Ordinary Australians are rising up to save our trees and park lands

Protestors arrested trying to save trees and park lands from Queensland to SA in recent weeks have science on their side as they “risk so much”, Sarah Bekessy argues on World Environment Day.

In recent weeks, Australians reaching from far north Queensland to the south in Adelaide have been arrested and forcibly removed from protests in defence of nature in their cities.

In Cairns, tearful primary school children chanting “save our tree” watched members of their community carried off by police as crews with chainsaws moved in to take down an 80-year-old giant whose enormous canopy shaded their school and both sides of a major road.

The tree, which straddled public and private land, was felled to make way for an investment property. Soon enough, a swimming pool will sit in the earth where the tree stood for almost a century, providing cooling shade, filtering the air, returning moisture to the atmosphere and offering wildlife a place to exist.

In Brisbane, protesters were handcuffed and arrested while trying to prevent cultural and environmental harms from a 63,000-seat stadium for the so-called “nature positive” 2032 Olympics at Victoria Park. On the other side of the city there were also tense scenes, as locals fought the destruction of 600 trees in important koala habitat so a private school could expand its sporting facilities.

In Adelaide, an elderly protester was arrested and thousands rallied........

© InDaily