Elephant cruelly butchered for Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’ (read ‘quackery’)
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<<The world is dealing with an unprecedented spike in illegal wildlife trade, threatening to overturn decades of conservation gains. Ivory estimated to weigh more than 23 metric tons—a figure that represents 2,500 elephants—was seized in the 13 largest seizures of illegal ivory in 2011. Poaching threatens the last of our wild tigers that number as few as 3,200.
Wildlife crime is a big business. Run by dangerous international networks, wildlife and animal parts are trafficked much like illegal drugs and arms. By its very nature, it is almost impossible to obtain reliable figures for the value of illegal wildlife trade. Experts at TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, estimate that it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Some examples of illegal wildlife trade are well known, such as poaching of elephants for ivory and tigers for their skins and bones. However, countless other species are similarly overexploited, from marine turtles to timber trees. Not all wildlife trade is illegal. Wild plants and animals from tens of thousands of species are caught or harvested from the wild and then sold legitimately as food, pets, ornamental plants, leather, tourist ornaments and medicine. Wildlife trade escalates into a crisis when an increasing proportion is illegal and unsustainable—directly threatening the survival of many species in the wild.
Stamping out wildlife crime is a priority for WWF because it’s the largest direct threat to the future of many of the world’s most threatened species. It is second only to habitat destruction in overall threats against species survival.>>
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Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’ driving wicked Slaughter
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The demand for elephant ivory is stronger than ever in mainland China and Thailand. Ivory is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat fevers, nosebleeds, convulsions, stroke and as an aphrodisiac.
But TCM doesn’t work. It is quackery and witchcraft. It is immoral because it involves using and prescribing wildlife parts and drives the illegal cruel slaughter of endangered wildlife and its trafficking. TCM is wicked and backward. TCM needs to be internationaly banned just like cannibalism.
TCM: ‘Timeless Wisdom for a Modern World”?No, TCM has the same legitimacy as Cannibalism
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The following websites link to organisations pushing this TCM trade:
<<Hong Kong customs officers have confiscated nearly 4 tons of ivory worth $3.4 million in their biggest ever seizure of endangered species products, authorities said on Saturday.
Acting on a tip from customs officials in neighboring Guangdong province in mainland China, Hong Kong officials found the ivory tusks and ornaments in two containers shipped from Tanzania and Kenya.
Officers on Tuesday found nearly 1,000 pieces of ivory tusks weighing more than 1,900 kg as well as 1.4 kg of ivory ornaments in a container from Tanzania. The ivory was hidden in bags of plastic scrap.
A day later, officers found 237 pieces of ivory tusks weighing about 1,900 kg in a shipment from Kenya.
Authorities in China have arrested seven people, including one from Hong Kong. The ivory seizure tops one in 2011 worth $2.2 million.
“This is the biggest haul of ivory tusk in Hong Kong customs enforcement history in a single operation,” said Lam Tak-fai, head of Hong Kong’s Ports and Maritime Command.
Wildlife activists blame China’s growing presence in Africa for an unprecedented surge in poaching elephants for their tusks, most of which are believed to be smuggled to China and Thailand to make ivory ornaments.
Under Hong Kong law, anyone found guilty of trading in endangered species products can be faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $640,000.>>
Unlike humans, poached wildlife such as Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Bears and Tigers are increasingly approaching extinction as species. Genocide of humans falls short of speciescide, which should be put in perspective.
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Wildlife Parts need to be valued as Human Parts. The Wildlife Parts Trade need to internationally attract the equivalent penalties as does the Human Parts Black Market by: (1) those who commit the barbaric slaughter, (2) by those traffic in wildlife parts, and (3) by those who use wildlife parts. Penalties need to be Life Imprisonment accordingly, and for corporations fines of up to US$1 million per animal and all corporate assets seized and the corporation wound up].
Poor Victim of Organ Gangs
[Source: ^Bloomberg, 20111101]
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Jan 2013: ‘Poachers busted with 779 Elephant Tusks’
779 elephant tusks uncovered in Hong Kong shipping containers in January 2013 (just 3 days ago)The crime is escalating!
The tusks discovered in Hong Kong this week were presumably going to be turned into jewelry, knicknacks, and religious icons.
(Photo: SkyNews.com/YouTube Screengrab)
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<<Last month, TakePart reported on some revolutionary new tactics that will be implemented in order to hinder the proliferation of the very lucrative poaching industry. Those efforts can’t come fast enough; this week, another massive shipment of blood ivory was discovered in Hong Kong, the shipping port’s third discovery of illegal ivory in as many months.
According to Sky News, this week customs agents discovered 779 elephant tusks hidden in the false bottoms of shipping crates, marked as “archaeological stones”. Worth about $1.5 million, this massive shipment from Kenya represents at least 389 elephant deaths, but doesn’t even qualify as the largest the port has seen in recent months.
Two previous shipments recently discovered were actually substantially larger, with the biggest topping out at 4 tonnes of elephant tusks, worth about $3.4 million. That was just in November.
Hong Kong’s port is a popular through-way for the poaching trade because it serves as the hub for Asian markets, where the demand for ivory is at the world’s highest. The tusks are not only used to make jewelry, but trinkets and religious icons for the Chinese, Japanese and Thai markets.
The poaching industry has recently exceeded record levels with animals like Elephants, Tigers and Rhinos being slaughtered by the hundreds across continents. The kill-methods represent a level of cruelty that’s so barbaric it seems the stuff of fictional villains. Nonetheless, knowledge of the industry’s brutality does nothing to dampen sales.
Activists estimate about $10 billion a year is made from poaching’s international black market.
According to National Geographic, these recently uncovered shipments of elephant tusks just scratch the surface of the damage caused by poaching in the last 12 months.
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In 2012, 633 Rhinos were killed in South Africa (448 in 2011), their horns hacked off while they were still alive.
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“Hundreds of thousands” of African Grey Parrots were shipped off for sale. Less than 300 Sumatran Rhinos are left and only four Northern White Rhinos remain in captivity.
Every year, approximately 25,000 Elephants are killed for their tusks, accounting for their disappearance from the African and Asian plains.
The magazine reports that China’s recent stronghold in Africa is fueling a resurgence in the poaching industry. The country’s presence there, where it funds roads, dams, and municipal
buildings makes it a major player on the continent, giving it the power and access to easily extract the illegal goods and ship them home.
As activist Steve Boyes wrote in his National Geographic piece on the subject,
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“We are standing on the precipice of a mass extinction and Africa is just about to be lost forever.”
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In the meantime, the World Wildlife Fund, in partnership with Google, is trying launch the wide-scale implementation of drone technology, which will covertly monitor poachers’ activity
from hundreds of feet in the air. The secret system would alert ground crews of oncoming danger and send them in to areas where poachers are detected. Part of the initiative also
includes research into DNA tracing capabilities, allowing authorities to definitively trace poached animal parts.>>
<<Hong Kong officials intercepted 794 elephant tusks bound for mainland China from Malaysia.
The seizure comes in the wake of two other large shipments of African ivory being intercepted at the end of August by Malaysian officials.
Wildlife conservationalists have been struggling with the supply of ivory from illegal poachers in Africa paired with the demand in China. Ivory is often used for ornaments or for medicinal purposes, particularly in mainland China.
According to the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Malaysia is becoming a first choice as a transit country for the trade of African ivory to China.
Although being lauded for the August discovery of illegal ivory shipments, critics wonder why Malaysian officials were not able to stop this two metric tonne shipment.>>
<<KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa — They definitely did not look like ordinary big-game hunters, the stream of slender young Thai women who showed up on the veld wearing tight bluejeans and sneakers.
But the rhinoceros carcasses kept piling up around them, and it was only after dozens of these hulking, relatively rare animals were dead and their precious horns sawed off that an extravagant scheme came to light.
