The Bob Brown Foundation held a very successful public meeting in Hobart today with over 400 supporters filling the Town Hall.
And in other campaign developments, Jane Goodall, the world’s best-known primate expert and global leader on conservation, joined the Global Voices for World Heritage today.
“The Bob Brown Foundation is building the campaign to oppose the Australian Governments deeply unpopular proposal to remove 74,000ha from the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Today with Wendy Harmer, Richard Denniss, Kim Booth and Anne McConnell, hundreds of people gathered again to voice opposition to stripping the World Heritage Area of it’s tall eucalyptus forests,” Jenny Weber said.
“Perhaps Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey will leave his offspring a tidy portfolio of shares, property, a trust fund and (I hope) some fun cash to blow on holidays, handbags and frivolities before they get down serious business. I also hope that, tucked in there somewhere is something even more rare and precious – a World Heritage forest in Tasmania. No finer gift can we leave the world’s children, their children and their children after them. World Heritage is forever. Along with eternity it’s a big word we humans grapple with,” Wendy Harmer, Editor in Chief of The Hoopla told the meeting.
“The Tasmanian native forest logging industry is only surviving because of the generosity of taxpayers. At a time when the health and education budgets are under strain, it’s hard to imagine that putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a declining industry generates the best return for taxpayers,” Executive Director of The Australia Institute Dr Richard Denniss said.
“To revoke the World Heritage listing of these priceless forested landscapes is a slap in the face to the environment and an insult to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community who are the true owners and have managed the landscape for 40,000 years,” Kim Booth, Leader of the Tasmanian Greens said.
Jenny Weber World Heritage Campaign Manager The Bob Brown Foundation
