About 400 people attended a rally at Parliament House on August 12 organised by Gosnells resident Paddy Cullen to protest the destruction of native forests.
The rally was led by the Bob Brown Foundation.
It was one of 13 around the country to support a motion backed by 300 ALP branches at the Labor Conference this month to ban logging from native forests.
“WA was the first state to end native forest logging and Victoria will follow suit, now there is a chance for this to go nationwide,” Mr Cullen said.
The Perth rally also focused on clearing for infrastructure and mining with two actions happening the day before the rally to highlight these threats.
A morning action led by the Nannas for Native Forests in Bunbury saw 50 people form an umbrella formation to resemble a karak (Forest Red Tail Black Cockatoo), one of three threatened species of Black Cockatoo unique to the South West.
The karak is an umbrella species for the South West and its demise is an indicator of the loss of habitat. In the last year around Bunbury the habitat of the karak and two other species of threatened black cockatoo was bulldozed to make a bypass around the city.
In the afternoon the Jarrahdale Forest Protectors walked onto a bauxite mine, resembling a martian landscape where a giant forest had once stood.
Alcoa has cleared more than 280sq.km of the Northern Jarrah Forest and wants to gain access to a further 7000sq.km.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the area, which is part of a global biodiversity hotspot, is under threat from climate change and without a change of management will face ecosystem collapse.
At the rally up to 400 people held up gum leaves and called for the Environmental Protection Authority to assess the two new proposals from bauxite mines chanting:Alcoa “EPA it is not OK. Tell Alcoa to go away.”
More Forest actions are planned for March.
In the meantime, people are being asked to visit their federal Labor MPs to support the national ban on logging in native forests or write letters to the Premier of WA to ask him to stop further expansion of mining in the Northern Jarrah Forest.