The Thai women, it ends up, were not hunters at all. Many never even squeezed off a shot. Instead, they were prostitutes hired by a criminal syndicate based 6,000 miles away in Laos to exploit loopholes in big-game hunting rules and get its hands on as many rhino horns as possible — horns that are now worth more than gold.
“These girls had no idea what they were doing,” said Paul O’Sullivan, a private investigator in Johannesburg who helped crack the case. “They thought they were going on safari.”
The rhino horn rush has gotten so out of control that it has exploded into a worldwide criminal enterprise, drawing in a surreal cast of characters — not just Thai prostitutes, but also Irish gangsters, Vietnamese diplomats, Chinese scientists, veterinarians, copter pilots, antiques dealers and recently an American rodeo star looking for a quick buck who used Facebook to find some horns.
Driven by a common belief in Asia that ground-up rhino horns can cure cancer and other ills, the trade has also been embraced by criminal syndicates that normally traffic drugs and guns, but have branched into the underground animal parts business because it is seen as “low risk, high profit,” American officials say.
“Get caught smuggling a kilo of cocaine, you will receive a very significant prison sentence,” said Ed Grace, a deputy chief with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. But with a kilogram of rhino horn, he added, “you may only get a fine.”
The typical rhino horn is about two feet long and 10 pounds, much of it formed from the same substance as fingernails. Yet it can fetch nearly $30,000 a pound, more than crack cocaine, and conservationists worry that this “ridiculous price,” as one wildlife manager put it, could drive rhinos into extinction.
Gangs are so desperate for new sources of horn that criminals have even smashed into dozens of glass museum cases all across Europe to snatch them from exhibits.
“Astonishment and rage, that’s what we felt,” said Paolo Agnelli, a manager at the Florence Museum of Natural History, after three rhino horns were stolen last year, including a very rare one from 1824.
American federal agents recently staged a cross-country undercover rhino horn sting operation, called Operation Crash, “crash” being the term for a herd of rhinos.
Among the 12 people arrested: Wade Steffen, a champion steer wrestler from Texas, who pleaded guilty in May to trafficking dozens of horns that he found through hunters, estate sales and Facebook; and two members of an Irish gang — the same gang suspected of breaking into the museums in Europe.
In an e-mail to an undercover agent, an Irish gangster bragged: “Believe me WE NEVER LOSES A HORN TO CUSTOMS, we have so many contacts and people payed off now we can bring anything we want out of nearly any country into Europe.”
Corruption is a huge element, just like in the illegal ivory trade, in which rebel groups, government armies and threadbare hunters have been wiping out tens of thousands of elephants throughout Africa, selling the tusks to sophisticated criminal networks that move them across the globe with the help of corrupt officials.
Here in South Africa, home to the majority of the world’s last surviving 28,000 rhinos or so, the country is throwing just about everything it has to stop the slaughter — thousands of rangers, the national army, a new spy plane, even drones — but it is losing.
The number of rhinos poached in South Africa has soared in the past five years, from 13 killed in 2007 to more than 630 in 2012. The prehistoric, battleship-gray animals are often found on their knees, bleeding to death from a gaping stump on their face.
“Ever seen a dead rhino?” asked Philip Jonker, who works for a private security firm that has gone into wildlife protection. “It’s worse than going to a funeral.”
The only answer, some contend, is to legalize the trade, which would flood the market with rhino horns, lower the price and dissuade rhino poachers from risking their lives — or so the argument goes. Rhino horns regenerate, and the horns can be shaved down every few years and sold off without significantly hurting the animal.
One of most passionate advocates of this legalization movement is John Hume, a South African entrepreneur who now owns more than 800 rhinos, with names like Curly, Titan, Hillary and Pinocchio, and has amassed a 2,000-pound mountain of horn worth millions of dollars — if he is ever allowed to sell it.
“Why shouldn’t the person who breeds rhino get a reward?” he asks.
Every time Mr. Hume’s ranch hands trim down a few rhinos, they organize an armed escort to take the horns straight to a safe-deposit box in a bank because the same gangs that waylay armored bank trucks are now cruising around South Africa looking for Rhino horns.
But many wildlife groups say legalizing the rhino trade would be a disaster.
“The consuming power in my country is growing so rapidly that the supply would never meet the needs,” said Jeff He, spokesman for the Chinese branch of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “And besides, it’ll always be cheaper to poach an animal than raise it.”
Kruger National Park, an enormous wildlife refuge in South Africa’s northeast, is where many rhinos are being poached. The park lies on the border with Mozambique, a much poorer country still scarred from years of civil war. Park rangers say Mozambican gunmen are pouring through Kruger’s chain link fences, downing rhinos left and right.
Some sophisticated poaching rings use helicopters to spot the animals and veterinarians to dart them with tranquilizers. Others don women’s shoes, to leave misleading tracks. “At any one time, there are up to 10 groups operating inside the Kruger,” said Ken Maggs, a South African National Parks official. “These guys are trying new methods daily.”
Scientists say that maybe a million rhinos once roamed the earth, and for some reason, humans have been fascinated with the horn for ages. The ancient Persians thought rhino horn vessels could detect poisons. The Chinese thought rhino horn powder could reduce fevers. The Yemenis prized the horn for coming-of-age daggers, presented to teenage boys as a sign of manhood.
In Asia, faith in traditional cures runs strong, fueling demand as Asian economies grow, though there is no scientific proof that rhino horn can cure cancer.
In 2008, a Vietnamese diplomat in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, was caught on camera receiving Rhino horn — in the parking lot of the embassy. Around the same time, a Chinese company opened a secretive rhino breeding center in Hainan Province, reportedly to produce rhino-based medicine.
In the past 50 years, the overall rhino population has plummeted by more than 90 percent, despite an international ban on the trade in rhino parts since 1977.
But in South Africa, it is legal to hunt Rhinos, creating the loophole that the Thai prostitutes sauntered through. Hunters must agree to keep the horn set (rhinos have a large front and smaller back horn) as a trophy and not sell it, and hunters are allowed to kill only one White Rhino every 12 months. (Black rhinos are critically endangered and very few are hunted in South Africa.)
According to South African law enforcement officials, gang leaders in Thailand and Laos decided that to maximize the number of Rhinos they could kill, they would enlist Thai prostitutes who were already in South Africa with valid passports, which were used for the hunting permits. The women then tagged along on the hunts, often dressed in catchy pinks and blues, but somebody else — usually a professional hunter — pulled the trigger.
“I don’t know whose idea it was to use the ladies, but it was a damn good one,” said Mr. O’Sullivan, the private investigator.
None of the two dozen or so prostitutes involved have been prosecuted — the intent was to get the big fish. So Mr. O’Sullivan leaked a photograph of an enormous stockpile of ivory and rhino horns to one of the women, along with a message for her boss, a bespectacled Thai man named Chumlong Lemtongthai, that everything was for sale: “I wanted the big man himself to come here and negotiate.”
Mr. Lemtongthai did exactly that, and he was arrested soon after. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in November to 40 years.
“I do not want to see a situation where my grandchildren will only be able to see rhino in a picture,” said the judge, Prince Manyathi.>>
Seized rhino horns are shown with alleged Vietnam smuggler Pham Quang Loc, 56, arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport when he arrived from Ethiopia on his way to Vietnam
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<<BANGKOK — Thai authorities have seized more than $500,000 worth of rhino horn from passenger’s luggage at a Bangkok airport.
Thai Customs officer Khanit Isdul said Sunday that officials acting on a tip-off found four rhino horns in the passenger’s luggage at Suvarnabhumi International Airport. (‘They were allegedly hidden inside a souvenir hippo carried by Mr Loc.)
