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KEPCO Open Letter

Can you help us get the ear of the KEPCO CEO? We're calling on him to sell the land back for agriculture so our community can rebuild. Will you join us?

Phill Kennedy, President, Bylong Valley Protection Alliance


Dear Cheong Seung-il, CEO, KEPCO,

Today the NSW Court of Appeal ruled against KEPCO on appeal which means that the proposed Bylong coal project cannot proceed.

We, the undersigned, are calling on you to respond by relinquishing the exploration lease for the project and selling the land back to agricultural interests. We can see no valid basis for KEPCO to continue with the project. 

The Bylong proposal is beset by severe environmental, social and economic risks. There is fierce and widespread opposition to the project in Australia and both of KEPCO’s legal challenges have failed.

It is also a legacy project planned and conceived many years ago that now has no place given the energy transformation that is underway. 

South Korea’s new electricity plan - finalised in December 2020 - will see thermal coal consumption drop by almost 19 million tonnes per annum by 2030.  The Bylong coal project is inconsistent with this Green New Deal that is underway.

We note that KEPCO has advised the Korean Government that they have recently had an offer for purchase of the land from agricultural interests.

In order to avoid sinking yet more large sums of money into a stranded asset that will besmirch KEPCO’s reputation, we encourage you to relinquish the exploration lease and enable the land to be returned to agriculture and nature conservation.

Regenerative agriculture and carbon farming at Bylong would provide a global climate benefit that would be a credit to KEPCO.

Please act now to relinquish the exploration lease and enable the local community to rebuild around a new, clean future.

Will you sign?


Showing 30 reactions

  • Peter Robertson
    signed 2021-09-14 17:57:12 +1000
    Do the right thing, please
  • Graeme Tychsen
    signed 2021-09-14 17:57:11 +1000
    Humanity
  • Michael Nay
    signed 2021-09-14 17:57:05 +1000
  • Annemaree Dalziel
    signed 2021-09-14 17:56:53 +1000
  • Maree Holton
    signed 2021-09-14 17:56:09 +1000
  • Kim Roche
    signed 2021-09-14 17:55:53 +1000
    My family owned Lee Creek many years ago so I grew up in Bylong.

    The land needs to be returned to the people and private owners, not big corporations either.
  • P Carden
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:58 +1000
  • Kathryn Kelly
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:41 +1000
    Fantastic outcome. Coal and gas must stay in the ground.
  • Andrya Hart
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:32 +1000
  • Jan Mitchell
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:31 +1000
  • Bob Strachan
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:25 +1000
    Sell the land back to agriculture. It makes sense.
  • Eileen Whitehead
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:18 +1000
  • Graeme Walters
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:12 +1000
    We do not inherit the earth from our parents we borrow it from our children.
  • Jenny Dahl
    signed 2021-09-14 17:53:03 +1000
  • Joanne Mills
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:39 +1000
  • Patrick Conaghan
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:28 +1000
    It is an enormous relief to know that this beautiful landscape together with its ecosystems and its agricultural and cultural heritage will now not be destroyed by an open-cut coal mine.
  • Jan Davis
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:24 +1000
    This is good news for the planet, for work against climate change and for the local community here in the Hunter who have been on tenterhooks for too many years on whether they will be trying to exist living next to a dirty polluting mine that destroys all in its path.
  • Lidia Nemitschenko
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:20 +1000
  • Nicola Reiss
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:12 +1000
  • Philip Bell
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:04 +1000
    Korea has been a friend to Australia and your company’s cooperation in this matter will further this friendship. Australians old and young will remember this gesture.
  • Eric Taylor
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:03 +1000
  • Sheila McInnes
    signed 2021-09-14 17:52:02 +1000
    Hoping the future will be environmentally safe.
  • Merry Pearson
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:54 +1000
  • Yuri Bolotin
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:53 +1000
  • Nizza Siano
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:37 +1000
  • Charles Morris
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:31 +1000
    It is time to give back after all the damage people like you have done to our only planet!
  • Geoff Heard
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:28 +1000
  • Margaret Sharkey
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:28 +1000
  • Rowan Jaffray
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:28 +1000
    This project should never have been considered. Please to the right thing by the landholders of the beautiful Bylong Valley
  • Andrew Rawlings
    signed 2021-09-14 17:51:20 +1000