To: Premier Cook. Federal Minister Watts. This is on your watch.
TRANSITION ALCOA OUT-TAKE YOUR TOXIC PONDS WITH YOU -SAVE OUR REMAINING NJF
60 plus years of strip mining the only Jarrah forest in the world for an abundant metal that is available all over the world is an obscenity, perpetrated on my generation and all future generations of Australians.
The number of Jobs for some privileged locals; the millions they spend in Communities to buy a social licence; and the meagre royalties they pay - cannot compensate for the permanent destruction of something so unique, diverse and home to our beloved fauna and flora. It has been made abundantly and publically clear now.
There is no such thing as "rehabilitation" of thousands of years of evolution of our unique Jarrah forest. That is just a public relations smoke screen that has been called out.
Our heritage is been wiped away and they want to continue destruction for a further generation.
It is bad enough that our beloved natural forest and everything in it, is stressed from Climate Change - exacerbated by the continuation of the fossil fuel industry.
We don't need to add to the destruction when it is possible to put a stop to it - if only purely on moral grounds.
Their social licence to mine has already been compromised, many times.
How many more breaches of the already inadequate environment laws must they flaunt? Why is this giant, overseas conglomerate afforded special privileges and allowed to continue strip mining - even while their application to extend their activities is been "considered"?
No one talks about the billions of litres of toxic waste already accumulated on these sites, held back by mounds of soil, two storey high, slowly leaching into our ground water.
What will happen to these ponds when all the trees are gone, the bauxite is exhausted and they eventually do move on?
Our once Australian pristine environment so revered by world travellers that Tourism and supporting Industries is worth far more to our economy than mining ever will.
Their legacy will be a depleted, bare earth, dead mature trees, extinction of species and toxic waste ponds threatening our water ways and lifestyles for generations to come.
The number of Jobs for some privileged locals; the millions they spend in Communities to buy a social licence; and the meagre royalties they pay - cannot compensate for the permanent destruction of something so unique, diverse and home to our beloved fauna and flora. It has been made abundantly and publically clear now.
There is no such thing as "rehabilitation" of thousands of years of evolution of our unique Jarrah forest. That is just a public relations smoke screen that has been called out.
Our heritage is been wiped away and they want to continue destruction for a further generation.
It is bad enough that our beloved natural forest and everything in it, is stressed from Climate Change - exacerbated by the continuation of the fossil fuel industry.
We don't need to add to the destruction when it is possible to put a stop to it - if only purely on moral grounds.
Their social licence to mine has already been compromised, many times.
How many more breaches of the already inadequate environment laws must they flaunt? Why is this giant, overseas conglomerate afforded special privileges and allowed to continue strip mining - even while their application to extend their activities is been "considered"?
No one talks about the billions of litres of toxic waste already accumulated on these sites, held back by mounds of soil, two storey high, slowly leaching into our ground water.
What will happen to these ponds when all the trees are gone, the bauxite is exhausted and they eventually do move on?
Our once Australian pristine environment so revered by world travellers that Tourism and supporting Industries is worth far more to our economy than mining ever will.
Their legacy will be a depleted, bare earth, dead mature trees, extinction of species and toxic waste ponds threatening our water ways and lifestyles for generations to come.
Why is this important?
Born in Yarloop Hospital, in the 1950s, first generation Australian from parents, fleeing war torn Europe.
The hospital burned down in the 2016 bush fires that swept across the Darling scarpe and my family members only narrowly managed to save their farm house in the Wagerup hills.
I lived on a farm next door as toddler, waking up to the screeches of abundant red tailed black cockatoos, in the tall tree tops of a pristine forest.
Today the only farm left in those beloved hills is surrounded by bare scorched earth and kilometres of rubber belts carrying the soul earth of our jarrah to the crushing plants.
Black cockatoos are so displaced, with loss of natural food sources and nesting trees in their native forest that they are now forced to invade suburbia, stripping what ever tree berries and nuts they can find, just to try and get some sustenance, to survive another day.
I see them in my Liquid amber tree scrounging for its meagre berries, and it breaks my heart.
How cruel can our political leaders and Environmental Ministers be ?
Mistreating a domestic pet is punishable by law. But they turn a blind eye to Corporate greed, extinction of species and mass destruction of biodiversity.
As a teenager, I lived in Waroona when Dwellingup went up in flames. I spent many weekends and school holidays in those Northern Jarrah Forests and my uncles farms.
When I had kids, we went camping on the Murray river up in Dwellingup.
Now they plan to extend the destruction. Strip mining through a European War memorial.
We may need jobs , revenue and aluminium - although easily substituted.
But we need fresh air, fresh water and biodiversity even more -to survive.
The hospital burned down in the 2016 bush fires that swept across the Darling scarpe and my family members only narrowly managed to save their farm house in the Wagerup hills.
I lived on a farm next door as toddler, waking up to the screeches of abundant red tailed black cockatoos, in the tall tree tops of a pristine forest.
Today the only farm left in those beloved hills is surrounded by bare scorched earth and kilometres of rubber belts carrying the soul earth of our jarrah to the crushing plants.
Black cockatoos are so displaced, with loss of natural food sources and nesting trees in their native forest that they are now forced to invade suburbia, stripping what ever tree berries and nuts they can find, just to try and get some sustenance, to survive another day.
I see them in my Liquid amber tree scrounging for its meagre berries, and it breaks my heart.
How cruel can our political leaders and Environmental Ministers be ?
Mistreating a domestic pet is punishable by law. But they turn a blind eye to Corporate greed, extinction of species and mass destruction of biodiversity.
As a teenager, I lived in Waroona when Dwellingup went up in flames. I spent many weekends and school holidays in those Northern Jarrah Forests and my uncles farms.
When I had kids, we went camping on the Murray river up in Dwellingup.
Now they plan to extend the destruction. Strip mining through a European War memorial.
We may need jobs , revenue and aluminium - although easily substituted.
But we need fresh air, fresh water and biodiversity even more -to survive.
