MEDIA RELEASE 

Sadly, the recent statement by Clyde Agriculture?s managing director, that Toorale Station will be sold to the highest bidder, comes as no surprise. Clyde Agriculture is a subsidiary of the massive UK-based, transnational corporation, the Swire Group, whose holdings include Cathay Pacific Airways.

Fair Water Use notes that the following statement appears on the Swire Group web-site:

?Swire takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously. As a major diversified business group, we are very conscious of the impact our activities may have on the environment. As a responsible corporate citizen, we recognise that we have a duty to our customers, our staff and shareholders, and to the communities in which we do business, to continually strive to lessen that effect.?

The Swire Group should grasp this opportunity to ?walk-the-walk? on environmental issues, by acknowledging the adverse impact of the dams and diversions in place on Toorale, which have the ability to reduce seasonal flows in the Warrego River from around 3000 to 600 megalitres per day, to the marked detriment of the ecology of the River Darling river system.

Fair Water Use has contacted the Swire Group, which in 2006 recorded a turnover of UK?2,765 million ( in the region of $6 billion), requesting that, in-line with its social responsibility principles,  it bequeaths Toorale Station to the Commonwealth of Australia, as reparation for the ecological damage resulting from its activities in the upper Darling.

Toorale is expected to be available for between $20 and $25 million when auctioned on September 11th .