Hiding The Scars Of Bauxite Mining

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 17

Hiding The Scars Of Bauxite Mining

CN.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) WEIPA (North Queensland), September 6.

Comalco and two Government agencies are conducting joint research to find the most suitable trees and grasses to plant on minedover areas at Weipa. The project is being carried out under the terms of Comalco’s 1957 agreement with the Queensland Government The agreement binds the company to restoring vegetation on areas within its 100-square-mi le lease, from which bauxite has been stripped by open-cast mining. It the lease was not replanted, an ugly red scar would be left bn the green swampy coastline of Cape York peninsula. A variety of trees and! grasses are now being raised on test plots at Weipa, with the most mature trees four years old.

The company is collaborating with the Queensland Forestry Department and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in the project. A Comalco mining engineer, Mr K. Stewart, has on-site responsibility.

He shows visitors the plots scattered over a wide area and strides through tall tropical grasses, some of which look dry and dead to a New Zealander. But they are alive, and several species are thriving.

They have an amazing capacity to survive in a country that sees rain for only four months of the year.

This year, Comalco is running a handful of scraggylooking beef stock on a 42acre strip that is carrying a mixture of trial fodder and legume grasses. Mr Stewart points at the tiny herd and says: “They’re basically only Aboriginal mission stock. Very poor quality. But we’U be getting better animals soon.”

He adds that cattle with at least five-eighths Brahman blood will probably do best on the tropical pastures at Weipa. The company is building stockyards and erecting scales so that the progress of the cattle can be checked. , Varying results have been achieved with the test trees. Some species have done well at first and then failed; others have failed completely, while some are growing strongly. Among those that look promising are Caribbean pine, African and South American mahogany, Australian sheoak, rosewood, and Burmese ironwood.

The company is looking for a timber tree that will grow reasonably quickly and provide economic return. Planting Plans

The trees at present covering the Weipa area, Cooktown —ironwood and various types of eucalypts—have several drawbacks. The ironwood is

a slow grower, it is too heavy to have much use as a structural timber and the gums are susceptible to attack by white ants. Mr Stewart says he believes the mined-over areas will eventually be cloaked by a mixture of trees and pasture, supporting beef herds. He adds that in six or seven years Comalco will be planting as much vegetation as was destroyed during clearing operations. When land is cleared for mining, the tree cover is knocked down and burned. The topsoil is heaped in great mounds and replaced when the bauxite has been removed. The trees that are burned are useless for timber purposes because they are ravaged by white ants. But there has been some investigation of the possibility of using the trees for pulping. An economic pulping operation would mean, however, that all forest on the lease would be cleared inside 20 years, leaving vast areas of desolate countryside. It appears unlikely that Comalco will agree to this.