BMI Mega Dump Threatens Cooneana Olive - Australia's Rarest Plant.

BMI have applied to build one of Australia's largest waste dumps right in the middle of known Koala habitat but even more concerning is the fact this is in the last known area which supports Australia's rarest shrub, the Cooneana Olive (Notelaea ipsviciensis).

"The plant only exists in a two square kilometre area of Dinmore and Ebbw Vale and this listing by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee will allow for conservation advice to be notified on the species which was only discovered in these two Ipswich suburbs in 1976."

https://www.ipswich.qld.gov.au/about_council/media/article-archive/2009/cooneana-olive-on-critically-endangered-list

"Hiding under power lines and growing between abandoned mines and clay pits near Ipswich is one of Australia’s rarest plants. Only 17 of the native Cooneana Olive shrubs have been identified in Australia and all of them grow along the Cunningham Highway at Ebbw Vale and New Chum."

https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2005/04/fightback-plan-one-of-australia%E2%80%99s-rarest-plants

While the company and the Council will have you believe that dumps are a way of "rehabilitating" old mine sites, nothing could be further from the truth.

Landfills, when full, emit dangerous gases for decades. A cap is placed over the site which is devoid of any trees because the roots of the trees will break the seal of the cap. The clay cap does not support important local flora species such as the Cooneana Olive or Koala food trees.

Some of the flora and fauna species impacted by the proposed BMI mega-dump.

Waste dumps bring with them, dust, fires, pests, weeds and pathogens. The critically endangered Cooneana Olive and the endangered Lloyds Olive, as well as the local Koala, Echindna and Platypus populations stand little chance of survival if this waste dump development is approved.

"It's so rare that it'd be a shame to let these things become extinct,"
"It means another species of native plant has been lost and couldn't be recovered once it's completely died out at these sites." - Respected Ipswich Naturalist, Lloyd Bird (deceased)