Ed,

Thanks to both our local papers for informing us of that the Clarence Valley where we love has been enjoyed by 1.3 million visitors in 2018, our highest tourist numbers ever, according to a Council media release.

And as Mayor Jim Simmons said: “impressive numbers were charging the region’s economy, generating jobs and driving investments in local communities.”

With so many youngsters looking for their first job and so many people underemployed, the 52% increase in our visitor numbers is most welcome.

But I do wonder if our Council welcomes the fact that mineral exploration is now occurring at the historical Cangai Copper Mine site close to the Mann River in the headwaters of Clarence Valley.

Certainly both local residents and tourists alike are already concerned at the possible adverse ramifications of mineral exploration at the copper mine located in a very high rainfall area of the Clarence catchment.

How do you think copper mining might possibly affect our tourism, farming and fishing industries, given the atrocious global environmental record of copper mining? No wonder many people are already signing petitions opposed to this particular mineral exploration that has recently recommenced after copper mining ceased here 80 years ago.

If your Council isn’t up in arms about what is now occurring on their watch, you could assume they haven’t heard of Barry Commoner’s “Laws of Ecology” from the 1970s:

Everything must go somewhere.      Everything is connected to everything else.

Nature knows best.      There’s no such thing as a free lunch.    In one line: “We all live downstream.”

So if you too realise that your children and grandchildren “all live downstream”, please spread the word and sign the petitions now.

Harry Johnson, Iluka