One hundred thousand red gums at risk
More than one hundred thousand Red Gum trees along the Murray River are at risk of being destroyed and turned into railway-line sleepers to upgrade the Mildura railway line in Victoria. Precious, fragile River Red Gum wetlands covering an area greater than the entire Royal National Park will be destroyed in the process, some 20,000 hectares in total.
One hundred thousand red gums at risk
More than one
hundred thousand Red Gum trees along the Murray River are at risk of
being destroyed and turned into railway-line sleepers to upgrade the
Mildura railway line in Victoria. Precious, fragile River Red Gum
wetlands covering an area greater than the entire Royal National Park
will be destroyed in the process, some 20,000 hectares in total.
It
is a tragic, unnecessary and ill-considered waste -- evidence shows
that concrete sleepers have a much lower greenhouse impact, last three
times as long, and cost much less.
The Victorian Premier Steve
Bracks' Government is set to sign contracts by the end of April 2007
for the supply of the Red Gum sleepers (some 300,000 sleepers in total)
to upgrade the Mildura railway corridor in Victoria. However, most of
the sleepers will come from irreplaceable Red Gum wetlands on both
public and private lands in NSW.
*Please act now by sending
an email to Premiers Bracks and Iemma. You can do this in one minute
using the e-lobby on our website -
www.melbourne.foe.org.au/letters/index.php?p=letter&l=9
