United Tasmania Group

The United Tasmania Group ( UTG ) was the first " Green Party " worldwide, on March 23, 1972 in Hobart, capital of Tasmania, is founded. The green movement in Australia evolved from the environmental campaigns in Tasmania. The United Tasmania Group was founded in 1972 during protests against the construction of dams of Lake Pedder. Its first president was Richard Jones.

The United Tasmania Group was founded in 1990, the forerunner of The Greens Tasmania, the lettering on its website the World 's first Green party leads in their logo.

Founding event

The immediate cause for the founding of the United Tasmania Group was the construction of three dams on Lake Pedder for generating electrical energy in the southwestern Tasmania. A Lake Pedder Action Committee was founded before the party establishing the UTG in April 1971. Environmental policy pursued since the 1960s, only different local groups in Tasmania, which is not coordinated.

Objectives

The basic political principles of UTG were engaged in an established on a regional basis Party, in use for the environment, history and culture and for the collaborative planning of economic and social life in Tasmania.

Furthermore, the UGT sat in their programmatic ideas for the creation of scientific institutes, which should investigate the resources on land and in the sea, for the establishment of farms for organic farming, the preservation of traditional and developing sustainable fisheries, investment in national parks, protection of natural areas and historical buildings and the development of environmentally friendly industries.

Lake Pedder campaign

The Lake Pedder Action Committee, a group which campaigned against the construction of the dam at Lake Pedder by the government in the south-west Tasmania. She could not prevent the dam was built, but reached great popularity in Tasmania and Australia. It developed an environmental consciousness that ultimately establishing the UTG led. Furthermore emerged from these experiences that the Wilderness Society. This organization and other environmental organizations prevented in the 1980s, the Franklin Dam was built. This success was the most important environmental success in Australia's history.

The campaign against the Lake Ledder Dam UTP was involved with Bob Brown decisively; Brown is now a member of the Australian Senate for the Australian Greens and their parliamentary chairman. He was involved in the founding of the Wilderness Society of Tasmania in 1976 and became its director.

Since the 1990s, the Lake Pedder Restoration Committee ( LPRC ) tries to achieve the restoration of this lake.

Development and resolution

The UTG presented 1972 and 1976 candidates for state elections, but no candidate was elected to the parliaments. Bob Brown, one of the leaders of the UGT, was a candidate in 1975 for the first time for the UTG for the Australian Senate. In the political conflicts other environmentally oriented organizations and forces such as the Wilderness Society since 1976 and the Australian Democrats won since 1977 for political power, while the UTG was weaker, and on 31 December 1979 ceased its work. In the 1990s, the UTG was reformed for the elections in Australia and incorporated into the Tasmanian Greens as part of the Green Party of Australia. Many previous UTG members, including Bob Brown, were members of the Australian Greens.