VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
(Above: the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater has suffered through habitat loss)
From the First Peoples to the most recent migrants, Australians are acutely aware of the unique nature of this continent’s flora and fauna
.Unfortunately, the history of colonial occupation and aggression has had a devastating effect on the natural environment. This is on top of the colonial genocide directed at First Peoples in the course of the unsettlers’ attempted dispossession of Country.
After the colonial period, free competition capitalism developed into the stage of huge monopolies controlling the vast regions of the Second and Third Worlds by the export of capital. Massive multinational corporations scrambled to exploit both the natural world and people’s labour power.
Their increasingly destructive rape of the environment created its own opposite, a powerful people’s movement determined to protect what was left of our biodiversity.
In March, 2018 we wrote a lengthy report on struggles to protect birdlife from corporate greed. It can be accessed here, and also on p. 18 of our downloadable book Fight capitalism’s destructive impact on nature.
We have also taken a stand against the watering down of the provisions of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act and wrote a submission to a parliamentary review of the Act.
In recent days, Birdlife Australia conducted a webinar on strengthening our national environmental laws.
The session was recorded and is available here on Youtube.
Participants talked about proposed changes to the EPBC Act that would weaken environmental protections.
It was a great display of grass roots Australians struggling in their own area of interest and expertise against the big corporate world.
They know that since colonisation, about 100 of Australia’s unique flora and fauna species have been wiped off the planet. The rate of loss, which is as comprehensive as anywhere else on Earth, has not slowed over the past 200 years.
Twenty-two species of birds have become extinct following the beginnings of the process of unsettling this continent’s peoples and wildlife.
Birdlife Australia has called on people to write to their MP demanding the strengthening of environmental laws.
Ultimately we must ensure the extinction of the system that allows the private pursuit of capital accumulation – capitalism – if we are to ensure the survival of our planet and its biodiversity.