Category Archives: Top Story

MAKE A SUBMISSION (by 17 April): to the Review of National Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act

AWPC-editorial-Jan2020-v3

DEADLINE 17 APRIL:

Numbers count! However briefly, make your voices heard on behalf of a much better EPBC ACT than has currently been in place.

The ACT now is vague enough to allow ministerial interference and opinions on behalf of economic interests to trump ecological and wildlife interests. Note: the review invites arguments for self-regulation and cutting ‘green tape’.

Argue our wildlife and ecosystems need clearly-stated regulatory protection now more than ever.

AUSTRALIA’S TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY IS IN CRISIS. THE CONTINENT’S UNIQUE WILDLIFE IS EXTINCT OR HEADING THERE AT WORLD-BEATING RATES.

The statutory review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) commenced on 29 October 2019. Professor Graeme Samuel AC has been appointed as the independent reviewer. The AWPC is making a joint submission with the Animal Protectors Alliance.

Submissions are due on 17 April 2020. 

LINK TO:
EPBC Act Review: Make a submission on the discussion paper

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How the bushmeat trade brought us Corona Virus

AWPC-editorial-Jan2020-v3

THE FOLLOWING LINKED article from the Sydney Morning Herald ‘Explainer’ series (very comprehensive reporting), explains how the eating of wildlife is introducing novel pathogens into human populations. With the latest corona virus, that is putting the globe into pandemic lockdown, it was possibly via bats or Pangolin victims sold at Chinese ‘wet markets’.

But from apes and monkey bushmeat sold in Africa and linked to Ebola, to the Australian commercial and government-sanctioned push for humans and their pets to eat kangaroos slaughtered in unsanitary field situations, the risk posed by bushmeat is great.

The article also lays out in great detail the worldwide criminal exploitation of wildlife for profit, a trade that is now right behind guns, drugs and human trafficking in profit for criminal gangs.

How does an epidemic spread and what does the wildlife trade have to do with it?
It’s worth billions of dollars to organised crime — after guns, drugs and human trafficking. But why is the illegal wildlife trade at the centre of the coronavirus epidemic?
By Sherryn Groch, The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 February 2020

 

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