How can conservation land be mined for coal? In 1987, the Conservation Act created a special category of land: stewardship land. It was intended to be a temporary classification, where the Government would learn more about the importance of the land’s conservation values and reclassify it as a national park, for example. Stewardship land can have huge ecological value, hosting threatened birds and plants and potentially even species we haven’t discovered. This is a big deal because huge swathes,