Green, Government - Calls To Preserve Australian Rainforest
The wildfire disaster in Brazil's Amazon Rainforest is prompting calls from campaigners here to save Australia's Rainforest from development and deforestation.
Hundreds of new fires have been detected in the Amazon, where more the 78,000 were burning. Greenpeace and other environmental groups are blaming far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a long-time climate change denier who has called for development in the sensitive region, for giving a green light to agriculture, ranching, and mining interests to clear the forest for exploitation.
But green groups say AUstralia is undergoing deforestation at a stunning rate.
"Australia is a world leader in habitat destruction," said Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Kelly O'Shanassy said, as uoted by the SBS. "Our forests are getting a double knockout blow at the moment - climate change is leading to drought and bushfires, but we are still clearing land at a great rate of knots."
A World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report last year named Australia as one of 11 global “deforestation hotspots”, where 80 percent of the forest could disappear by 2030.