toecutta said:is the issue access to these areas or the fact we are finding "their" gold?
are you allowed to walk / birdwatch in these crown land locations with mining lease?
cheers
jason (toecutta)
By rights they should only be able to stop you fossicking on these areas. The HEG bloke was quite adamant that we should not have been on there at all even though he did concede it was crown land. I didn't want to get into an argument with him & just agreed to leave but really my belief is he had no right to ask us to leave - only to stop fossicking.
You should be able to birdwatch, bushwalk, 4wd (although HEG have both access gates locked into this particular spot which I thought was also not on!!) or whatever in there - just can't find any of "their" gold which is crap. The NSW Resources website even says "The granting of an exploration licence does not give any right to mine, nor does it guarantee a mining lease will be granted within the exploration licence area." So by rights, apart from sampling, they have no rights to the minerals either until they step up to either an assessment lease or mining lease.