Officials arrested Phan Quangloc, a 56-year-old Vietnamese passenger who arrived with the case from Ethiopia on Sunday. He is expected to face a jail term in Thailand if convicted of smuggling. Officials estimated the value of the confiscated horns, cut into 6 sections, at 18 million baht ($586,000).
Asia is the main market for smuggled rhino horn, as some people believe it can cure diseases.
Trade in rhino parts is banned under international agreements.>>
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Nov 2011: 366 Rhinos slaughtered for TCM since January
Lam Tak-fai, acting head of (Hong Kong) Ports and Maritime Command, arranges Rhino horns, part of a shipment of 33 horns, ivory chopsticks and bracelets seized by the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, during a news conference in Hong Kong.
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<<It could just be a new method used by syndicates to smuggle Rhino horn out of the country: bulk consignments, hidden in containers and sent by sea. But Rhino syndicates are not just using new smuggling routes, poachers also appear to be changing their tactics to target more animals.
On Monday, customs officials in Hong Kong discovered 33 Rhino horns that had been hidden in a container on a ship that had left Cape Town. They also seized 758 ivory chopsticks and 127 ivory bracelets, which they estimated was worth HK$ 17.4 million (R18.17m).
Customs officers had apparently selected the container “acting on risk assessment”. It was marked as carrying 63 packages of scrap plastic. Using X-ray equipment, they found the contraband hidden inside a package of plastic scrap that had been placed at the rear of the container. The 33 horns, which weighed 86kg, constitute nearly a tenth of the Rhinos poached in SA this year.
Dr Richard Thomas, the communications co-ordinator for Traffic International, said such a large seizure of Rhino horns was unusual. “Usually there are reports of one or two horns being smuggled out through the airports, I can’t think of such a shipment before,” he said.
Thomas said the Cape Town to Hong Kong sea route was usually used by perlemoen smugglers, and that Rhino horn syndicates might be using the same network.
What he suspected was that from Hong Kong the horn might be smuggled overland through China on to Vietnam, with its large market for rhino horn. There is also an active ivory-smuggling route between the two Far East countries. Two weeks ago, Vietnamese authorities seized a ton of ivory that had come from China.
South African Revenue Service spokesman Adrian Lackay said they had received news of the confiscation and had been in touch with the Hong Kong authorities.
“We will assist the foreign agencies with a local investigation if needed, because the goods came from South Africa,” he said.
Since January, 366 Rhinos have been killed across the country. Of those, the majority of the killings have been in the Kruger National Park, where 209 Rhinos were slain.
To date, 199 poachers have been arrested since January – compared to 165 arrested for last year. Thai nationals Chumlong Lemtongthai and Punpitak Chunchom are currently in court for exporting Rhino horn.
Lemtongthai, the syndicate’s alleged kingpin, used Thai prostitutes and strippers as bogus Rhino hunters. He would allegedly obtain legal trophy permits to shoot the Rhinos.
SANParks CEO Dr David Mabunda said that despite the higher number of Rhino killings this year, the number of incidents was declining. The reason was a change in modus operandi by the poachers. They were still using AK-47s and other heavy-calibre weapons and hacking off the horns. But poachers were attacking in larger groups than before, sometimes up to 16 armed members. Mabunda said the source of the Rhino horn in the container came from several parks: private and state owned. The bust showed the urgency for the DNA profiling of the Rhino, currently being done by the University of Pretoria.
It would tell where the Rhino had been killed, and once a horn could be linked to a carcass, a poacher could be charged with killing an endangered species. Killing an endangered species carries a heavier sentence than possession of Rhino horn.
Mabunda said they continued to work with the police and the SA National Defence Force, and at any time, there were between eight and 10 anti-poaching groups operating in the Kruger National Park.
The strengthening of the park’s law enforcement meant that crime was being displaced to other parts of the country. The hardest hit areas were Limpopo, Mpumalanga and rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal.>>
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Jan 2013: 633 Rhinos slaughtered in 2012, just in South Africa
<<FORMER home affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang, who has been set the task of researching ways of saving the rhino from poaching, is expected to report in the first quarter of this year. His report will also advise on whether South Africa should apply to trade in rhino horn under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).
The trade issue has polarised many South Africans who have the rhino’s best interests at heart. Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa will have the unenviable task of deciding whether South Africa should apply to trade in rhino horn.
Although South Africa will not be making any proposal on trade until 2016’s Cites meeting, there will be discussion on Kenya’s recent proposal to the international body that a trophy-hunting moratorium be placed on South African white rhinos, says Southern African Development Community rhino management group chairman Mike Knight.
The proposal will be considered at the Cites Conference of Parties in Bangkok in March. If approved, the moratorium will be instituted until 2019, says Lion Aid founder Pieter Kat.
Mr Kat says Kenya argues that despite progress made by South Africa in instituting more demanding control measures, rhino poaching continues to rise.
Controls include the development of an electronic database for licence applications, mandatory registration of existing rhino horn stockpiles, bilateral treaties to improve law enforcement, increasing penalties and improving the gathering of intelligence.
“Kenya is of the opinion that such poaching has resonated across borders and that the recent upsurge in rhinos poached in Kenya is directly linked to a problem made in South Africa,” Mr Kat says.
Mr Knight says that integral to the Kenyan proposal is that countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, and countries where rhino horn is sought after such as China and Vietnam, should respond to its proposal.
It is agreed that South Africa is not winning the war on rhino poaching. The country lost a record 633 rhinos between January 1 and December 19 last year. The previous record, for 2011, was 448. Already two rhinos have been slain in the first week of 2013.
Arrests have increased and sentences for the convicted are harsher. South Africa also signed a long-awaited memorandum of understanding with Vietnam in mid-December. The agreement aims to curb rhino poaching.
South Africa is home to more than 80% of the global population, and scientists have warned that if poaching increases at the same rate as it did between 2009 and 2011, when the tally jumped from 122 to 448, just more than a threefold increase, the species will be extinct by mid-century. It could go into decline by 2016.
Conservationists see Vietnam as key to curbing the poaching that feeds the illegal horn trade. The country, a known destination for much of the illegal rhino horn poached in South Africa, posted the highest wildlife crime score in the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature’s 2012 Wildlife Crime Scorecard report.
Rhino horn, prized in Vietnam as a “pick-me-up”, cancer cure and even an aphrodisiac, fetches about $60,000/kg in the Southeast Asian country.
The agreement that Ms Molewa and Vietnamese Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Duc Phat signed last month refers only in general terms to addressing illegal wildlife smuggling.
However, there were “clear indications” that rhino horn trafficking would be “top of the new agenda on co-operation between the two nations”, WWF-SA said immediately after the memorandum was signed.
Mr Knight says it is likely South Africa will turn more to technology to help it fight rhino poachers, with the possible use of “unmanned aerial vehicles”, or “drones”.>>
WWF urges South Africans to be proud of their Rhino heritage on World Rhino Day (22 September).
More than 75% of all the world’s Rhino today are found in South Africa.
Rhinos have ranged far and wide across Africa and formed a magnificent part of our cultural and natural heritage for thousands of years. Long before becoming part of the iconic Big Five, rhinos were revered by African royalty as epitomised by the Golden Rhino buried with the King of Mapungubwe 800 years ago. South Africans are rightly proud of their rhino history and the critical role they played in the remarkable recovery of white rhino numbers over the last century. Today three out of every four rhinos alive are found in this one country.
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Yet, rhino deaths from poaching continue to rise. As of 16 October 2012, 455 rhinos have been illegally killed for their horns this year.
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Rhino numbers continue to grow as more are born than are dying – even when poaching mortalities are taken into account. However, we are coming ever closer to the danger zone where populations start to decline. WWF urges all South Africans to play a part in rhino protection at this pivotal point in their future. Report threats to rhinos or any signs of suspicious behaviour on the Department of Environmental Affairs Rhino Hotline.
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What does WWF do to help rhinos?
