Front Line Action on Coal
February 18, 2014: A group of people stopped work at Idemitsu’s Boggabri coal mine to protest habitat destruction caused by ongoing expansion of coal mining in Leard forest. Two activists in bat costumes scaled a coal loader on site and unfurled a banner reading “Save the Leard”. Read more.
Front Line Action on Coal (FLAC) is the first blockade camp of a coal mine in Australia’s history.
The location is Leard State Forest, near Maules Creek (NSW), the biggest remnant of natural bushland on the Liverpool Plains at the foothills of Mount Kaputar. The rapid expansion on the coal industry feeding the world’s largest coal export port at Newcastle is extending into NSW’s foodbowl, the Gunnedah Basin, and these three massive open pits in Leard Forest would be the first major inroads of the coal industry here.