Western Australia protests against native forest logging and mining in Boorloo/Perth and Wooditchup/Margaret River drew thousands to the Bob Brown Foundation national day of action on March 22.
Around 3000 rallied at Forrest Place to hear Katherine Neaves, from the Conservation Council of WA, speak about the conservation studies confirming that the unique Jarrah bio-region is home to extraordinary wildlife which exist nowhere else.
The greatest loss of biodiversity in Australia is in the south west of WA where bauxite mining is the leading cause of deforestation.
The corporate US giant Alcoa wants to clear 11,000 hectares of these precious forests. This is 29,000 times more surface area than the well-known Kings Park in Boorloo CBD.
Neaves said that community campaigning had won the fight to end native forest logging, but the next job is to end forest clearing by the mining industry.
Jess Beckerling, a Greens member of the Legislative Council, named Alcoa as the primary culprit. One thousand hectares of northern jarrah forests are being lost every year to bauxite mining. Alcoa was only exposed for its illegal clearing in 2011; it wants to continue doing this until 2045 and, if that happens, it would release a further 18 coal-fired power stations worth of greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re talking about a company that is pushing our black cockatoos to the absolute brink of extinction”, Beckerling told the protest.
“They are sucking our forests and rivers dry. When the sustained campaign finally resulted in bringing Alcoa before the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and WA Premier Roger Cook gave them a special exemption to continue clearing while the EPA conducted its assessment.
“Left to their own devices, Labor governments will not stop Alcoa. But let’s remember how formidable we are together. Let’s remember what Mandela said. It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
The protest in Wooditchup, a town of around 19,000 people, drew nearly 400.
The event was chaired by former Greens candidate Georgia Beardman. WA Forest Alliance convenor and long-term activist Jane Hutchinson spoke and Nannas for Native Forests, a state-wide group founded in Margaret River credited with playing a key role to end native forest logging, gave a performance.
The rally also heard from Jacquie Ashworth, a Wooditchup-based veteran of forest action, who gave birth to her first child in a tent at a forest blockade in Lutruwita/Tasmania.
After the speeches, local building tradesman and Socialist Alliance member Hannes Nietzsche led a march down the main street chanting for an end to native forest logging.
[Help save the unique jarrah forests by signing the Keeping Trump out of our forests petition and follow the WA Forest Alliance, End Forest Mining and Save the Black Cockatoos Coalition on social media.]
