Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Birmingham representing the Minister for the Environment. In the face of a worsening climate crisis, protecting our forests, the lungs of our planet, is essential to avoid climate and environmental catastrophe. They have tremendous cultural value for our First Australians. They store carbon and produce fresh water for farms and for drinking. The world has watched the Amazon being logged and burned this year at unprecedented rates, but here in Australia, in our own backyard, we continue to log and burn our forests. We are the only nation in the developed world to be marked as a global deforestation hotspot, and this logging and burning is signed off by this government through last century's regional forest agreements. Will the Morrison government commit to protecting our native forests, or will you condemn future generations to a catastrophic climate future?