ENVIRONMENTALISTS are urging the federal government to slap an emergency heritage listing on parts of the Cape York Peninsula amid an ''unprecedented'' number of applications to mine in the region.

The environmental group The Wilderness Society will today announce it has lodged an application for the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, to put an emergency protection in place to slow or stop the approval of new mines while permanent heritage listing is considered.

One of the group's northern Australia campaigners, Gavan McFadzean, said there were six mines proposed for the cape, each of which would need a new port and would together mean clearing 45,000 hectares of forest and native grassland.

''This is an unprecedented level of development on Cape York,'' he said. ''We're talking about some of the most intact marine and terrestrial wildernesses in the world.

''[Cape York] has the largest intact tropical savannah wilderness on the planet by far. Those values will be undermined and, in some cases, destroyed by these projects.''

These areas on the Cape York Peninsula are already under consideration for national and world heritage listing. But assessments will take at least a year and the group wants the emergency listing to act as an interim injunction.

Mr Burke told the Herald his department was looking at the request but ''emergency heritage listings are extremely rare''.

He stressed that irrespective of heritage listing, the normal rules such as protection of endangered species still applied.

Emergency heritage listing would not rule out the establishment of mines on the cape. But it would mean mining companies faced an extra hurdle in gaining approval.

The former environment minister Peter Garrett placed the Tarkine in north-west Tasmania under emergency heritage listing. When it ran out after 12 months, Mr Burke, who had become the minister, did not continue it. Nevertheless, Mr McFadzean said he was ''very confident'' about the emergency listing of the cape.

In its letter to Mr Burke, the group writes: ''Cape York Peninsula is under serious threat from the rapid and destructive expansion of bauxite, coal, kaolin and sand mining throughout the region.''

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