Fun and info shared at festival

Fun and info shared at festival

By Drake Astrid

BRISBANE — World Environment Day started on a high note with a discussion attended by two delegates from each school in the Brisbane area on June 5, and finished with a weekend information festival in the Botanical Gardens on June 6-7.

At the conference, students shared their ideas and heard about how they could become actively involved in environmental issues, for example through the Environmental Youth Alliance. A 15-minute live link to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro allowed students to voice their proposals directly to that meeting.

Stalls at the festival in the Botanical Gardens on June 7 included EYA, Resistance, Clean Culture (environmentally friendly products), Groundswell Books on non-violence, the Academy of Natural Health and Children by Choice.

Members of the Wilderness Society, which organised the day, explained their national campaign to stop the destruction of native forests and to encourage native regrowth. They are planning to halt woodchip exports by 1993, and will campaign to stop sand mining of Shoalwater Bay and Byfield.

The Greenpeace stall focused on a new Save the Whales campaign to stop Japanese companies from using scientific study as an excuse to kill whales. The Animal Liberation group sold non-animal tested products and explained their three main campaigns: to abolish animal testing, stop feedlots and shut down battery hen farms.

Environmental technology was displayed, such as a drink stall where the blender, juicer and wheatgrass crusher were entirely run by pedal power.

From GLW issue 59