Around 400 people came out in the rain, dressed in red to raise the alarm on the climate crisis and call for more government action to transition away from coal and gas to 100 per cent renewable energy.

The rally launched the Coffs Coast Red Rebels, part of the global Extinction Rebellion movement that is using nonviolent civil disobedience to highlight the risk of social and ecological collapse.

Ellena Cheers-Flavell, a Year 11 student who helped organise a school climate strike locally, announced plans for the next big strike on May 15.

Nathan Brennan, CEO of Coffs Harbour & District Local Aboriginal Land Council, spoke of the need to invest in Indigenous land management to protect and look after the country, and to support Indigenous communities on the frontlines of coal, such as the Wangan and Jagalingou people, whose land is threatened by the proposed Adani coal mine.

Mark Graham, local ecologist, spoke of the devastation of the unprecedented bushfire season and highlighted the extra need to protect those forests in our region that did not burn, as havens for koalas and other species, as carbon sinks, and for other important ecological values.

Reverend Jason John encouraged rally attendees to keep taking action and to sign the petition to support Independent MP Zali Steggall's bill for a Climate Change Act, and called on Cowper MP Pat Conaghan to support it.