• ANTI-ROE 8 campaigners are holding a fundraiser at the Hilton Bowling Club on Saturday July 27. With the EPA about to bring down its decision on the highway, Save Beeliar Wetlands member Nandi Chinna said the fundraiser was a celebration of the wetlands and a chance to raise funds to continue the fight again tarmac. The wetlands soiree will feature a number of bands including Isabella’s Garden, The Damsel Flies West and Lady Luck. Photo by Jeremy Dixon

Local Greens pollie Lynn MacLaren says the Roe Highway extension should be canned because banksia trees that would be mowed down are a dying species.

The Barnett government plans to push the highway through 79 hectares of banksia in the Beeliar wetlands.

But a report on climate change and biodiversity in Australia prepared by 23 academics and researchers predicts Banksia wetlands suffering a major decline because of WA’s declining rainfall.

The Terrestrial Report Card 2013 was produced by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, which brought together academics from a swag of universities as well as the CSIRO, Australian meteorological bureau and WA’s Conservation Science Centre which is run through the state’s environment department.

Ms MacLaren has just came back from a national conference on climate change in Sydney and says WA environment minister Albert Jacobs must do everything in his power to protect the banksia.

“This research adds weight to arguments for protecting the Beeliar wetlands from the Roe 8 Highway,” she said. “We need more banksia, not bitumen.

by BRENDAN FOSTER