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On Rhino Day 2012, WWF-SA launched its new National programme to strengthen and support rhino conservation efforts in South Africa in response to the dramatic increase in cases of rhino poaching. Conservation activities will be based around a new five-point strategic framework to combat the threats to rhinos.
The five key areas are:
Continuing the protection of key rhino populations and creating new resilient populations in South Africa through our Black Rhino Range Expansion Project (BRREP)
Developing buffers in local communities around rhinos as the first critical line of defence
Supporting and tightening proactive law enforcement efforts to break illegal trade chains
Improving co-operation between South Africa and consumer countries
Understanding rhino horn trade in end-user markets and influencing demand
We are working with our colleagues in Vietnam to develop tactics to shift new markets and new uses leading to increased demand for rhino horn.
During the first week of October, BRREP translocated a further thirteen black rhino from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife reserves to another property in northern KwaZulu-Natal.>>
Black Rhino
(Photo byJeff McNeely)
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“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”
<<Illegal and/or unsustainable wildlife trade can cause a species to reach a point where its survival hangs in the balance. In fact, illegal wildlife trade is one of the main reasons that many species are endangered.
For example, Rhino poaching to fuel to demand for the illegal Rhino horn trade reached an all-time high in 2011, with 448 Rhinos poached in South Africa alone. This could unravel years of conservation success with African Rhinos.>>
It’s another hot summer that Australian state government fire services all brand the ‘bushfire season‘, because inevitably bushfires occur yet still recklessly get out of control.
It’s 2013 and we didn’t have to wait long. Since yesterday (and prior) bushfires have raged across the state.
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Remembering Hobart’s Black Tuesday
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Tasmanians lost their bushfire innocence in 1967 when on 7th January 110 separate fire fronts burnt through some 2,640 square kilometres (652,360 acres)(264,000 ha) of land in Southern Tasmania including Hobart within the space of five hours.
It became known to Tasmanians as ‘Black Tuesday‘. Tragically, sixty two people died, another 900 were injured and over seven thousand were made homeless. Property loss was extensive with 1293 homes, and over 1700 other buildings destroyed. The bushfires also destroyed 80 bridges, 4800 sections of power lines, 1500 motor vehicles and over 100 other structures. It was estimated that at least 62,000 farm animals were killed. The total direct economic loss amounted to $40 million in 1967 Australian dollar values.
The bushfire causes were attributed to:
Dense and tinder dry Eucalypt bushland following an eight month dry spell
Many flammable properties situated close to and amongst bushland and tall dry grass
Very hot dry windy weather to 39 °C, yet such weather conditions are not abnormal for Tasmania nor many other regions of Australia during summer. McArthur’s report on the fire noted that ‘very similar conditions have occurred on three or four occasions during the past 70 years’.
An ineffective fire fighting response including poor communications
Many victims were disabled in one way or another to enable them to properly respond (Investigative Report by McArthur and Cheney found that most people who died within their homes or within a short distance of their homes were either very old and infirm or suffered from some physical disability; and the homes of approximately half of the people who died whilst escaping the fire did not catch fire and it could be reasoned that they may have had a reasonable chance of safety had they stayed inside their homes).
Poor and last minute decision making
The direct cause was the deliberate lighting of burn offs at a time of extreme bushfire risk. Reports into the causes of the fire stated that only 22 of the 110 fires were started accidentally. So 88 ignitions were deliberately lit as reckless burn offs or else being criminal bush arson.
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The Tragic D.E.A.D. Pattern
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1967 Black Tuesday wasn’t a ‘Natural Disaster‘. It certainly became a ‘National Emergency‘, but Black Tuesday was a ‘Man-Made Disaster‘. Lightning hadn’t ignited the fires; people had, habitually burning off in summer!
As after all bushfire disasters, and Australia has had more than its fair share, the survivors as victims and those affected mostly tend not want to attribute blame, but invariably the common feeling is that people just want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
But to make sure it can’t happen again, the causes and contributing factors need to be identified and understood. Problem is that even despite the causes and contributing factors being identified and understood, solutions are not followed through. Bushfire disasters happen time and again and people tragically lose their lives and properties. After the disaster, there’s the government enquiry, the recommendations. Few of the recommendations are implemented and within a few years, it’s back to business as usual. Government complacency fuels apathy and so communities fall vulnerable to the next disaster.
The cynical acronym by those analysing bushfire histories is:
This is 2013. It is unacceptable that like motor vehicle deaths, the forces that cause the most horrific and costly tragedies in Australia (i.e. ‘bushfires‘) are treated with such ambivalence, negligence, token resourcing and culpable under-preparedness by Australian governments at all levels. Bushfire Risk Management is clearly lacking. The recklessness at government level, has long learned from bushfire experience and can no longer rely on the excuse of innocence. Governments have a fiduciary duty to protect their dependent communities from avoidable harm. Governments that under-resource bushfire management to adequately do their fire fighting task in known extreme weather conditions are culpable of negligence. Governments allowing burn offs in summer are criminally negligent.
And it’s not about kneejerk scorched earthing of Tasmania into a barren landscape, as the ‘bushphobes‘ like WA Liberal Senator Chris Back would favour. It is about addressing the direct causes of bushfires, namely in Tasmania’s case, the senseless burn offs in summer and on days of heightened bushfire risk. It is about adequately resourcing fire management (serious resourcing) so that ignitions can be quickly detected, responded to and suppressed before they cause disaster.
[Source: ‘ Local Knowledge and Gender – Re-evaluating the 1967 Hobart Bushfire fatalities’, Jan 2008, by Katharine Haynes, Amalie Tibbits and Thomas Lowe, (jointly Macquarie University and RMIT), ^http://www.riskfrontiers.com/newsletters/rfnewsV7Issue2_Jan08_web.pdf]
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2013: Fast-forward Two Generations
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So in 2013, 46 years hence, Tasmanians are not bushfire innocent, but ought to be extremely bushfire risk wary and better prepared. But are they? Is the Tasmanian Fire Service adequately resourced and prepared. Does the Tasmanian Government still adopt an attitude of defeatism – that extreme bushfire conditions are beyond anyone’s control? Is this attitude acceptable to Tasmanian society in 2013?
The weather is similar this time of year. Hobart recorded 41.8C at 4.05pm yesterday. Thirty seven years ago Hobart recorded 40.8C. [Source: ^Hobart Mercury] The vegetation is the same. Still many flammable properties continue to be situated close to and amongst bushland and tall grass, arguably indefensible in the event of a major bushfire threat under extreme bushfire weather conditions.
Isn’t that why the bushfire risk grade of ‘catastrophic‘ is now being used by all Australian fire agencies, including the Tasmanian Fire Service (TFS)?
Pertinent questions for the Tasmanian Government (ultimately responsible for bushfire emergencies in Tasmania) remain however:
How better prepared and equipped is the Tasmanian Fire Service today to properly detect, respond and suppress bushfires under such extreme weather circumstances?
How better prepared and equipped are Tasmanian property occupiers to properly recognise and react appropriately to save themselves and their properties in the event of a bushfire under such extreme weather circumstances?
More concerning is why are burn offs are permitted in summer at all at a time of extreme bushfire risk?
What do we pay our taxes and rates levies for bushfire emergency services, if when there is a major bushfire emergency the response is invariably: ‘everyone for themselves‘?
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Just two days ago (3rd January 2013) a total of 14 bushfires had been reported active across Tasmanian on the TFS website, and these were in addition to others that had been reported in previous days that had either been suppressed or were being contained or monitored.
The fires all seem to be distributed near rural properties so are rural folk continuing to light ‘burn offs‘ when temperatures are in the high 30 Celsius range and beyond? Why are Fire Permits being issued this time of year when the risk of bushfire is considerably heightened? Don’t people learn?
