Highlighting Endangered Species Day around 40 people gathered outside Tweed MP Geoff Provest’s office in Tweed to highlight the dangers we and our furry friends are facing as climate change ratchets up and the NSW government facilitates forest destruction.
‘Yesterday was endangered species day and we are putting the State government on notice that with an election coming up they are responsible for a lot of habitat devastation,’ said Mandy Nolan who recently ran as the Greens candidate for the federal seat of Richmond. ‘Protections on State Forests need to be absolute. The continuing watering down of protections of State government land needs to stop. Protection for native forests on state and private lands needs to be huge issue in the upcoming election.’
The rally was also attended by Tweed Shire Councillors Dr Nola Firth and Meredith Dennis as well as renowned ecologist Dailan Pugh and Fridays4Forests convenor Sean O’Shannessy.
‘We want the government to do better,’ said rally MC Scott Sledge from Northern Rivers Guardians.
‘We have a lot of environmental threats here and across the world. The Australian record is very poor in relation to species extinction, we lead the world.
‘We want the government to lift their game and provide better protection of koala habitat as it is a keystone species. If you protect koala habitat then it will protect other species and their habits that are critically endangered including the greater glider and the sooty owl.’
Mr Sledge was clear that the protest was not about MP Provest but about his government and recognised the range of work that he had done locally in preserving koala habitat.
‘Geoff Proves is one of the government members and he needs to represent our views as a community. I believe the community is very distressed at the lack of work on setting up koala sanctuaries. His government has approved a lot of mine sites and have done nothing to rein in the destruction of our forests. Recently NSW Forestry were fined for the destruction of koala habitat but it is us, the citizens paying the fines as NSW Forestry is an arm of the government.
‘With climate change, we need to be expanding our forests rather than reducing them. This is threatened species habitat, we cannot effectively manage and control the impacts of climate change without a serious review of our environment. What is happening to these species will ultimately happen to us as humans if we don’t take action.’
The NSW Government’s idea of protecting Koala is to house a few of them in ZOO and plonk them on a stick with some greenery on top and then say…See, we saved the Koala!
There are Koalas in QLD and Vic. They are found up to 600kms inland (Roma,QLD). They aren’t going extinct any time soon.
CORRECTION: My wife has informed me they have a Koala problem at Charleville, QLD (800 kms inland) due to the spotted gums there. She says “If they want some tree rats, get them to call Charleville Post Office and the locals will lick some stamps a send them of few tons.”
But by all means, keep donating to ‘Save the Koalas’ that are almost extinct even though they are uncountable and everywhere. Next you can panic about the possum shortage.
Thanks for highlighting this tragedy of our precious wildlife.
Was there any response from Geoff………?