‘The living heart of Australia’: fracking plans threaten fragile channel country

The locals are divided as energy companies eye the gas resources buried kilometres below the sensitive Queensland floodplain region

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Dude Kidd's ute barrels between a fence line and a sand dune as eagles circle over some unidentified quarry under the magic light of an outback sunset.

Did you see anything on the ground ... a carcass?" asks Kidd. We reply in the negative. They'll be after grasshoppers."