Or are holiday makers lighting campfires and not properly extinguishing them? Surely there are no deliberate hazard reduction burns this time of year?
Or is there a spate of bush arsonists starting these fires?
The public isn’t informed about the causes of most bushfires and the causes are not reported on the official Tasmanian Government website. At the time of the bushfires, while admittedly the exact cause(s) may simply not be known to authorities, the problem is that subsequently the causes are rarely reported anyway. So all these bushfires start yet the public is kept in the dark about the causes aside from tacit reporting of the status of the fire fighting effort.
Is it for reasons of embarrassment or culpability?
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Dec 2006: The Scamander Bushfire
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In December 2006, a bushfire destroyed eighteen houses and a restaurant in the small seaside village of Scamander on Tasmania’s north east coast. The cause is not readily published, but was it yet another escaped burn off?
<<On December 12th, 2006 Scamander and surrounds (were) enveloped by a bushfire coming from the south-west in the area of St. Marys. The township had little warning and really was unprepared in the extreme. If any luck existed for Scamander township was the fact that it occurred in late afternoon. Thus as evening approached the windy conditions which had been creating inferno like conditions, where it looked like nothing would stop it, lessened. Not to belittle this event but people further south of Scamander in the area of Four Mile Creek ‘took a copping’ the next day with winds changing to northerlies.>>
Scamander, a loss of 18 houses and a restaurant is considerable for such a small communitySeven years hence, has the community recovered?
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<<The most destructive Tasmanian bushfire in years menaced the island’s east coast last night, challenging fire authorities’ message that defended property would survive.
Heartbroken owners stood amid the ruins of houses and businesses at the coastal town of Scamander, where 18 properties were destroyed or damaged. But many more people in the same bushy back streets survived the flames, to stand dazed amid their unburned assets.
As the fires raged on into the evening through forests south around the town of St Marys, firefighters and home owners stemmed further losses despite the magnitude of a 20-kilometre front.
The fire impacting Scamander
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“I have every confidence in the advice we have been giving: stay and defend, or leave early,” Tasmania’s chief fire officer, John Gledhill, said.
About one in 15 of the bush block dwellings in southern Scamander burned, and many of those were defendable, according to Tasmanian Fire Service acting district officer Ian McLachlan. “We feel some of the structures destroyed may have been saved, had people stayed,” Mr McLachlan said.
He stood amid the ruins of a restaurant and art gallery where the operators fled from what was said to be a rapidly moving wall of flame. One man was injured in the fire. He was flown to Royal Hobart Hospital where he was in a satisfactory condition suffering from burns and smoke inhalation, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The mayor of the local Break O’ Day Council, Robert Legge, said emergency services had managed to cope with the terrifying devastation.>>
The Meadowbank Bushfire started on Saturday 25th Feb (late summer), reportedly by “accident” at the Meadowbank Dam east of Karanja near Maydena (Central Highlands).
It burnt out over 5000 ha and two days later was still officially ‘out of control’. Was it too an escaped burn off by pastoralists or foresters or perhaps another log pile burn by industrial logger, Norse Skog? “Accidental?”
<<Sixteen units with about 50 personnel have been deployed to the fire along with heavy machinery and helicopters for water-bombing. The fire is burning in open grassland and light bush and there is no immediate risk to communities. However, hot conditions are expected later today with a fire danger rating of very high. The bushfire is currently not controlled. Fire under forecasted conditions may be difficult to control.
The fire has been investigated by Tasmanian Fire Service and the cause was found to be accidental. Reported road closures are: Rockmount Road, Meadowbank Dam Road and Meadowbank Road.>>
<<A fire that raged near Symmons Plains (south of Launceston) yesterday burnt through 530 hectares of private land – more than three times larger than was originally thought. The fire is now contained but fire crews will remain on alert as the North endures another high fire danger day today.
The fire started at 3.30pm yesterday and quickly spread to Powranna Road, fanned by strong winds and 30 degree temperatures.
A Tasmania Fire Service spokeswoman said cooler conditions overnight helped firefighters establish containment lines around the blaze. Earthmoving equipment was being used to construct fire breaks and fire crews remained on site to monitor the fire, which started at Powranna Road. Powranna Road remains closed but the spokeswoman said the fire was no longer a threat to lives or property.
“If it stays like this there will be no concerns at all,” she said. “It just depends on the weather.”>>
How caused? No answers. Why? Another burn off in summer escaped again?
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Feb 2013: Official TFS Media Releases
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Wed 2 Jan 2013: ‘Severe Fire Weather Expected’
The weather forecast over the next few days will see temperatures reach into the thirties together with dry winds and low humidity’s. This will mean fires burning will be extremely difficult to control as fire danger ratings increase to Very High and Severe across much of the State.
Tasmania Fire Service have ceased issuing fire permits in the Northern and Southern Regions as a result of the forecasted weather conditions, and it is highly likely a Total Fire Ban will be declared for Thursday & Friday although this is yet to be confirmed.
TFS Chief Officer Mike Brown said “now is not the time to start any new fires and members of the public need to make sure any fires lit on their properties over the last week are completely extinguished. This means making sure fires that have been extinguished are cool to touch and checking the fire is not burning in the root systems of plants.
Special care must be taken when using machinery that emits sparks, such as mowers, slashers, grinders and other cutting tools, as this type of activity have the potential to start fires”.
Campers, bushwalkers, and anyone heading into rural areas over the next week need to be vigilant. Campers should refrain from lighting fires over the next 48 hours and all fires MUST be extinguished fully and cold to touch before leaving them unattended.
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Later that day:
A Total Fire Ban has been declared for the Southern Region of Tasmania from midnight tonight, Wednesday 2 January 2013 until midnight Thursday 3 January 2013.
This includes the municipalities of:
Brighton
Central Highlands
Clarence
Derwent Valley
Glamorgan/Spring Bay
Glenorchy
Hobart
Huon Valley
Kingborough
Sorell
Southern Midlands
Tasman
Chief Officer Mike Brown said: “Due to tomorrow’s forecast for hot conditions, the Tasmania Fire Service has banned all fires out of doors in the Southern Region. There are significant penalties that can be imposed on anyone not adhering to the Total Fire Ban restrictions”.
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Thu 3 Jan 2013: ‘Total Fire Ban Statewide’
Extreme Fire Weather Leads to State-wide Total Fire Ban from Midnight Thursday 03/01/2013 until Midnight Friday 04/01/2013
“Forecasted temperatures in the high 30‟s and strong dry winds across Tasmania have led to the declaration of a State-wide Total Fire Ban commencing midnight tonight”. The TFS Chief Officer Mike Brown announced today.
“Conditions forecast for tomorrow are the worst since the 2006/07 season where large fires impacted in the States North East, Hobart’s eastern shore, Mt Nelson and Epping Forest. We have additional strike team crews, heavy machinery and aircraft at ready to respond but under the Extreme conditions firefighting will be very difficult”.
“With the conditions we are expecting the safest option for people who are not prepared is to simply leave early and go to a friend or relatives place away from bushland areas. Those choosing to stay must remain vigilant about the conditions around them, review and practice their Bushfire Survival Plan and be ready to respond to any fire that maybe in their vicinity. A plan to „wait and see‟ and leave late is one of the most dangerous options” Mr Brown said.
All Tasmanians are asked to actively keep aware of the developing fire situation by monitoring local media and the TFS website www.fire.tas.gov.au.
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Feb 2013: Three Major Bushfires across Tasmania
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Two days ago (Thursday, 3rd January 2013) according to the Tasmanian Government’s official website of its Tasmanian Fire Service, three particular ‘Vegetation Fires’ started, separately near:
Bicheno Bushfire (East Coast)
Lake Repulse Bushfire (Central Highlands)
Forcett Bushfire (South East)
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These three fires have become Major Fires involving significant spread and property loss. At the early morning of Saturday 5th January the respective areas burned were Bicheno (2100 ha), Lake Repulse (450 ha) and Forcett (“not reported”). The television coverage of the Forcett Bushfire suggests that many thousands of hectares of vegetation have already been burned.
