The posts concerning what our governments are doing and allowing to happen to
our country is utterly depressing.
Obviously the "Places we love" campaign is not touching governments.
Maybe all the environmental groups need to combine and work together more to
make people aware of what is happening, and the future costs of all this, maybe
even have a nationwide rally day to make governments aware that there a lot of
people, voters, who want National Parks etc and wildlife protected.
On 14/05/2013, at 10:26 AM, Greg Roberts wrote:
> I would hope that as lovers of birds and other wildlife, we should be deeply
> concerned about what is happening under the Campbell Newman-led Liberal
> National Party in Queensland. A series of recent moves by the Government
> demonstrates just what is at stake here.
>
> The Government has boasted that it will "take an axe" to state laws
> protecting native vegetation on private and leased lands from being cleared.
> The laws were enacted by the previous Labor Government in response to
> revelations that hundreds of thousands of hectares of native vegetation were
> being cleared annually, contributing greatly to greenhouse gas emissions and
> seriously threatening biodiversity, especially across vulnerable woodlands
> inland. Now, landholders need do nothing more than present a "business plan"
> for properties and they can bulldoze what they want.
>
> The former Labor Government in its final years acted to lock up some
> important natural areas as national park, such as the expanded Mapleton
> National Park in the Sunshine Coast hinterland - a lovely, bird-rich area of
> rainforest, wet sclerophyll and open forest. The new Government is reviewing
> all park declarations made since 2002 and has made it clear that most will
> be revoked. The protection of national parks is supposed to be set in stone,
> otherwise there is no point in having them. Queensland already has one of
> the smallest national park estates in the country on a per capita basis - it
> is about to shrink further, and in the process the sanctity of national
> parks will be ditched.
>
> Logging and other damaging activities were removed from extensive areas of
> state forest and other forested areas by the former Labor Government. Those
> lands have been reopened to the developers and logging licences are being
> issued to anyone who wants one. One new licence covers one of the few
> remaining areas of rainforest frequented by the Eungella Honeyeater.
>
> The new Government is revoking Labor's historic legislation protecting the
> catchment of pristine wild rivers on Cape York and in the Channel Country of
> south-west Queensland. It will move to stymie the planned World Heritage
> declaration of Cape York and has vowed to open up Cape York - one of the
> nation's last great wildernesses - to developers.
>
> This depressing list goes on and on. Funding to help members of the
> community challenge bad environmental planning decisions in the courts has
> been stopped. Environmental responsibilities have been split among three
> departments - with ultra-conservative National Party ministers (in a
> government that is supposedly part-Liberal) running the show. Even the
> former Bjelke-Petersen National Party Government would not tolerate what
> Premier Campbell Newman (who is supposedly a Liberal) is up to. Despite all
> his faults, Joh kept a leash on some of the more rabid environmental
> wreckers in the Nationals' rank. Now it is open slather.
>
> Greg Roberts
>
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