Media Release: Takayna Ultra-marathon Runs Around Vigilantes’ Blockade – Vandals slash finish line marquee
Today’s takayna Ultra is proceeding, despite a pre-dawn blockade stopping two hired school buses from taking competitors from Marrawah Hall to the start near Temma.
Twelve vehicles blockaded the buses at the hall but all runners were successfully conveyed in private vehicles to the start in the Tarkine protected area. Altogether, nearly 100 runners will complete the long and short courses during the day for the marathon organised by the Bob Brown Foundation.
Media Release: VIGILANTES BLOCK TAKAYNA ULTRA MARATHON
A group of vigilantes, in off-road vehicles, have blocked school buses and cars from taking runners from Marrawah Hall to the start of the takayna Ultra.
Police are currently on the way to Marrawah.
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Media Release: TAKAYNA ULTRA MARATHON BEGINS – RUNNERS JOIN CAMPAIGN TO HELP SAVE ONE OF THE GREATEST WILD PLACES ON EARTH
The inaugural 65km takayna Ultra will be held on Friday 5 April. Runners and organisers are heading to the northwest of Tasmania today as preparations begin for a unique event to help save takayna / Tarkine from logging, mining and off-road vehicle damage.
“Our inaugural ultra-marathon will bring great awareness of one of the last wild places on Earth, it will bring an economic boost to the northwest of Tasmania and is a fundraising event to support the Bob Brown Foundation campaign to have takayna / Tarkine protected as a World Heritage listed National Park, returned to Aboriginal ownership,” Jenny Weber, Campaign Manager with the Bob Brown Foundation said.
Read moreMedia Release: Japanese Whale Killers Exalt in Final Orgy
The Japanese whaling fleet has arrived from Antarctica to Tokyo exalting in its slaughter of defenceless Minke whales.
The fleet is triumphing the news, in Japanese, that it has killed 333 Minkes, many of which will have been juveniles or pregnant.
“Japan says this will be its last foray to kill in Antarctic waters. It realises its bloody cull is an affront to the modern world’s culture of concern for wildlife and the growing demand that the International Whale Sanctuary in Antarctic waters should be honoured,” Australian environmentalist Bob Brown said today.
Media Release: Trans Tarkine Track Business Case Study Released
Trans Tarkine Track to showcase Aboriginal culture and natural beauty to the world – Business case released
The Bob Brown Foundation, Tasmanian Aboriginal community representatives and Ken Boundy today released the business case that lays out the economic benefits and commercial viability of a $25 million Trans Tarkine Track, proposed for Northwest Tasmania.
Bob Brown said, ‘The Trans Tarkine Track would provide a 10 day walk over 100km. It would take visitors across takayna / Tarkine’s diverse, World Heritage-quality Aboriginal cultural sites and natural landscapes.
Media Release: FAKE ADANI MINE START IN THE OFFING.
“Reports that roadworks for the Adani mine begin next week entail an effort to bully Australians into thinking the mine is approved when it isn’t,” former Greens leader Bob Brown said in Airlie Beach this morning.
Brown has been in central Queensland talking with supporters of the STOP ADANI CONVOY. Hundreds of people will motor from all over Australia in April-May to protest the mine and global warming.
“The convoy will highlight the 70 percent of Australians who oppose the polluting and jobs-sparse Adani mine proposal. As a bonus it will bring to the region hundreds of good people wanting to pay for accommodation and hospitality,” he said.
Media Release: Tasmania ushering in Malaysian timber giant to destroy rare forests
The EPA has become the Everything Passes Anyway gateway, ticking off environmentally damaging projects regardless, Bob Brown Foundation Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said today.
This EPA tick-off for a veneer plant at Georgetown makes it clear particulate matters and fumes will be permitted when it should be a requirement in 2019 that such a factory be emissions-free.
Then the EPA shrugs its shoulders about the potential impact on native forests, wildlife and waterways with a ‘that’s nothing to do with us’ carelessness.
Read moreMedia Release: Tarkine forest blockade has evacuated due to a bushfire.
For almost five months, our Sumac forest blockade camp has successfully prevented the logging of these ancient Gondwanan rainforests. On Thursday afternoon a helicopter with a water bucket was observed by our campaigner, Scott Jordan, flying over camp and dropping water nearby. Sustainable Timbers Tasmania sent an email to our campaigners at 4:30pm informing them that a lightning strike had started a fire 1km from the blockade camp in remote forest south of Keppel Creek. Our staff and volunteers were out of the camp to a safe location soon after.
Read moreMedia Release: HUGE CONVOY TO CONVERGE ON ADANI
If the Adani coal mine goes ahead, a peaceful protest convoy from around Australia will converge on Queensland’s Galilee Basin before the federal election, the Bob Brown Foundation announced today.
Foundation organizers are waiting to see if Adani gets final environmental clearance before finalising plans.
‘The Federal Liberal and Queensland Labor governments should not be ticking off on this environmentally disastrous project. It is a litmus test for common sense in this age of global heating,’ Bob Brown said today.
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Media Release: Hodgman Hides From His Own Laws
In a display of weak-kneed distancing, Premier Will Hodgman has ducked announcing new laws against environmental protests in Tasmania.
Instead, on this Australia Day holiday, a junior minister will make the announcement, overseen by the big end of town.
Former Senator and Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, with Jessica Hoyt, took a successful challenge to the High Court against Hodgman and the Tasmanian parliament’s earlier, illegal, attempt to prohibit peaceful environmental protest.
“This is the big end of town, with Premier Hodgman as puppet, having a second go even though Tasmania is having its most protest-free period in decades. The Premier putting a junior minister in charge on a holiday shows he does not have his heart in it. There are adequate laws in Tasmania to stop untoward protests but the big resource extraction industries want more than our democracy or public opinion will allow. They are losing arguments for destroying more wild and scenic places like the Tarkine and for blighting the jobs that go with Tasmania’s environmental and Indigenous heritage,” Brown said today.
A five months-long protest continuing in the Tarkine forest, supported by the Bob Brown Foundation, has successfully protected the Sumac rainforests and wildlife all this summer with no need for intervention.
“For every job in logging there is more than a dozen in tourism and hospitality in modern Tasmania, and that imbalance is growing. The big end of town sheds crocodile tears about jobs but really wants more publicly-subsidised profiteering at the expense of Tasmania’s wilderness and natural beauty. It is time we had a premier who stood up for modern Tasmania rather than this coterie of self-interested job-shedding exploiters. Hodgman’s absence today is pathetic,” Brown said.
Contact: Jenny Weber, 0427 366 929