Forcett Bushfire – impacting the coastal village of Dunalley – 65 properties razed
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<<Homes have been destroyed and police are investigating reports of at least one death following the devastating bushfires that raged in Tasmania yesterday.
On a day of record heat and catastrophic bushfire conditions, up to 40 bushfires blazed across the state — destroying more than 80 properties and leaving hundreds of people cut off from their homes as they took refuge in shelters last night.
The hardest-hit community Dunalley, in the south-east, where 65 properties were lost.
Police are investigating a report that a man died as he fought to protect his Dunalley home. (Ed: Subsequently checked and confirmed 20130110 as untrue)
Police said 15 properties were lost at nearby Boomer Bay, where about 50 people stranded at the beach were being evacuated by boat.
A number of properties were also destroyed at Connelly’s Marsh, west of Dunalley.
Fire raged out of control in Carlton River last night, threatening the popular coastal community of Dodges Ferry.
Just before 11pm, residents of Dodges Ferry were warned it was too dangerous to leave and advised to take shelter at the local primary school only if the path was clear.
It was also too late to leave Primose Sands, Connelly’s Marsh and Susans Bay because Carlton River Rd was impassable and not safe.
The second biggest fire raged out of control at Lake Repulse, in the Upper Derwent Valley affecting communities including Broad River, Jones River and Ellendale.
Lake Repulse Bushfire, Friday 20130104
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And a blaze near Bicheno, on the East Coast, destroyed at least one property.
A large grass fire at Epping Forest in the state’s North was also causing concern last night.
Hundreds of evacuated and homeless residents were seeking refuge in emergency shelters. The most crowded catered for 600 people at the Nubeena District High School.
Another group of people is sheltering at the Dunalley Hotel.
About 40 people were taking shelter at Sorell refuge last night and a further 40 at New Norfolk.
Bushfire conditions reached “catastrophic” yesterday, with temperatures soaring to ajl record 41.8C in Hobart. Acting Premier Bryan Green said the day was “devastating”.
He said an emergency relief fund had been set up to which would provide $750 to people to help with their initial displacement.
An emergency crew of police, ambulance and fire officers flew into Dunalley last night to investigate the reported death.
Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said conditions were so severe that it would be difficult to confirm the report until either later today or early tomorrow.
He said: “We can’t rule out that there has been a loss of life, potentially one but at this stage there could be (others).”
He said the reported death came from a fire crew at Dunalley, who saw the man defending his home.
Tasmania Fire Service Chief Officer Mike Brown said 100 fire crews had been fighting fires around the state.
He said the fire at Lake Repulse appeared to have been started by an abandoned camp fire.
Other fires on the Freycinet Peninsula had been started by lightning, while the cause of the fire that swept through Dunalley was unknown.
Mr Brown said the Dunalley fire had started on Thursday at Forcett.
The fire had isolated the Tasman Peninsula as police set up a road block on the Arthur Highway.
Last night, police vessels were ferrying fuel, generators, medical supplies and other items to Dunalley and to the refuge centres at Nubeena.
Police were also working with Telstra to transport generators and other equipment to start restoration of communication where possible.
There were fears Eaglehawk Neck could be damaged by ember attack from the Dunalley fire but it was hoped conditions would ease today.
However, Mr Brown warned an expected southerly change could also spread the danger.
“As we get the change, the flank of the fire could become the front of the fire,” he said.
The Bicheno fire led to road closures at Friendly Beaches Rd, Courland Bay Rd, Tar Hill Fire Trail and Harvey’s Farm Rd.
Butlers Point campers were evacuated late yesterday, while Courland Bay shack owners were told to implement their bushfire protection plan.
Emergency alert status remained in place last night for the Forcett and Lake Repulse blazes, with residents told not to return to their homes until the danger passes.
Fires are also burning at Nubeena, Four Mile Creek, Steppes and Whitemark.>>
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‘Man feared dead, at least 80 properties lost in Tasmanian bushfires’
<<At least 80 homes have been lost and one man is feared killed by a bushfire that swept down onto the Tasmanian town of Dunalley, less than 60 kilometres from Hobart, in catastrophic conditions. (Ed: Subsequently the feared death was confirmed 20130110 as untrue)
The bushfire sent hundreds fleeing and was on Friday night still burning down the Tasman Peninsula, taking more properties as it went.
The Tasmania Fire Service acting district officer, Andrew McGuinness, said people should prepare for the worst. ”We’ve lost a lot of property down there.”
A fire at Bicheno burns out of control just 2km a residential town in Tasmania.
(A) local resident, was last seen by a fire crew attempting to save his house as they were forced to shelter in their vehicle when the fire burnt over them, the acting Police Commissioner, Scott Tilyard, said.
Police crews were checking the smouldering town, which is believed to have lost about 65 properties, including many of its houses, as well as shops and the local primary school.
A few kilometres away at the beachside town of Boomer Bay, another 15 properties were gone, Mr Tilyard said.
Many people were forced to shelter on beaches and in shallow water near Boomer Bay, with some evacuated by small boat owners and the police.
Meanwhile, west of Hobart in the Derwent Valley, a separate fire was threatening more houses at Ellendale and Karanja.
Tasmania suffered its most severe fire day in years, with a record 41.8 degrees in Hobart, the highest temperature since 1881. Higher temperatures were observed ahead of the fire front in Dunalley.
Tasmania’s chief fire officer, Mike Brown, said conditions reached the catastrophic level several times during the afternoon, and 100 crews were battling about 25 fires in the state.
The Dunalley fire began on Thursday in bushland about 20 kilometres to the north-west of the town, and swept out of containment lines on Friday afternoon fanned by strong winds.
It was burning to the sea at several points, and had taken properties at Connelly’s Marsh and Murdunna, local reports said.
A bushfire smoke plume visible from Park Beach in Forcett, south-east of Hobart, Tasmania.
A fire at Forcett, 30km from Hobart, sends smoke over Park Beach. At nearby Carlton River residents were being told to evacuate. Photo: Twitter/SiroccoSouth
The acting Premier, Bryan Green, said the government was preparing emergency accommodation, with a report that 600 people were sheltering at one refuge.
”This has been an extraordinary day,” Mr Green said…>>
Smoke climbs from a fire burning just kilometres from homes at Bicheno, Tasmania’s east coastPhoto: Hannah Woolley
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<<At least 80 properties have been destroyed and there are fears one person has been killed as out of control bushfires rage in parts of Tasmania.
Hundreds of residents have been forced to take shelter on beaches and in boats on the water overnight in the state’s south-east as fire crews worked through the night to control the blazes.
On the Tasman Peninsular, a massive sea rescue operation has moved more than 1,000 people trapped by fire to safety, 50 kilometres away to Hobart.
Rescue volunteers in boats, plucked people trapped by the fires off beaches overnight, with more sea rescues planned this morning. Tasmania’s Fire Service (TFS) no longer has any active emergency warnings, but several fires in the state’s centre and south-east are still burning out of control, forcing evacuations and the closure of many roads.
The TFS advise there is a watch and act alert for a large bushfire burning out of control along the Tasman Highway, near Bicheno, which may affect the communities of Butlers Point, Courland Bay, Friendly Beaches and Harvey’s Farm Road around 9:00am (AEDT).
In the state’s south-east, residents near Eaglehawk Neck should maintain their bushfire plans as a large bushfire continues to burn at White Hills Road, Forcett, Copping and Dunalley.
The TFS says residents at Bream Creek, Copping and Boomer Bay should evacuate to the safer place in their bushfire plans, or to the Falls Festival site at Marion Bay, but only if the path is clear.
