This video from Australia says about itself: ‘A community forest occupation in Tasmania’s south has today entered its second day, in an area that is under threat from new logging in to remote Weld Valley wilderness forest.’
By Melanie Barnes, in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia:
Protect Tassie forests too!
30 March 2007
HOBART — The Howard government has promised to spend $200 million on an international fund to halve the rate of deforestation in Indonesia and the Asia Pacific as part of Australia’s contribution to stopping climate change.
However the government hasn’t mentioned putting an end to the 20,000 hectares of native forest that are clear-felled and burned each year in Tasmania.
Greens leader Bob Brown highlighted this hypocrisy on March 30.
The long-running campaign to protect forests in southern Tasmania continues. In late March, logging machinery moved into the Upper Florentine forests.
On March 29, activists blockaded the entrance to the Tahune Air Walk, a tourist attraction run by Forestry Tasmania, and two other locations in the Weld Valley to highlight the continued logging of these forests.
The action received support from tourists visiting the site.
Big pro forest demonstration in Tasmania: here.
Tamar valley pulp mill controversy: here.
Update October 2007: here.
Update November 2007: here.
Update 31 May 2008: here.
“I was the premier of Tasmania but these bastards were infinitely more powerful than me. You’ve no idea how powerful they are. I couldn’t move. For God’s sake, keep fighting them. That’s why I’m ringing you, they have to be stopped.” Two weeks before his death, former Tasmanian Labor premier Jim Bacon, said these words in a phone call to well-known anti-pulp mill campaigner and ABC TV’s Gardening Australia host Peter Cundall: here.
ACTION ALERT PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!
Protest Australia’s Continued Ancient Forest Logging in the
Face of Abrupt Climate Change
By Climate Ark & Forests.org, projects of Ecological Internet
http://www.climateark.org/ and http://forests.org/
April 8, 2008
TAKE ACTION
Australia’s new “climate friendly” government preaches global
forest protection for climate benefits internationally, while
continuing to industrially clear its own native primary
forests in Tasmania and elsewhere, and this unseemly
hypocrisy must end
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=australia_tasmania_climate
Australia continues to industrially clear their last native
ancient forests, even as their government promotes forest
protection internationally to combat climate change.
Australia’s new government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
has ratified Kyoto, appears genuinely committed to global
climate change policy, and speaks often of how Indonesia,
Papua New Guinea and the world must protect primary forests
to solve global climate change. Yet in an act of unseemly
doublespeak, the country that is perhaps most impacted by
climate change continues to log its last centuries old trees
found in ancient forest ecosystems vital for holding both
carbon and water. Why is forest protection a good idea
internationally but not for Australia’s much reduced and
climate impacted natural habitats? Australia’s new government
must be called upon to stop their hypocrisy and end logging
of their own old growth forests as a keystone response to
climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem
sustainability.
TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=australia_tasmania_climate
DISCUSS ALERT:
http://www.climateark.org/blog/2008/04/alert_protest_australias_conti.asp
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PRESS RELEASE
Ecological Internet Welcomes ANZ Bank Withdrawal from
Tasmanian Pulp Mill Disaster
May 31, 2008
By Ecological Internet, http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/
and Forests.org, http://forests.org/
Ecological Internet (EI) welcomes news that ANZ Bank of
Australia will not fund the Gunns Tasmanian pulp mill. In a
statement ANZ announced it will not provide finance for the
AU$ 2 billion project to pulp ancient forests for throw-away
paper products, but did not provide a reason for withdrawing.
International environmental protest spearheaded by Ecological
Internet, in support of local protests, certainly played a
major role.
ANZ Bank, and the Australian and Tasmanian governments, have
been targets of environmental protest in country and from
Ecological Internet and other overseas groups for years. Most
recently, in early April, nearly 3,000 EI Earth Action Network
participants from 87 countries sent a quarter of a million
protest emails to ANZ and the Australian government asking
that ANZ withdraw funding. The Australian national government
was also called out for their hypocrisy in supporting
protection of forests overseas to address climate change, but
not in Tasmania. The archived successful alert can be found at:
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=australia_tasmania_climate
“Thankfully, ANZ Bank has finally listened to its customers
and global citizens sickened by their profiteering from
ancient forest slaughter. They should be commended for
withdrawing from the ecologically disaster Gunns pulp mill.
Now perhaps ANZ will reexamine their lending to notorious
rainforest destroyer Rimbunan Hijau in Papua New Guinea as
well. And Australia end its logging shame by pulling Gunns’
pulp mill environmental approvals, ending this ghoulish
project once and for all,” says Ecological Internet President
Dr. Glen Barry.
“It is amazing what global citizens, through participation in
a strong network anchored by a reliable hub, can achieve
together for ecological sustainability. As Ecological Internet
continues to raise funds to meet basic costs for our unique
brand of biocentric activism on the net, we hope this latest
in a string of victories will lead to increased individual and
foundation support for our campaign to end ancient forest
logging.”
Ecological Internet stands alone as the only major
international forest campaigning group working to end ancient
forest logging and all industrial destruction of relatively
intact natural ecosystems. We seek permanent protections for
all remaining primary and old-growth forests (with appropriate
compensation and continued small scale use for local peoples),
advocate for ecological restoration and certified management
of regenerating and planted natural forest ecosystems, and
promote local peoples’ pursuit of small-scale, community-based
eco-forestry projects based upon regenerating secondary and
standing ancient forests. This is the true path to global
forest sustainability.
###ENDS###
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, GlenBarry@EcologicalInternet.org,
+1 920 776 1075
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Forests and climate change – examining the spin
http://links.org.au/node/522
By Susan Austin
Tasmania, Australia — It’s easy to get confused about the issue of
forests and climate change. Climate scientists say that preserving our
forests is a quick, easy and cheap way to prevent further global
warming, and Australia’s previous federal government allocated A$200
million towards preserving forests in South-East Asia. Yet both the
federal government and the Tasmanian state government are overseeing the
continuing destruction of Tasmania’s old-growth forests to feed a
profitable wood-chip export industry and a soon-to-be-built pulp mill.
And what’s more, they say that the industry is carbon-positive and
sustainable. What’s really going on?
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