In 2008, Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett promised voters the ALP state government would no longer guarantee financial support to forestry giant Gunns’ unpopular pulp mill proposal for the Tamar Valley, near Launceston.
Alby Dallas
The Tasmanian Labour Party held its state conference in Hobart on July 26. It adopted a new policy in support of same-sex marriage after a close vote.
The threat of climate change means that for the first time humanity is faced with the very real possibility of extinction. The root cause of the ecological crisis is capitalism’s drive to maximise immediate profits above all else.
HOBART — Overnight on October 12, 20 activists staged a protest against logging operations in the Florentine Valley. The protest was organised by environment group Still Wild Still Threatened.
A Students Against the Pulp Mill organiser, Gabby Forward, was a finalist in the "Junior Hero" category of news.com.au's Green Awards. Announcing the winner on September 23, presenter Axle Whitehead described it as "the hardest category to
Federal environment minister Peter Garrett has maintained for weeks that he had not been approached by Gunns timber company to extend the deadline on the environmental approval process for the company’s proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. Last week, however, the government extended the deadline from October 4 to January 5.
El Salvador is an exciting Central American nation to be watching at the moment, because if current polls are to be believed, the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), looks set to win the parliamentary elections in January, and the presidential elections in March.
Australia is a leading exporter of coal, shipping millions of tonnes every year around the globe. It was appropriate, therefore, that the annual environmental conference, Students of Sustainability (SoS), was this year held in the world’s coal export capital: Newcastle.
Five hundred people attended an anti-pulp mill public meeting in Launceston on June 10. It was organised by the Wilderness Society to pressure Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett into ensuring that no more public funds are used to support Gunns’ proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill or its pipeline.
On March 22, some 1500 protesters on Parliament Lawns denounced Tasmanian Labor Premier Paul Lennon’s push to fast-track the building of a $1.5 billion pulp mill in Bell Bay, in northern Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.
At 8am on February 16, police served writs citing a court injunction from Forestry Tasmania on three Huon Valley Environment Centre (HVEC) office-bearers, according to the February 17 Hobart Mercury. The court order was to stop a walk-in planned for the following day in the Weld Valley exclusion zone to highlight the ongoing logging of old-growth forests.
Around the country, campus and high-school environment activists are focusing on getting young people to participate in the November 4 Walk against Warming international day of action on climate change.