Sign petition to protect the Coral Sea
| April 21, 2010 | Posted by kimk under environment, pacific |
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Reef in the Coral Sea (photo: Ken Lech)
The Talisman Saber joint US-Australian war games are the largest military operation outside of a war zone. They take place in the NT and Qld, but much of the activity occurs in the oceans off the coast of Queensland: The Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. The US military regularly use the Coral Sea to the extent that they have named one of their battleships after it. The US nave have a policy of dumping their shipboard waste at sea, as well as the usual ballast, leaks and accidents. The Us and Australian military use active sonar in this area, which is known to cause brain hemorrhages in whales and cetaceans and is a suspected cause of whale beaching. Sonar also disrupts the breeding and swimming behaviours of fish, turtles and other marine animals.
According to the Australian Marine Conservation Society Coral Sea Community Campaigner Daisy Barham, “Australia’s Coral Sea is a staggeringly beautiful place. It is also one of the few marine areas left on the planet where populations of large marine wildlife and healthy, functioning ecosystems can still be found. The world’s oceans have less than one per cent protection, compared to almost 13% of the planet’s land mass. This campaign will put Australia on the global stage as a world leader in marine conservation.”
The AMCS are petitioning the PM to fully protect the Coral Sea as a Heritage Park “that can be protected now and for future generations.”
The Peace Convergence is a biannual peace protest held in various locations Australia wide. It's primary goal is to oppose the U.S.-Australian joint military excercises, Talisman Sabre. We believe that the excercises pose a risk to people and the environment, firmly entrench Australia in the U.S. regime of "preemptive" warfare and are not conducive to peace-making. More broadly, they are training Australians to die and kill in more U.S. led wars.
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