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Our livelihoods are at risk
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This email is being sent to you on behalf of Liverpool Plains farmers Derek & Kirrily, via 350.org Australia. Your details haven’t been shared with anyone.
Neville,
We’re Derek and Kirrily, farmers from the Liverpool Plains in NSW, and we’re writing to ask for your help.
Our land and livelihoods are under threat. Mining giant BHP Billiton plans to build a massive underground coal mine beneath our beautiful farm on the Liverpool Plains – some of the best food-producing land that Australia has to offer.
This mine puts the future of our food, our water and the future of our two beautiful sons at risk. Our community has tried every avenue with BHP but they won’t listen. They’re too concerned about their profits to consider the impacts that their plans will have upon people like us. BHP’s own modelling for this proposed mine shows that underground water resources will be negatively affected for hundreds of years, and this is just one of the lasting impacts.
Who they do listen to, however, is their investors. One of BHP’s largest investors is Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund – the Future Fund – which has almost $1 billion invested in BHP. When the Future Fund acts, BHP listens.
Tell the Future Fund to protect our future by divesting from fossil fuels.
But this email is not just about our fight and BHP – its about all the fossil fuel companies that The Future Fund invests in and all the communities who are trying to fight back… from Santos, who wants to frack the largest forested area remaining west of NSW’s Great Divide in the Pilliga; and Woodside who tried to build a massive gas hub on the doorstep of the world’s largest humpback whale nursery at James Price Point in WA. From repeat fracking spill offender Chesapeake Energy to Russian company Gazprom who owns the world’s first commercial oil drilling platform in the Arctic.
The Future Fund is financially backing companies whose activities guarantee us all a miserable future. Which is why we’re asking you to join us in calling on the Future Fund to divest from fossil fuels. Watch this video to learn more and then sign the petition here.
At $117bn, The Future Fund is massive – if it divested, the benefits for our land, water and climate would be huge – it would send a powerful signal to companies like BHP that there’s no future for them in fossil fuels. Not here on the Liverpool Plains, not anywhere.
And we know that the Future Fund can divest if it feels enough pressure to. Following a concerted community campaign in 2013, the Fund divested from tobacco. Earlier this year, Norway’s $900bn Sovereign Wealth Fund divested from coal. Norway’s Fund is seven times larger than the Future Fund. If enough of us speak out and make this an issue that they can’t ignore, we can shift this massive fund for good.
Click here to urge the Future Fund to live up to its motto by divesting from fossil fuels and investing in industries that actually do offer Australians a brighter and positive future.
That’s the Future Fund that we want to see for all Australians
With thanks,
Derek & Kirrily, farmers from the Liverpool Plains
350.org is building a global climate movement.You can connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and become a Climate Defender and donate monthly to help 350.org keep Australia’s fossil fuels in the ground.