Canadian coal company Waratah Coal Inc. said it will appeal the decision by the Australian government to reject its ambitious proposal to develop a large mine in northeastern Australia.

Vancouver-based Waratah said it was not treated fairly when Australia's environment minister and former Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett rejected Waratah's $5.2 billion Cdn proposal to dig a coal mine and build a new port on the coast of Australia's Queensland state.

"Waratah does not believe that the proposal has been properly considered or its impacts properly assessed," the company said in a news release.

Waratah said it will immediately launch an appeal of the government's decision in the Federal Court of Australia.

The company wants to build a new port to export the more than five billion tonnes of bitumen reserve that it has estimated exists in that region of Australia.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garret, a former rock singer, rejected Waratah Coal's mine proposal in Australia. (Ed Wray/Associated Press)

Garrett, however, said that the project would irreparably damage the area for wildlife.

"The impacts of the rail line and port facility are simply too great to effectively mitigate, and would destroy the ecological integrity of the area. They are impacts that cannot be reduced with offsets or managed through approval conditions," he said in the release.

The decision represents the second time in the past month that a Canadian company has been rejected for an international development product.

In August, the Egyptian government said no to a proposal by Calgary fertilizer giant Agrium Inc. to build a production facility on that country's northern coast.

In that case, as with Waratah's proposed facility, the government said environmental concerns outweighed the economic benefits of the project.