BY PAUL OBOOHOV
CANBERRA — The Save The Ridge campaign group is intensifying its campaign to defend the area of bushland threatened by the Gungahlin Drive road extension.
Save the Ridge activists have begun marking endangered trees throughout the proposed route of the road with orange tape, and have organised public meetings, suburban information stalls, artwork on bike parks and posters to build community support for the campaign.
The ACT Labor government has put forward a Spatial Plan for public comment. The plan proposes a number of new roads, and the widening of some existing roads. Save the Ridge campaigners have proposed establishing a light rail system in Canberra, which would cost only a fraction of the $60 million that will be spent on the Gungahlin Drive extension.
The ALP won the last ACT election partly on the promise to take the road route slightly away from the bush reserves, but the federal government has since overruled this.
Greens senator Bob Brown moved a disallowance motion in the Senate to overturn the federal government's direction, but the federal ALP refused to support the motion.
For more information or to get involved in the campaign, visit <http://www.savetheridge.org.au/default.htm>.
From Green Left Weekly, December 3, 2003.
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