Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Nic Clyde said: “The urgency of the problem has prompted this personal visit to the Premier’s office in Manly to deliver this letter. There are more and more coal mines being approved that will rip up farmland, undermine drinking water catchments and divide and destroy rural communities.

“The Premier can’t afford to vacillate about coal mining any longer. His leadership is urgently needed to intervene and stop any more coal mines being approved while proper protections are put in place for our food producing lands, our water and the people suffering the immediate impacts of out-of-control coal mining.”

Chief among the demands in the letter is the protection of farmland, water and bushland from further mining, but the letter also demands the return of fairness and balance in consideration of mining applications.

Presbyterian minister John Buchanan said: “I don’t believe it’s neighbourly that our use of ‘dirty’ coal causes people to suffer ill-health. It is fuelling global warming, increasing the intensity of storms and fires and swamping our Pacific neighbours, and this is wrong.

“It’s wrong to hand a polluted world over to our children, and it’s not good stewardship to allow this destructive industry to kill eco-systems. God has given us clean fresh alternatives, and I’m appealing to the Premier, as a fellow Christian, to intervene now.”