Three more protesters from the Leard Forest Alliance have been charged after interfering with Whitehaven’s Maules Creek mine site.
On Friday, Kate Warren, who the group said travelled from Sydney to take part in the action, locked herself to the front entrance gate of the site around 6am.
Leard Forest Alliance spokeswoman Susie Russell said about 30 protesters were on the scene along with nine police officers who cut Ms Warren free before arresting her and taking her away.
She was charged with failing to comply with police direction and will appear at Narrabri Local Court on February 25.
Trucks, including water tankers, were stopped from entering the mine site.
On Sunday, two more arrests were made after protesters gained access to the mine site and refused to move from in front of a tree due to be demolished.
Susie Russell said she locked herself to the root of the tree. Fellow protester Marg McLean was also present on the site.
Both had travelled from near Port Macquarie to take part in the protests, Ms Russell said.
“My concern which led me to take a completely unpremediated spontaneous action was that a mighty River Red Gum, probably 500 plus years old, really old, marked with an ‘H’ to signify it was a habitat tree, was being pushed over and I felt compelled to bring to people’s notice the kind of destruction that is happening with this mining push,” she said.
“I’m concerned at what’s going to happen to the planet, I’m concerned that instead of being smart about our energy and policies that we should be stopping the planet from frying, we’re throwing another lump of coal on the fire.”
Police arrested both protesters around 3pm. Ms Russell said she was taken to Boggabri Hospital for a check up before being transported to Narrabri Police Station.
Inspector John Ridley from Narrabri Police said both protesters were charged with hindering the working of mining equipment.
Whitehaven said the ongoing protests are more of a disruption to police rather than its operation.
“Protests are a nuisance more for police who have to divert scarce resources from community policing tasks to deal with it,” a Whitehaven spokesman said.
“The protests won’t delay the progress of the works at the site.”
Ms Russell said she was disappointed by Narrabri Shire Council’s moves to evict protesters from the area.
“I just think that the mining companies have an incredible amount of power and if people start
complaining then the mining company flexes its
muscle to shut people up,” she
said.
At the time of going to print two more people were locked on to excavators at the Maules Creek mine site.