“No nature! No future!” was a prominent chant at the March for Nature rally in the Sydney Domain on October 5.
“Without nature, we can’t do anything,” Spencer Hitchen, a high school environment activist from Noosa, Queensland, told the protest. “We are joining together here to ask our government decision-makers to take strong action to protect nature.”
Rally chair Lewis Hobba said that the “only thing” Australia is a world leader in is species extinction and forest destruction.
“How can the Australian government host a Global Nature Positive Summit when, just last week, it approved three new coal mines?”
The march to Lady Macquarie’s Chair on the Harbour foreshore was co-sponsored by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Wilderness Society and Birdlife Australia, with support from 350.org, Nature Conservation Council, Rising Tide and other environment organisations.
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After the march, a Picnic for Nature was held at Lady Macquarie’s Chair, featuring the giant animal Snuff Puppets and artist Al Phemister.
The federal and NSW Labor governments are co-sponsoring a Global Nature Positive Summit in the Convention Centre in Darling Harbour over October 8–10.
350.org criticised environment minister Tanya Plibersek for hosting such a summit when she is busy approving coal mine expansions and allowing Tamboran to further frack the Beetaloo Basin without even having passed a water assessment.
“The Albanese government needs to listen to the science, and not keep capitulating to the fossil fuel corporations.”
“Without the full reform of Australia’s unfit-for-purpose nature law and no sign of an independent agency to enforce the law, [at least] 10 highly imperilled plants and animals are staring down the barrel of extinction,” ACF spokesperson Darcie Carruthers said.
“Some are threatened by particular industries. For example, Tasmania’s Maugean skate [fish] is under direct threat from intensive salmon farming in its home of Macquarie Harbour.
“The survival of the swift parrot is dependent on the species having suitable nesting and food trees, but commercial logging is destroying its essential breeding trees.
“In virtually every case, destruction of the species’ habitat is the defining problem.”
ACF said that people want Labor to “thoroughly overhaul Australia’s nature protection laws and establish a fully independent national regulator to enforce them”.
[For more information, visit https://www.acf.org.au.]