Thousands rally for Victorian forests on the Eve of World Environment Day : Melbourne Indymedia

The rally was one of the largest environmental rallies in recent years in Melbourne, according to the organisers. National Director of the Wilderness Society said "This is a massive issue and the size of this crowd and the support we have today goes to highlight the issue and shows just how much of an emotional issue this is," Many people had travelled from all over the state to attend the rally.

People gathered before 11.00am outside the State Library, but by the time the rally started the lawns were well packed with people. Wurrundjeri tribe elder Joy Wandin Murphy welcomed everyone to country.

The rally then marched down Swanston street to Federation Square where a stage and stalls had been set up. Speakers included actress Julie Nile and actor Jack Thompson. Thompson said that action was urgently needed to save old growth forests as Australian taxpayers were bankrolling the woodchip industry. "That's why we are gathered here because there is the need for the people of Australia to say 'enough, it's time for change'," he said. "We export 850,000 tonnes of logs to the woodchip industry in Japan... it's time for our governments to grasp what it is we the people need. The mandate is, care for the country we love and a world in which we can proudly bring up our children."

A seventy metre canvas banner in the shape of a tree was unrolled from the stage into the audience for the 'world's biggest tree hug'.

Both the Bracks Victorian Labor Government and the Coalition Federal Government were criticised for the continuation of old growth logging.

Climate change and the importance of preserving sensitive ecosystems were raised by the speakers.

Wurundjeri elder Joy Murphy-Wandin addressing the crowd at the State Library

Outside the State Library

Save River Redgum along the Murray River

Act now to save Victorian Old growth forests

Stop logging in Melbourne's water catchments

Stop Logging Mount Baw Baw

Treet spirits on Swanston

A view from the future generation

Murray Darling Redgum Forests Friends of the Earth banner

Your Mother Raised you...

Singalong at Federation Square...
We keep crying Bracksy

Julie Nile - passionate speech for stopping logging of old growth forests

70 metre tree banner rolled out from the stage

do all these people vote to keep these hypocrites in power??
gee maybe it is in bracksies hands to stop the logging but do we really think he will do that dreamers.
In the meantime no one can control mother earth from retaliating eh she is crying out in pain and still no one is listening folks we will all still be protesting in the streets when she mother earth wipes us of the face of the earth she has had years of abuse and violation upon her body she can hardly sustain her children because everything is shifting and changing eh being sucked from the mother like when the mothers milk dries up and she can no longer feed her babies how distressing for mother earth as a mother that she cannot feed her own children.
SO AGAIN HOW MUCH LONGER ARE WE GOING TO PUT OUR FAITH AND TRUST IN THE HUMAN RACE WHO SEES SURVIVAL AS THE NEED TO HAVE MONEY TO SURVIVE. GOOD DREAMING WE WILL STILL BE DREAMING WHILE MOTHER EARTH IS TURNING IN ON HER SELF.
LIKE THE DAYS OF NOAH EH THEY JUST WONT LISTEN.

constantly the green movement harps on ' its getting sent to japan ' ie. thompson above.

this nationalism plays into anti-asian consverativism. drop it guys. multi-national capital doesnt care for nationalism neither do trees.

time to build a temporary counter hegemony of autonomous indigenous and eco/proletarian struggles to break the hegemony of twis etc who can only see forests in lobbyist dollars against bracks and the libs. and drapped in the aussie flag.

eco-/autonomy/'worker' revolutionaries and their planet will only be free when the entrails of the last 'eco-NGO bureacrat strangle the last foresty union bureacrat.

(timber)workers of the world, all you have to loose is your chain(saws)

Here’s an Idea, millions of corporate dollars are being spent annually in Kyoto aligned nations to plant carbon credit trees.

Emissions are global, so it doesn’t really matter where the tree’s get planted, and as it turns out planting tree’s for CC’s is not even replacing the trees cleared by the forestry industry.

So What is the point of CC’s when old growth gets clear felled?, selectively logged or pushed outa the way for a Cairns Highway.

Could those who care try another way to stop this stupidity, try getting some of the CC Kyoto money and buy a local forest before someone fucks the entire ecology, its not just tree’s it’s everything water soil habitat and the air we breath.

Saving tree’s is Better than planting tree’s, so the most shortsighted aprouch is saving a couple of jobs.

But........................
You continue to smell funny and it offends me no end.
I am happy enough for maybe 1% of your protest, as I believe that is all who have some real idea of what is going on in the native forest industry. Maybe some of the East Gippsland old growth could be saved from the chainsaw, but what the fuck is the problems associated with Baw Baw or the river red gum? What is the root of the problem in these areas? Water catchment at Baw Baw - give me a break, it's not the logging that's the problem, it's you suburbanites wasting the water. River red gum issues - lack of a fucking river (flooding) for a start, not the selective logging of. Are there any positives in the industry? ie Delatite Arm Project on the Eildon? This work is ignored. If you want to really help get out of your comfort zone in Melbourne and your welfare (there is a lot of you). Come out and live in the country side and see the other side. 'If you can't change the world change yourself' - how many of you so called urban 'greens' can honestly say that.

suburban water wastage is significant, but it's only 13 per cent of the water used nationally... industry needs shutting down first... most of it. Permanently.

Mini me, I can tolerate about one per cent of your posts, but the rest stinks to high heaven.

You probably care about my approval of your posts about as much as the protestors care whether you approve of their action - not at all.

Mini Me,

The logging industry in Australia is managed by a pack of morons who cannot think much further than the polling day. They care nothing for the preservation of our ancient and unique forests and the life that it sustains. The evidence is out there on the ground.

If some forest campaigners rely on welfare, so be it. You should be more offended by the amount of corporate welfare keeping this dinosaur industry afloat.

Parasites in business suits are screwing the planet from The Styx to Siberia. Why apologise for these bastards?

"They care nothing for the preservation of our ancient and unique forests and the life that it sustains."

Maybe because the realise the"Lord of the Rings" and "Bambi" were just fiction and the woods aren't full of talking elves, deer and rabbits.

If you have any wood products in your house then you're part of the problem, not the solution so stop trying to fob the blame off onto others.

The Devil (Bush): "I celebrate World Eviornment Day by Drilling for Oil in the Gates of the Arctic, Dumping Toxic Chemicals into the Ocean, Dropping DU Bombs on Iraqi Civilians, and Logging Off Wilderness Areas in Amerika."

You're quite the original cum gagger, aren't you?

Well mini me, we are all guilty. Including you. So what!! deal with it. Perhaps the focus needs to be not on who is to blame but who is going to act in order to preserve what is left of our natural environment. It is easy to say its not logging that is the problem in Baw Baw, it is water wastage, but if you look a little deeper you will notice that it is both... wow, who would have thought. So if we all move to the country like you suggest, then who will be left in the city to promote efficient water usage? The government? Anyway i lived in the country for 18 years. It is fantastic i agree, staying in your own little hole away from all the problems and the reality of whats happening. Unfortunatly these things don't go away. But its fun to pretend.

Don't you just love the ignorant. Here is someone who knows nothing on Baw Baw saying that the people raising it as an issue are smelly, welfare dependent suburbanites. In actual fact, many of the environmental groups have ignored Baw Baw. It has been the scientific community that has raised it as an issue - and we do earn a wage by the way and work hard to earn it. So, before one goes off and judges, they should educate themselves on the issue first.

More like the forestry industry found out what is going on in them thar hills. So tell me Mr Science guru, what are the issues? And yes your wage is subsidised by me, you do work for the DSE don't you, or is it Parks?