Wilderness Society welcomes Greens' 'Nature Fund' push

The Wilderness Society welcomes the announcement by the Australian Greens today that it will push for the establishment of a $2 billion a year Nature Fund, in addition to its previously announced support for new environment laws and an independent national Environment Protection Agency.

Wilderness Society National Campaigns Director Lyndon Schneiders says: “Today, the Greens have shown leadership in pledging to push for a Nature Fund. To reverse the extinction crisis, Australia needs to change the laws of nature and to allocate the resources required to get the job done.

“This announcement by the Greens builds on its work on nature issues this parliamentary term, particularly with the senate inquiry into animal extinctions. This has been an inquiry that has helped to expose the systematic policy failure of the current Environment Act, in that is does more to catalogue species extinction than it does to prevent it.

“It’s essential that the future government allocates resources to the environment department and independent EPA that will be sufficient to turn the crisis around. In a time of increasing environmental pressures, consecutive governments have cut funding over and over again at great cost to our precious species and landscapes.

“We especially welcome the commitment from the Australian Greens to push for resources to fund every endangered species recovery plan, and to expand and better manage the national reserve system. These things, together with strong new environment laws, will help turn the tide on the declining health of our natural heritage.

“Today’s announcement by the Australian Greens, together with reports that ‘the environment’ has emerged as the top election issue, builds momentum for change. Australians across the political spectrum care about their natural world and they don’t like that we are leaving this place worse than we found it from one generation to the next.

“This election, The Wilderness Society is delivering our largest election campaign in a generation in support of the policies required to give nature a chance.

“In December 2018, Bill Shorten announced that Labor would create a new national environment act and create an independent EPA. This has been a significant commitment from the Labor Party and we are looking to it to provide the details on how that will be delivered, and what sort of resources it's going to allocate to credibly make it all work,” he concluded.

Contact

For more information, please contact Tim Beshara on 0437 878 786.

Authorised by L Schneiders on behalf of The Wilderness Society Ltd, 132 Davey Street, Hobart Tasmania 7000.