ENVIRONMENTAL groups have vowed to continue protests despite calls from Greens Leader Nick McKim to give forest peace a chance.
Green groups have rejected Mr McKim's calls, in the Sunday Tasmanian yesterday, to stop protests in the lead-up to a final tick of approval from the state's Upper House for new forest reserves under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement (TFA).
Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Miranda Gibson said environmentalists could not afford to stop protest action.
"For years Tasmania waited for a promised moratorium on our forests and in the meantime lost significant tracts of irreplaceable world heritage and high conservation value forests," Ms Gibson said yesterday.
"We question why Nick McKim is calling now for a moratorium on protests, instead of calling for an end to the destruction of Tasmania's native forests.
"The real risk is that if we allow this legislation to silence us, if we stop campaigning for the forests, Tasmania is poised to lose vast tracts of native forests while the taxpayer-funded industry is given free rein."
Ms Gibson said community campaigns have always provided checks and balances, "holding the industry to account for destructive practices".
Huon Valley Environment spokeswoman Jenny Weber said Mr McKim and environmental signatories to the agreement had been "greenmailed".
"If secure legislated protection is not granted to forests, it will be the fault of those legislative councillors who designed the Bill to fail, the politicians who supported that mutated Bill, wherein protection to forests is granted if campaigns are silenced, among other 'greenmail' clauses and the signatories to this Agreement."
Opposition Leader Will Hodgman said Mr McKim's "panicked calls for a temporary ceasefire in the forests ... have zero credibility".
"If Nick McKim was genuinely committed to 'peace' in the forests, he would be calling for the protests to end, full stop," he said.
Tasmania's Upper House will need to be satisfied that a number of conditions, including a halt to serious market attacks by protesters and promised wood supplies, have been adhered to before ticking off on the first of 392,237ha of reserves to be created under the agreement.
matthew.smith@news.com.au
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
More forest action ahead
Dengan url
http://obrasartikel.blogspot.com/2013/07/more-forest-action-ahead.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
More forest action ahead
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar