Forest protection petition
The Earth Repair Foundation is seeking to collect more than 1 million signatures on a forest protection petition launched on August 17. The previous most-signed petition in Australia was for health care funding, presented in 1993; it had around 513,000 signatures.
The petition calls on both houses of federal parliament to protect high conservation value native forests, including old-growth and rainforests. It advocates a long-term approach to environmentally sustainable forestry practices and assisting rural communities to develop job-generating timber plantations and annual fibre crops.
The petition has been endorsed by more than 70 environment, community, union, ethnic, religious and political organisations.
A spokesperson for the campaign, Franklin Scarf, said, “Australia, as a signatory to the United Nations Biodiversity Convention, is committed to protect the flora and fauna unique to our native forests. Any government's acceptance of the further desecration of Australian forests for short-term economic gain is ecologically and economically indefensible.”
The NSW Aboriginal Land Council, which has endorsed the petition, points out that saving the wilderness is “not only an issue of ecology, but one of human rights and cultural survival” for Aboriginal people.
The petition will be presented daily to both the Senate and House of Representatives until November 27. For copies of the petition or more information, telephone the Earth Repair Foundation at (02) 4758 6393 or Friends of the Earth at (02) 9283 2004.
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