An out of control fire at Lake Repulse is also continuing to impact Ellendale and Karanja in the Upper Derwent Valley.>>
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[Ed: Does this have the same cause as the Meadowbank Bushfire around this time last year]
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<<A watch and act alert is active for the area and residents should maintain their bushfire plans.
The Lake Repulse fire is expected to impact the communities of Lawrenny and Hamilton around 6:00am (AEDT).
There are still around 40 fires burning across Tasmania, with crews still monitoring blazes at Epping Forest, Nubeena and Southwest.
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Homes destroyed
A triage team has now reached one of the worst hit towns, Dunalley, where at least 65 properties were destroyed.
Police say there have been no confirmed reports of death or injuries there at this stage, however a team will be investigating reports a fire crew was unable to reach a man who was defending his home when the fire passed over.
Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard says a crew at Dunalley was trapped when the bushfire passed.
“They had to take shelter in their vehicle as the fire burned over their vehicle and they were, from that location as I understand it, able to see a gentlemen who was trying to protect his property and they couldn’t get to him, it was too unsafe,” he said.
Dunalley resident Tony Young says he realised the town was in danger when he noticed clouds of smoke and a helicopter.
“I’d no sooner said that than the embers came straight into the garage where I was standing and ignited the ceiling in the shed and just engulfed it,” he said. “So all I could do was drive the car out of the shed, drive across the other side of the road and stand back and look at the whole place just being engulfed in flames, just like a movie.”
There are reports at least 15 properties have been destroyed at Boomer Bay, near Dunalley.
In the Upper Derwent Valley, another three homes as well as farming equipment and livestock have been destroyed.>>
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Ed. It is tragic that in 2013, Australian Governments still allow bushfires to kill and maim people and to destroy property and lives – human, livestock and untold numbers of wildlife and important ecology.
Another Tasmanian Burn Off, unsupervised, happily burning away…
off the west side of the Tasman Highway a few kilometres south of Swansea
[Photo by Editor late afternoon, 20110926, photo free in public domain]
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Footnote
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‘Australia: Government culpability in 2009 Victorian bushfires’
<<It is almost 18 months since catastrophic bushfires, the worst in Australian history, swept through the state of Victoria on February 7, 2009, killing 173 people, including 23 children, and incinerating 300,000 hectares and 200 homes. Over the past five weeks the ongoing royal commission into the catastrophe has focused on two key issues—the part played by senior emergency services personnel on “Black Saturday” and the role of the state’s “stay or go” policy in the high death toll. In both areas, evidence has emerged of government negligence and culpability.
Testimony and evidence heard by the royal commission has revealed an effective breakdown within Victoria’s senior emergency services leadership on the day of the bushfires.
Three of the state’s most senior police officers and Minister for Police and Emergency Services Bob Cameron were absent from the Integrated Emergency Co-ordination Centre (IECC) during key periods on Black Saturday. The uncoordinated and chaotic division of responsibilities and functions of senior police and emergency services leadership points to the negligence of the state Labor government of Premier John Brumby. It made no serious attempt to establish clear lines of command and communication inside the IECC prior to the devastating fires.
Most of those who died on February 7, 2009 perished in their homes after receiving no warnings from emergency authorities about the approaching fires. Prior to Black Saturday there was neither a national uniform bushfire warning system nor consistent national standards for message warnings. Triple-0 emergency services were grossly understaffed, resulting in more than 10,000 calls being left unanswered on the day of the bushfires, along with 80 percent of calls to the state’s bushfire information line. Householders in many fire risk areas had to contact the local ABC radio service for emergency warnings and updates on the fires. Others were totally isolated—before and after the fires.
While all this was occurring Christine Nixon, then the Victorian police chief and head of emergency services, left the IECC at 6 pm to have dinner with friends, despite knowing that people had been killed by major fires which were engulfing communities. Nixon also kept a string of personal appointments earlier that day. She initially told the commission that she had been in constant contact with other senior officials, but subsequent testimony revealed that she had not spoken with her deputy officers or anybody else at the IECC between 6 pm and 9 pm.
Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin told the commission that Nixon was “in charge” on Black Saturday but didn’t know why she was not at the IECC on Saturday night.
Deputy Police Commissioner Kieran Walshe claimed that he had been in regular contact with Nixon throughout the day, but later admitted that he hadn’t spoken to the police commissioner until 9.45 pm that night. Neither Walshe nor assistant commissioner Stephen Fontana, both delegated by Nixon, was at the IECC when Victorian Police and Emergency Services Minister John Cameron finally arrived there just before 9 pm on Saturday night. Cameron testified at the royal commission on May 7, the first state government minister to do so since hearings began in early 2009. He said that he had spent much of Black Saturday protecting his own rural property.
Questioned by counsel assisting the commission, Jack Rush QC, Cameron was unable to explain exactly who was in charge of the state’s emergency response to the fires. He was unaware that under Victorian law the minister is the coordinator-in-chief of emergency management and the chief commissioner of police his deputy.
Rush asked Cameron whether there was “any structure in place that you understood to be in place where Ms Nixon, Ms Walshe, or Mr Fontana would be on duty in an active position to make active decisions between 6 pm and 9 pm.” The minister answered “no”.
These latest revelations follow the testimony last year of Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief Russell Rees who was at the control centre on Black Saturday. Rees did not become actively involved in operational issues at the centre, and was unaware of maps that had been produced by Melbourne University forestry and fire modelling scientist Dr Kevin Tolhurst and two other mapping experts working at the IECC on the day of the fires. The maps predicted the paths of the Kilmore East and Murrundindi fires, which killed over 100 people. Rees did not find out about the maps or act on their predictions because, he told the commission, no one had a statutory responsibility to warn the threatened towns.
Rees had been previously praised by Victorian premier John Brumby and reappointed as CFA chief in 2009 for another two years, but resigned his position late last month, just before making a final appearance at the commission.
The disorganised and complacent responses of Cameron, Nixon and Rees to the Black Saturday fires did not merely reflect individual negligence. The absence of any functioning emergency response leadership was another expression of the failure of successive Labor and Liberal governments to establish a planned, coordinated, and properly resourced series of bushfire emergency preparation and response measures.
Victoria is one the most bushfire-prone regions in the world, but there was no effective collective evacuation plan, funding for adequate road and transport systems was grossly inadequate, and communications technology and other emergency infrastructure proved absent or ineffective. All this was the direct outcome of the pro-market program developed over the last two decades; funding for social infrastructure and public services has been gutted across the board, while privatisation and the imposition of the “user pays” principle have seen almost every aspect of social life opened up to the dictates of the profit system.
The official “stay or go” emergency bushfire policy developed seamlessly in this context. Under the policy, individuals are left to determine their own response to approaching bushfires: they are supposed to either evacuate the area well before the fires arrive, or stay and execute their own fire-fighting plans. “Stay or go” effectively absolved government authorities of any responsibility for evacuating threatened residents.
Evidence presented to the commission by emergency response experts over the past month has exposed the tragic consequences of this policy.
Professor John Handmer, a disaster management expert from RMIT’s Centre for Risk and Community Safety, has made a detailed investigation into the Black Saturday fatalities. He told the hearing that 58 percent of those who died had not made any preparations to defend their homes. But more than 20 percent of those killed had followed CFA policy and were “well prepared”. The definition of “well prepared”, however, consisted of having a water supply and mops and buckets to use as firefighting equipment. Handmer admitted that the policy relied on ordinary citizens being mentally and physically equipped to handle situations that even experienced firefighters may not be able to deal with.
Harvard University emergency management specialist, Professor Dutch Leonard, told the royal commission that “stay or go” could not be judged on what inexperienced citizens “should do” and was an “invitation to a potential disaster”. He said that he taught his students at Harvard that hoping people might do something “does not amount to a policy”.
