Our environment and the laws that protect it are under attack like never before. If environment protection were left to the states, they would have dammed the Franklin River, put oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef and built Traveston Dam.

Big business leaders hijacked a meeting of state and federal governments COAG earlier this year and what they demanded weakens Australia's environment laws. Inexplicably the Prime Minister acquiesced - perhaps to get acceptance for another item on agenda?

This December 7, when state Premiers and Prime Minister  meet again at COAG the plan is to take the next step to gut Australia's environment laws before final sign off at a meeting in March 2013 and hand power over to the states.

Before this happens, tell the Labor and Liberal parties not to gut Australia's environment laws. Here  is a letter you must personalise with your details and perhaps add / delete comments.

Citizen-Letter-re-EPBC-changes.doc02/12/2012, 18:02

The following document contains details of federal members and senators so that you can email your concerns to them. Federal-Government-Email-addresses.doc 

There is also a petition you can sign here and another petition here and a submission to a SENATE INQUIRY The effectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities' protection in Australia.

Submissions should be received by 14 December 2012 - preferably online in electronic form. Details regarding this are available from a secure website  here https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/pages/index.aspx

Alternatively you can email directly to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. Advice on making a submision will be added here shortly.

We all need to send this letter - EPBC potential loss

PETITION TO SIGN!

To date the most important piece of legislation in Australia to protect the natural environment from greedy exploitative practices and unsustainable development is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, EPBC.

It provides a legal framework to protect and manage nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places — defined in the EPBC Act as matters of national environmental significance.

Under pressure from big business Federal, State and Territory governments are moving forward with an aggressive plan to wind back our environmental protection laws. By cutting 'green tape', handing important federal approval powers to the states, and fast tracking approvals for large development, federal protection for our most special places and wildlife will be removed, and mining and other destructive development in our forests, woodlands and along our coasts will be accelerated.

History has shown us that the Federal government has a critical role in protecting matters of national environmental significance. Short-sighted development proposals have threatened Australia's natural heritage several times in the past and the Federal government has stepped in to prevent irreversible harm.

Without Federal intervention, the Franklin River would be dammed, there would be oil rigs on the Great Barrier Reef and pristine Shoalwater Bay would be home to a large coal port.

Without Federal protection the KOALA will be doomed to extinction.

The Places You Love campaign was founded by a group of 30 organisations, including HSI concerned with the proposals to wind back our system of environmental laws. We strongly believe that the reforms proposed will set us back decades on hard won protection for our land, water and wildlife

 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH have arranged a petition - very easy step to sign to send to Prime Minister Julia  Gillard. You might like send to other politicians - by email or snail. Read text of letter you can use or adapt here and

The KOALA ARMY NEEDS US ALL. ENLISTING is easy.

Support this action from Australian Koala Foundation. Go to the following linked page https://www.savethekoala.com/koala-army/send-letter and using information provided there, send a letter to  your  politicians. Phone them also for extra emphasis. Spread the word with your friends and family. Let them know you are joining the Koala Army to ask for a  Koala Protection Act. This is especially inportant as our current legislation and policies have failed and will continue to fail to protect  the koala's essential habitat.

It is particularly worrying that big business has had the government's ear and through COAG there are plans to give the EPBC Act 'powers' to state governments.

You might also like to go to the koala army shop to purchase a dog tag or army tee shirt?