MEDIA RELEASE: 8 June 2018 Today, community members gathered outside the meeting of the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council (MinCo) meeting at the Hyatt in Canberra with the message: Healthy Rivers Need Water. This is the first time state water ministers will come together since the Federal Government cut 605 billion litres from the Murray Darling Basin Plan in May.

For more than 20 years, Friends of the Earth (FoE) has worked with Friends of Gippsland Bush (FoGB) to see remaining high conservation forests in the Strzelecki Ranges, south east of Melbourne, protected. The decades long campaign to see the Strzelecki Ranges Rainforest Cores and Links reserve established is almost over. We have just received the good news that the first 1,600ha of land was Gazetted by the Victorian State Government on the 10th of May 2018. This now means that the land in question is classed as a Forest Reserve by the Victorian State Government under section 50(1) of the Forests Act. This means no more logging forever!

22 May 2018 Environmental Organisation Friends of the Earth (FoE) today expressed concerns over the registration of the larvicide “Sumilarv Granular Insect Growth Regulator” (Active Constituent: Pyriproxyfen) commonly used for control of mosquitos, midges and latrine flies. Pyriproxyfen is an extremely powerful synthetic hormone, that is highly persistent, active at very low concentrations, and interferes with developmental processes in a very wide range of organisms.

It’s crunch time in the campaign to stop the cable car up the face of kunanyi/ Mt Wellington. The proposal is being fast tracked by the Tasmanian government (background here). If you’ll be anywhere near Hobart on Sunday 6th May please join this event and show your opposition to the desecration of the mountain.

Hobart is fortunate to be one of the few cities in the world to have a wild mountain on its doorstep. Mount Wellington/ kunanyi provides an iconic backdrop to the city and provides an important habitat for a range of threatened species including the Eastern Barred Bandicoot, the Grey Goshawk and the Wedge Tailed Eagle.

Two days ago a survey by GECO halted logging in the Queensborough river forest, protecting a colony of greater gliders.

VicForest has been charged for illegally logging rainforest in an East Gippsland logging coupe. The logging operation took place in the Serpentine Creek Rainforest Site of Significance near Cann River, causing serious damage to protected warm temperate rainforest.

Land clearing (or deforestation) is out of control across Queensland – with latest figures released by the Queensland government showing a staggering 395,000 hectares was cleared in 2015-2016.1

Governments and the agricultural sector have long held ambitions of conquering the vast rivers and natural landscapes of northern Australia. Since the 1940s the Commonwealth and state/territory governments have poured billions of dollars into R&D and water infrastructure projects in an attempt to expand irrigated agriculture across the north.    

A cable car has been proposed up the face of Mt Wellington/Kunanyi in Hobart. A range of local residents and environmental groups have been campaigning against this proposal, which would have significant environmental impacts on the mountain.