Battle for mine site `near and dear' to Irwin family

TERRI Irwin is fighting to reclaim her wildlife warrior badge by taking on a firm that wants to mine a reserve named in her late husband's honour.

Putting recent distractions of family rifts and legal woes behind her, Terri showed she was more than up to the task of repairing "Brand Irwin".

The canny commercial operator, who has won the Queensland Business Woman of the Year Award, is taking on Cape Alumina Pty Ltd, a relatively small company established for about four years.

The firm holds leases to mine bauxite over 12,300ha of the 135,000ha tract on Cape York, northeast of Weipa, which was bought by the Federal Government for $6.3 million last year to be managed by the Irwin family trust as the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, part of the late Crocodile Hunter's legacy.

It's an area of very personal significance to Terri and her children, Bindi, nine, and Robert, four, as it was the last place they were together as a family just days before they went their separate ways and Steve was killed by a stingray while filming underwater off Cairns on September 4, 2006.

"It's hugely important," Terri said. "It's the place I've been with Steve doing crocodile research work. I've waddled up there pregnant with both kids. Robert was up there for the first time when he was just eight months old, and he wrangled more moths than crocs.

"It's definitely near and dear to our family's heart. Steve made me realise just how important it was and how everything's connected and he would also say it was like that with the crocs: If you remove the apex predator, everything under them will suffer.

"We've got spear-tooth sharks, sawfish and crocodiles and the most amazing animals living in and around this property.

"It's the most amazing bio-diversity and after seeing and experiencing it, I don't know how anyone could even consider mining this particular area."

Plenty of people agree. Australia Zoo's online "Save Steve's Place" petition has attracted thousands of signatures globally in just a few days.

While there will be no decisions until an environmental impact study is completed next year, Terri said she had been busy drawing up a management plan for the reserve, which would include showcasing it for international wildlife studies, a haven for the arts and for pharmaceutical research.

"The whole management plan for the property far exceeds anything done in a national park. It's exciting and world class," she said.

"We went to all this work to make sure it would be conserved, and now we want to continue that.

"We don't want to step away and let our guard down. We want to make sure there's land like this in 3000 years with the Aboriginal people as stewards to honour that."

However that indigenous connection could prove a thorny issue as Cape York Aboriginal elders said the reserve's handover robbed them of control of conservation, mining and agricultural rights.

Elders Gina Nona and Bernard Charlie said they were never told about the sale of the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve and the Irwins had "no connection" with the land where traditional owners had been undertaking conservation for more than 50,000 years.

A spokesman for Australia Zoo said the Irwin trust had met the Cape York Land Council, which was the appropriate authority with which to start discussions over the reserve.

The spokesman said the Irwins would also rely on traditional owners to appoint representatives to be involved with management