Australia has experienced back-to-back unnatural disasters, just as climate scientists have predicted for decades.

The prolonged drought that led to the unprecedented bushfires of 2019-20 were followed by extreme rainfall events and flooding across the entire east coast.

We are seeing firsthand the impact of this country’s inaction on climate change.

People are reeling and they want action. They don’t just want action to recover their homes and livelihoods, they want action to ensure these extreme weather events don’t continue for generations to come.

This is a climate emergency.

In this climate emergency we must do everything we can to avoid the occurrence of more extreme unnatural disasters.

Restoring our rainforests is an essential action.

Restoring what remains of Australia’s rainforests is an essential action to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Not only do rainforests help to regulate the planet’s temperature and regional rainfall patterns, they also absorb massive amounts of solar radiation and prevent both floods and droughts.

Rainforests store massive amounts of carbon so when they are destroyed, cut down, burnt, or degraded, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. The reverse occurs when rainforests are restored.

We cannot stop climate change without protecting our rainforests. We must restore what we’ve lost.

That’s why we’re calling on the Australian Government to urgently invest in the restoration of Australia’s rainforest ecosystems.

Australia has lost over 50% of its intact forest, and has one of the highest extinction rates in the world. This cannot continue.

The Australian Government has proven they are capable of creating climate positive initiatives. We saw this in 1989 with former Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s commitment to planting one billion trees as the country buckled under the weight of extreme land degradation, soil salinity and erosion due to poor land management.

We must do this again, but with a focus on restoring those ecosystems which can help us reverse the impacts of climate change. We must establish millions of trees across Australia’s degraded rainforest ecosystems to fortify the country against the unfolding climate disaster.

Doing so will not just benefit the climate. Restoring rainforests will also:

• Create jobs, many of them for First Nations people
• Provide habitat for threatened plants and animals
• Restore degraded creek and river banks
• Reduce erosion and runoff from flooding events
• Improve water quality in catchments
• Improve local resistance to extreme weather events

We’re calling on the Australian Government to urgently establish a $1 billion rainforest restoration fund to address the climate crisis by restoring Australia’s rainforests and working with Australian rainforest restoration organisations and community groups to ensure this work benefits everyone.