Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 4 September 2022
Tanya Plibersek’s plan to end extinctions in Australia needs testing
Bob Brown Foundation says that Tanya Plibersek’s plan to end extinctions in Australia needs testing with a set of targets between now and Christmas to show if this plan is accompanied by the action needed to turn around the catastrophic loss of wildlife in Australia.
Minister Plibersek should, in 2022:
• Prohibit new coal mines or gas projects because they increase the danger of coral bleaching and acidification of the Great Barrier and Ningaloo Reefs.
• Stop logging native forests where her listed priority species including the koala, black cockatoos, swift parrot and Leadbeater’s possum, live.
• Protect her priority-listed Maugean skate and red handfish by removing fish farms polluting their habitats.
• Reverse her decision to allow the demolition of the Gelorup Corridor woodland in WA which has, so far, killed six critically-endangered western ringtail possums.
• End WA forest burn-offs killing numbats.
• In Tasmania, protect the takayna / Tarkine rainforest and its masked owls from the proposed toxic waste dump and the Tasmanian devils and shorebirds from the Robbins Island wind farm proposal.
“This national plan to guarantee that no more species go to extinction has a noble goal and will be welcomed. But action preventing human-induced pollution and habitat destruction has to start now. It is also common sense that the 30% of lands and seas to be protected are no longer available for logging, mining, industrial fish farms or gas fracking. New areas of Australia’s threatened lands and seas must be protected. The resource extractors have to know that these protected realms are permanent no-go zones. The minister should affirm that this will be so,” said Bob Brown.
