On 7 September 1996, Threatened Species Day was declared to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the death of the last remaining Tasmanian tiger at Hobart Zoo in 1936.
To commemorate the day this year, the Victorian government "encourage[s] the community to prevent further extinctions of Australia's fauna and flora, and to restore healthy numbers of endangered species and ecological communities in the wild".
The Foe Forest Collective is well up for this invitation and thinks that a good start would be for the Victorian government to stop logging protected forest communities and their threatened and endangered wildlife! And to end the logging industry's exemption from federal environment laws that protect threatened species!
On Threatened Species Day we'll deliver our message right across Melbourne in a massive day of action. Do you want to join in?
HERE'S HOW YOU CAN JOIN THE ACTION
There are heaps of ways to take action this Threatened Species Day. Join in with the FoE Forest Collective and forest groups across Victoria in one or all of these ways:
-
Take a picture of yourself holding a message for the Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio and post it to Facebook and Twitter, including the Minister's handle @Lily D'AmbrosioMP. Tag @Friends of the Earth Melbourne in your Facebook photo and @FoEAustralia in your Twitter photo and we'll share it. Some messages we came up with include:
- Minister D'Ambrosio, logging kills wildlife, please protect our threatened species
- Minister D'Ambrosio, logging kills wildlife, please protect Greater Gliders
- Minister D'Ambrosio, protect threatened species based on science, not logging interests
- extinction is forever
- no more lawless logging
- enforce our environment laws, stop illegal logging
We'll be using these hashtags: #loggingkillswildlife #threatenedspeciesday.
-
Get involved with a FoE Forest Collective action on the day. We'll be visiting MP offices to provide them with information about illegal logging, running around the CBD with a bunch of giant furry creatures inviting people to get a photo for social media, handing out stacks of fliers at train stations and more. Contact [email protected] to get involved in one or more of these crazy adventures.
-
Join us on the steps of Parliament at 5.30pm where we will all converge, take our message direct to the politicians and celebrate a huge day of action for wildlife. See more details on the Facebook event: Threatened Species Day - Parliament convergence.
MORE ABOUT LOGGING AND THREATENED SPECIES
Under agreements called Regional Forest Agreements that are made between the federal and state government, the Victorian native forest logging industry is exempt from federal environment laws that all other industries must follow.
Instead, the industry is regulated by weaker state environment laws that are failing to protect forest wildlife. These laws are not being enforced by the Department of Environment, Land Water and Planning, that is responsible for ensuring they are followed. As a result, the government's logging agency, VicForests, are running rampant breaking the law with seeming immunity.
Since the Andrews Government was elected, VicForests has been implicated in 27 instances of logging protected forests and wildlife habitat. Not a single prosecution has been made!
An aerial view of logging next to rainforest in East Gippsland.
GREATER GLIDERS LISTED AS THREATENED AND STILL BEING LOGGED
Despite Greater Gliders being listed as a threatened species in Victoria this year, and despite the government's own scientific advisory committee recommending they receive protection from logging to avoid their extinction, logging continues in forests where Greater Gliders live - even when there presence is reported to the government.
As the gliders do not move on when their habitat is destroyed, they either die in the logging process or in the following weeks.
All forest species are being heavily effected by the landscape scale loss of their habitat. In fact, some forest ecosystems, like the Mountain Ash Forests, are themselves facing collapse.
A Greater Glider
It is vital for threatened wildlife that Regional Forest Agreements are not renewed and that the logging industry's exemption from federal environment law comes to and end, bringing them into line with every other industry.
It is vital for threatened wildlife that logging be excluded from forests where they live and that remaining habitat be protected in new parks and reserves, including the Great Forest National Park and reserves across East Gippsland.