Great Walk Networking is a bushwalking community in Western Australia. The Great Walk started in 1988 as a protest walk from Denmark to Parliament House in Perth, to raise awareness of logging in Western Australia's old growth forests.
The organisation of the first Walk was also an Australian Bicentenary celebration to appreciate the environment of Southwest Australia, which is home to a relatively small but unique tall forest heritage: the world's only Eucalyptus marginata (Jarrah), E. diversicolor (karri), E. jacksonii (Tingle), E. wandoo subsp. wandoo (Wandoo), E. patens (Blackbutt) and E. gomphocephala (Tuart) forests grow there.
The Western Australian forests have been extensively challenged by significant threats: earlier destruction due to settlement patterns and later clearfelling for woodchipping, mining for mineral sands and bauxite, as well as forestry practices that showed little interest in long term sustainability.
Since 1988, different people have organized walks a few times each year. Most Walks are still organized with a focus on raising awareness of conservation and land use issues. Great Walk Networking is a non-profit voluntary organization.
Famous quotes containing the word walk:
“From the time the Englishman’s bones harden into bones at all, he makes his skeleton a flagstaff, and he early plants his feet like one who is to walk the world and the decks of all the seas.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)