March 6, 2000
Web posted at: 10:49 a.m. HKT (0249 GMT)

CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- An endangered Australian lizard is preventing Britain's Queen Elizabeth from flying to the Australian capital Canberra in her Boeing 747 aircraft during her visit later in March.

The earless dragon is believed to live in the surrounds of Canberra International Airport and this has delayed plans for the expansion of the runway to accommodate larger aircraft.

"We're pretty disappointed. We would have loved to have seen the Queen land here," Stephen Byron, managing director of airport operator the Capital Airport Group, said on Monday.

Capital Airport wants to extend the runway's shoulders by 7.5 meters (25 ft) each side and expand the turning apron so that widebodied international aircraft can land at Canberra.

But the belief the lizard lives in the airport grounds, even though it is yet to be sighted, means the group is required to lodge a 90-day environmental application to make the changes.

With the Queen landing in Australia on March 17 to start her two-week visit, the airport has run out of time to get approval for an upgrade.

"The 90-day timeframe to go through a public process to confirm that this wasn't an environmental problem was what stopped us," Byron told Reuters.

The earless dragon is a native of Australia's southern highlands region, southwest of Sydney, and is believed to inhabit about eight different locations in Canberra.

Australian officials said the Queen will now fly from London to Sydney where she will board one of the government's Falcon jets to fly to the capital.

This article is located at
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/australasia/03/05/australia.queen.reut/

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