become national park, eventually to cover 80% of the island. This proposal relied on renewing expired mining leases under the Mineral Resources Act. In another legal matter, the High Court of Australia ruled against Sibelco in June 2011 over a bid to sell sand to construction companies. Sibelco had lodged the appeal against the Redland City Council's 2008 decision to deny the sand mining company's application to sell of sand to construction companies over the next 100 years. The ensuing public discussion around future land use saw concern expressed by some residents as to the impact on the island's economy. and by conservationists who saw it as sand mining business as usual, as the non-renewal of expired leases would effectively end mining around 2014. Conservationists campaigned with the simple message that 2027 was, in fact, the forecast date for the exhaustion of the mineral deposits on NSI as already anticipated by the Enterprise and Yarraman mine operators, citing details from CRL's letter of 13 May 2009 to the Australian Securities Exchange [ASIX] that mineral sand mining as an economic force on the island would end by 2027. Sibelco Australia's commercial interests benefited by continued access to the mineral sand deposits on the expired leases until 2027, and, in 2010, Sibelco Australia commissioned Synergies Economic Consulting to report on the economic effect of an earlier closure of sand mining on NSI. The consultant's report predicted an earlier closure of sand mining would prompt a rise in the price of ferry transport services, electricity services and fuel for the 2000 residents, with total employment on the island anticipated to drop by 30%. Mining lease ML1117, the largest expired lease, contained the extensive Enterprise dredge mine, with a surface area of and a depth of . The application process for the renewal of mining leases requires the Minister for Mines for the Queensland government to consider future land uses of the area covered by the expired mining lease, under special section 286A of the Mineral Resources Act. The Minister can not renew an expired lease if further mining would be inappropriate having regard to future uses of the land. Since it was last renewed in 1986, parts of ML1117 had been included in the national estate because of its high conservation value, parts had been included in the Moreton Bay Ramsar protected wetland and all of it was for inclusion in a future