End Forest Mining (EFM) alliance members said while they welcomed the establishment of a Bird Flu Wildlife Advisory Group, “urgent measures were required to protect breeding, roosting and feeding habitat for vulnerable native wildlife”.
The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) website states: “The best way to prepare our native wildlife for H5 bird flu is to ensure strong, healthy populations across their geographic range. This means continuing, and where possible increasing, efforts to support species recovery and reduce the impacts of other threats.”
Jess Boyce, WA Forest Alliance (WAFA) Director said that with 30% of Australian birds and 10% of mammals at risk of serious population decline or extinction because of H5, continued forest mining could be the nail in the coffin for iconic WA threatened species like black cockatoos.
“Given the enormity of the crisis facing WA wildlife, we’re calling for an immediate moratorium on forest mining until we fully understand the impact on bird and mammal populations,” Ms Boyce said.
“This includes strip-mining for bauxite in the Northern Jarrah Forest – the world’s only jarrah forest – where Alcoa has plans before the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to clear another 11,000 hectares of land equivalent to 27.5 Kings Parks.”
Matt Roberts, Conservation Council of WA Executive Director warned that “even before H5N1, CCWA’s ‘Back from the Brink’ Report released last month has revealed the vast extent of work already required to help our wildlife facing an extinction crisis”.
“Government ambition on reforms to protect threatened species has been too low for too long and now we’re staring down the barrel of this external threat placing even greater pressure on vulnerable species,” Mr Roberts said.
“We need to pull the handbrake on mining that has already seen huge tracts of land cleared for more than 15 years in contravention of our federal nature laws.
“An immediate pause on forest mining is an opportunity to give our birds and mammals the best chance of survival in the face of the looming H5 crisis.”
Alyx Douglas, Wilderness Society WA Campaigns Manager said “the Northern Jarrah Forest is habitat our birdlife won’t find anywhere else, and climate change is already tearing into it”.
“If we’re serious about protecting native species from H5, pressing pause on further clearing is the bare minimum: the first step in giving them a fighting chance,” Ms Douglas said.
“We’ve already lost more than 28,000 hectares of the Northern Jarrah Forest through Alcoa’s mining activity, so this ever shrinking supply of suitable habitat for birdlife – in combination with a drying climate and the emergence of H5 – is a devastating trifecta we simply can’t ignore.
“For birdlife to survive this, they need healthy, resilient forests. Instead, we’re planning to bulldoze the very thing keeping them alive.
“The DBCA states we should be ‘where possible’ increasing efforts to support species recovery and reduce the impacts of other ‘threats’. Approving mining through the last of this habitat is a clear and present threat.”
ENDS
Media contact: John Cooke – 0433 679 780