Support to Allow prospecting & fossicking In Queensland State forests

We are trying to get support for allowing prospecting and fossicking in Queensland state forests. This will allow the growth of this past time in Queensland, and bring in valuable tourist dollars to Queensland.

We are using this petition to show the Queensland government of the support in wider community for fossicking.

We have seen a slow erosion of prospector’s rights across Australia, with the Northern Territory and Tasmania being the latest to bring in rules heavily restricting fossicking and prospecting.

Like Hunters, shooters, 4 wheel drivers and other outdoor pursuits we find the areas we can go smaller and smaller.

With Queensland in diabolical debt again, we should bear in mind that it was the common prospector finding gold at Gympie that dragged Queensland out of its worst financial problems.

The Eureka Stockade gave us rights and privileges bestowed by Queen Victoria back in 1853. The most important item that resulted from that rebellion was the Miners Right. The premise was and still is that the crown (Commonwealth) owns all mineral rights and has the right to dispense leases and Miners Rights on all crown land occupied or unoccupied. This legal document gave us the right to access land (like old gold fields) to engage in prospecting or fossicking for minerals and gemstones.

The Miners Right was taken away from Queensland in 1989 with the introduction of the Mineral Resources Bill.

The Miners Right was a very powerful and useful document that helped regulate mining and prospecting in an orderly manner for more than 150 years. It is a belief in some quarters that the removal of the Miners Right was done illegally. Suddenly with the Miners Right gone we had no rights of access..

State forests used to be available to prospect, but this was stoped as well. I spend a lot of time in these supposed ”managed” forests and constantly find evidence of no management, like noxious weeds out of control, large trees over fire trails (very dangerous in case of a fire- suddenly your trapped).

Prospectors can advise the relevant authorities of these issues and help resolve them.

Please support this petition.