACF Board President is Liana Downey who according to the Blueprint Foundation: “is a recognised thought-leader in the areas of the energy transition, education and evidence-based policy-development. Downey’s experience includes commercial advisory roles in renewables and agri-tech, interim CEO at Blueprint, and Deputy Secretary for NSW Department of Education. She co-led the sustainability and public sector practices at McKinsey & Company, led a national policy climate research project (Common Ground on Climate), developed Australia’s first Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve .”

Queensland Conservation Council: 2022–2023 total income $2,472,451

QCC donations from renewables proponents:

Climate Action Network Australia, The Sunrise Project donated $89, 118. (They also received $85,380 from beyond Coal in 2022, this was financed in part by Sunrise project.) The Sunrise Project is a global organisation that funds backers of renewable energy. Information on the charity is scant.

NB: The total Gross Income for Sunrise Project Australia in 2023 was an astounding $73,822,957.

Cafnec: Annual Report not publicly available on their website

RE-Alliance (well known as the lobbying arm of the renewables industry in Australia): total income 2022-2023: $1,183,435

Statement from Guardian journalist Graham Readfearn is telling: “RE-Alliance accepts donations from the industry but donors sign an agreement Bray says allows his group to remain independent.” Say no more!
Rainforest Reserves Australia