By GetUp!
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has confirmed he will visit the Tarkine
with GetUp before he decides on the future of the rainforest area. This is brilliant news! Thank you for adding your name to the invitation. There is no better way to ensure the Minister fully understands just how important it is to save the area than to get him on the ground amongst the ancient ecosystem that is the Tarkine.
We need to keep the pressure on to make sure he goes and soon. Almost 2000 GetUp members have donated to get the Tarkine video shown on Sky News nationally and in cinemas in Melbourne and Sydney to make sure the Minister cannot ignore this issue and that other Australians realise the second largest temperate rainforest in the world is under imminent threat.
We will let you know of the next steps on campaign to save the Tarkine in early 2012.
Enormous mines are proposed in the Tarkine rainforest. One of the three planned for development in the next 18 months would be the equivalent of 420 Melbourne Cricket Grounds’ wide and twice as deep as the tallest point on Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The Tarkine Rainforest is little known outside of Tasmania. It’s a place of sweeping beaches, temperate rainforest, sand dunes and pristine river systems; along with more than 60 species of threatened, rare or endangered animals – including a certain famous devil, the world’s largest freshwater crustacean and Australia’s largest eagle.
The Tarkine is a living, breathing relic of Earth’s original super continent, Gondwanaland, and the second largest intact stretch of rainforest in the world. But if we’re not vocal, it will soon be home to some of Tasmania’s newest open cut mines.
Happy holidays,
the GetUp team.