The Australian Goverment has approved mining lease applications on a substantial amount of rainforest on Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) to enable the mining of phosphate to continue. This means bulldozing rainforest. This is totally unacceptable as Christmas Island is Australia's Galapagos! Christmas Islands' rainforest should be protected for it is some of the oldest and most spectacular rainforest in Australia, if not the world. I recall voting for a Federal Government with a climate change mandate and the will to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. How can we as Australians take the 'moral high gound' on issues of land clearing with our neighbours in Indonesia and other countries around the world like those in Central and South America, when we are in the envious position of not being reliant on the destruction of said rainforests simply to survive. The Ecosystem on Christmas Island is totally unique, containing species of flora and fauna not found anywhere else on the PLANET! Please everyone, this is a beautiful part of the world and it would be a shame for it to exist only in the memories of those fortunate enough to experience it.