Great Walk Networking
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| Founded | 1988 |
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| Type | Conservation |
| Focus | Community building, conservation and the environment. |
| Location |
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| Origins | The Great Walk, a 650 km supported bushwalk to raise awareness of logging old-growth forests in 1988. |
| Method | Studies have shown people tend to act to protect the environment when they spend time in areas of environmental significance. Great Walk Networking offers opportunities for people of all ages to visit, walk and live in such areas throughout Western Australia, two to four times a year for approximately ten days. During this time, the Walk forms a travelling and self-supporting bushwalking community with a focus on environmental issues. |
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Revenue
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Primarily self-supporting with occasional grants. |
| Endowment | Great Walk Networking was bequeathed a block of land near Nannup, Western Australia by John Thomson, a renowned forester and conservationist. |
| Slogan | Think globally, act locally: We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow It from our children. |
| Website | http://www.greatwalk.org.au |
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.
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.
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.
Many of the Great Walk Networking participants had been involved with other organisations that formed before 1988 to address significant threats to South Western forests of Western Australia. As early as the mid 1970s the Campaign to Save Native Forests (CSNF) and South West Forests Defence Foundation (SWFDF) had been seeking to address the forestry and mining proposals for woodchipping and mining in the forests. The Manjimup wood chip proposals of 1976-1977, and the Wagerup mining proposals in the Darling Range consumed the energies of the CSNF and the SWFDF, as well as other groups based either at the Environment Centre of Western Australia or associated with the Conservation Council of Western Australia. As the older groups changed due to resolution of some of the issues - subsequent groups like Great Walk Networking absorbed members from the earlier groups.
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