Last modified on Mon 24 May 2021 00.27 EDT
The Morrison government has approved a rare minerals mine that would clear thousands of hectares of potential habitat for an endangered marsupial once thought to be extinct.
Concerns have been raised about environmental surveys conducted for the project, as well as an unusual offsetting arrangement that will allow the developer to fund research into the species instead of protecting a designated area of its habitat.
Multicom Resources has proposed developing a vanadium mine 25km east of Julia Creek, in rural Queensland.
The area is home to a rare species of dunnart – the Julia Creek dunnart – a small marsupial believed extinct until it was rediscovered by a Melbourne scientist in the 1990s.