Anti-fossil-fuel activists are planning a near week-long festival at the Whitehaven Coal mine in New South Wales.

It is being put on by the same group that has chained itself to equipment and stopped work at the site before.

Protest group Front Line Action has launched a “Bat Attack” Facebook group, claiming it will have a six-day festival, complete with music art and dancing, to save the Leard Forest.

Protestors from Front Line Action have previously dressed as bats while trying to stop the project from going ahead, saying it threatens bat species and other life in the nearby Leard Forest.

Activism at the Whitehaven Coal Maules Creek mine and surrounding operations has been going for over a year, leading to the arrest of over 250 people.

Now, Front Line Action says it will build “a creative resistance to defend habitat, climate and communities from coal expansion”.

The protest group is spruiking the event on their website. 

Knowing the heat it will attract, the group will not release the location of the event until just a few days before the event, and only to those who RSVP.

NSW Minerals Council CEO Stephen Galilee says activists have previously put themselves at serious risk.

“Last year people could have been killed when activists illegally entered a mine site and suspended themselves from a coal loader,” Galilee said.

“There are serious crimes and those responsible should face the full force of the law.”