Ghost Crab
Photo © Meg GreenWildlife Queensland is extremely concerned at the recent announcement by the Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to overturn Queensland’s world class Wild River’s legislation if he is elected as Prime Minister. Such action would threaten the significant progress to date protecting many of Queensland’s wild rivers including the recent win for the Wenlock River and the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve on Cape York. This policy is designed to allow destructive development such as mining in Queensland’s most ecologically important rivers and waterways.
Tony Abbott’s green credentials are certainly not looking good considering this is the second poor environmental policy announcement in a week. Last week during a visit to Mackay, Tony Abbott announce that if elected as Prime Minister he would immediately put on hold the Marine Bioregional Planning process which, ironically, was a process started by the former Coalition Government. Wildlife Queensland is deeply concerned about this policy reversal. Freezing this process misses an unprecedented opportunity for Australia to establish world class protection for our world class marine environment by setting up a network of marine sanctuaries which would benefit our oceans and our economy.
Wildlife Queensland is awaiting a response from Labor who have been extremely quiet in relation to these policy announcements from the Coalition.
What Wildlife Queensland is doing
Wildlife Queensland has joined forces with an alliance of Queensland conservation groups who are calling on both parties to show leadership in halting the decline of biodiversity, tackling dangerous climate change and building a safe and healthy future for Australia.
What you can do
Contact your local Federal parliamentary candidates and tell them you care about the environment and that it will be taken into consideration when exercising your vote at the upcoming election.
For more information on Wildlife Queensland's activities, call us on +61 7 3221 0194 or send us an email. |
