As Global Forest Coalition we were sad to learn about the news of the passing away of our close friend Wally Menne, one of the great lions of the global environmental movement. Our thoughts are with his wife Rose, his sons, and all who loved him.
Wally was the inspiring founder of our South African-based member group The Timberwatch Coalition, a former GFC regional focal point, and a ferocious fighter against monoculture tree plantations and other forms of social and environmental destruction. In 2015, at our first GFC Member’s Assembly, he won the Alexandro Urushadze award for his life-long achievement in defending forests and forest peoples. We will sincerely miss him, but we hope we can stay the course without Wally, inspired by his words and wisdom:
“…these ecologically destructive processes are not happening in ‘economic isolation’, as they both arise from the same mindless, wasteful and unnecessary over-consumption of natural resources that is being deliberately promoted and supported throughout the world as the primary driver of so-called “development” and “growth” by the corporate sector, most governments, and of course the UN FAO…” (Wally Menne, in a private message to the GFC members list, 19 October 2017)”
