Anti-Adani protesters will on Sunday kick off a week-long demonstration against the Indian mining company in an attempt to stop ground being broken on its Carmichael coal mine.
Tycoon Gautam Adani last month announced the company would begin initial works on the $16.5 billion central Queensland mine in October.
Demonstrators from the Frontline Action on Coal and Reef Defenders groups will start a week-long protest at Yasso Point in Bowen on Sunday night after undergoing training over the weekend.
Whitsunday tourism operator and farmer Paul Jukes will be among the protesters.
He said governments were favouring the international mining behemoth ahead of thousands of north Queensland business owners who relied on the Great Barrier Reef.
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A Deloitte Access Economics report released in June put the value of the Great Barrier Reef at $56 billion, more than twice that of the mine, and warned of serious economic consequences for Australia unless more was done to protect it.
"The (tourism) industry is larger than the mining industry but because we're local business, not large corporations, we don't seem to get the voice," Mr Jukes told AAP.
Ken Peters-Dodd, a Birriah-Widi traditional owner, said the lasting impact of the mine and associated infrastructure on the region outweighed compensation and job opportunities.
"These type of projects, we've seen then, they don't deliver outcomes for local people," he said.
"When the project is over poor people are still sitting here wondering what happened."
While Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has ruled out funding, her Labor government views the enormous project as a valuable jobs generator.
