A much-expanded port of Abbot Point is the focus of a huge industrial plan for the areas north of Bowen. This will be part of the proposed Northern Economic Triangle (Townsville-Bowen-Mount Isa) which will link inland mining development with huge new coastal ports, industrial infrastructure and power and transport networks. The environmental effects will be dramatic and devastating as pointed out by Mackay Conservation Group coordinator, Patricia Julien. The 16,000 ha State Development Area on a narrow coastal plain neighbouring Abbot Point will have, among other things, 230 million tonnes of coal exported per annum, a LNG plant and a 450 MW gas-fired power station. This area adjoins the Great Barrier Reef and a national park and contains the Caley wetlands, an area that hosts 200 bird species. (See photos above) This development is linked with the massive coal mining developments in the Galillee Basin, inland from Mackay. With 80 per cent of the state under mining exploration permits, including nature refuges and farming land, and 168 more mining EPs and mining leases being given out, the environmental costs will be enormous. Only 3 per cent of the desert uplands is national park and so protected from mining. Bimblebox Nature Refuge, outside of Alpha, is one such area under threat from a mining exploration permit. Its beautiful woodland is set to be annihilated by a huge coal mine thereby taking with it the habitat of at least ten bird species listed by the Federal Government as having conservation significance. One of my main aims, if elected as a Greens senator for Queensland, is to toughen up the Federal Government’s Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) so that the Federal Government has more responsibility to stop or limit such destructive developments.