University of Utah wildfire evacuation expert Tom Cova testified that “stay or go” had “multiple flaws”, and that in most cases evacuation was “far superior” to people staying in threatened homes. Cova said that residents who lacked experience and adequate information should not be placed in a position of determining whether to stay or go.
Professor Paul ‘t Hart from the Australian National University told the hearing that the Victorian government should introduce mandatory evacuations as part of its response to bushfires and similar emergencies. He said while there would always be lingering doubts about whether authorities had over-reacted if people were ordered out pre-emptively, this was far better than if evacuations did not take place and scores were killed.
Despite such testimony the Labor government continues to strenuously defend “stay or go”, albeit with minor modifications. Brumby has insisted, moreover, that he has no intention of establishing emergency evacuation systems. The premier claimed in the immediate aftermath of Black Saturday that this was “logistically impossible”. Demands for placing electricity powerlines underground in national parks and other bushland areas have been rejected out of hand by the government as “too expensive”, as have calls for significant increases in the number of fire-fighting personnel and the construction of genuine fire safety refuges to protect people in fire-prone areas.
Since Black Saturday, only 45 additional project fire-fighters have been hired while a recently introduced national bushfire-warning system that includes “code red (catastrophic)” warnings has been denounced by bushfire scientists as a knee jerk response, with little scientific input.
Last month it was also revealed that the CFA’s emergency paging system for firefighters was substandard and only running at 20 percent capacity. This was due to the state government’s refusal to fund the construction of transmitters necessary to eliminate black spots across the state. The result was a huge backlog on Black Saturday, with many messages delivered hours late, in some cases 12 hours after they were sent.
The commission is due to release its final report on July 31. No indication has been given that the state premier will be summoned to give evidence about the state government’s catastrophic policies. Whatever the final recommendations, the essential issue raised by the bushfire disaster—the incompatibility of the profit system with the provision of the emergency services and social infrastructure necessary to prevent needless loss of life—will remain unaddressed. >>
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‘Class action launched by Australian bushfire survivors against SP AusNet’
<<The largest class action in Victorian history was commenced at the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday the 13th by Slidders Lawyers against electricity distribution company SP AusNet and the Brumby Government in relation to the Kilmore East fire that became part of the Kinglake complex.
Because of the lawsuit, SP AusNet SPN.AX’s shares on Monday have dropped more than 13.36 per cent or 14.5 cents, to an intra-day low of 94 cents, was at 98.5 cents at 10:38 a.m. local time, before recovering slightly to be 7.5 cents lower at A$1.01 by 1144 AEDT (0003 GMT) or 6.9 percent in Sydney trading. Shares in SP AusNet closed 3.7 percent lower at A$1.045 on Monday.
Power supplier SP AusNet said it has asked the Victoria Court regarding the status of the class action proceedings saying the firm had insurance policies in place consistent with industry standards. “SP AusNet will continue to update the market as further information becomes available,” the company said.
The claim has focused on alleged negligence by SP AusNet in its management of electricity infrastructure. It maintains most of the power lines in eastern Victoria. Its fallen power line is believed to have sparked the blaze that tore through Kinglake, Steels Creek, Strathewen, Humevale, and St Andrews. The plaintiffs include thousands of angry Kinglake farmers, small business owners, tourist operators and residents who lost homes.
Leo Keane, the lead plaintiff in the class action has alleged “SP AusNet owed a duty of care to landowners to operate and manage power lines in a way that limited the risk of damage from bushfires.”
On Thursday Phoenix Taskforce had taken away a section of power line as well as a power pole from near Kilmore East, part of a two-kilometre section of line in Kilmore East that fell during strong winds and record heat about 11am last Saturday. It was believed to have started the fire there, since within minutes a nearby pine forest was ablaze, and within six hours the bushfire had almost obliterated nearly every building in the towns in its path.
“It is believed that the claim will be made on the basis of negligent management of power lines and infrastructure,” Slidders Lawyers partner Daniel Oldham said. The law firm has announced it was helping landowners and leaseholders get compensation for the 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009 bushfires. “If you have been burnt by the recent bushfires, please register your interest using the form below as soon as possible,” the law firm’s website stated.
The Insurance Council of Australia has placed the cost of the bushfires at about $500 million. “That means keeping electricity lines clear of trees and in a condition that won’t cause fires. They must also have systems in place to identify and prevent risks occurring,” Melbourne barrister Tim Tobin, QC, said. According to the 2006 census, Kinglake had a population of almost 1,500 people.
But SP AusNet’s legal liability has been limited at $100 million under an agreement inked by the former Kennett government with private utility operators, when the former State Electricity Commission was privatized in 1995. Accordingly, the Brumby Government could be legally obliged to pay damages of the differences amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
SP AusNet Ltd said some of its electricity assets have been damaged by the Victoria bushfire. “As a preliminary estimate, it is thought that damage has been sustained to approximately one per cent of SP AusNet’s electricity distribution network, mainly distribution poles, associated conductors and pole top transformers,” SP AusNet said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). It explained that up to 6,000 homes and businesses on its network were without power due to bushfires, including the Kinglake complex fire, Beechworth fire, and fires across Gippsland including Churchill and Bunyip.
SP AusNet said the firm will cooperate fully and will assist in any fire probe. “We stand ready to assist the relevant authorities with their inquiries if it is necessary for us to do so now and in the coming months,” SP Ausnet spokeswoman Louisa Graham said in a statement.
“Our priority is to restore power to fire-affected areas as quickly as possible. We believe the claim is premature and inappropriate … SP AusNet will vigorously defend the claim. If the claim is pursued, SP AusNet advises that it has liability insurance which provides cover for bushfire liability. The company’s bushfire mitigation and vegetation management programmes comply with state regulations and were audited annually by state agencies,” Grahams explained.
Victorian Auditor-General Rob Hulls said “there was an ‘unseemly rush’ by some lawyers to sue before the cause of the fires had been fully investigated.”
“The government body had audited the network’s bushfire risk to make sure required distances between power lines and vegetation were maintained. Power companies had been given a clean bill of health, and electricity firms were judged to be ‘well prepared for the 2008-09 bushfire season.’ There were no regulations applying to the distances between poles supporting electricity lines and spans of one kilometre were not unusual,” a spokesman for Energy Safe Victoria explained.
Christine Nixon, the 19th and current Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police said investigations into the cause of the bushfires were ongoing. “I know people are angry, and so are all of us in this community. But we need to kind of have a sense that the proper processes are in place and we need to go through the investigation and through the court case,” Nixon said. “At this stage we are not able to confirm how it started. I understand there is some legal action that people are taking, but at this stage we’re still investigating its cause. But the whole circumstances of that fire are part of our Taskforce Phoenix, and as we move through that we’ll be able to tell the community more once we’re able to confirm or deny what we think is the cause of these fires,” Nixon added.
A house damaged by bushfires in the Kinglake complex, in Steels Creek.
Image: Nick Carson.
On Thursday, two people were arrested in connection with the fires, having been observed by members of the public acting suspiciously in areas between Yea and Seymour; although they were both released without charges laid.
Brendan Sokaluk, age 39, from Churchill in the Gippsland region, was arrested by police at 4pm on Thursday, in relation to the Churchill fires, and was questioned at the Morwell police station. He was charged on Friday with one count each of arson, intentionally lighting a bushfire and possession of child pornography. The arson case relates to 11 of the 21 deaths in the dire Gippsland fire, which devastated 39,000 hectares in the Latrobe Valley, Calignee, Hazelwood Koornalla and Jeeralang. Two teams of Churchill firefighters were almost lost in the inferno that remains out of control.
Mr Sokaluk joined the CFA Churchill brigade in the late 1980s as a volunteer fire fighter, left in the 1990s and attempted to rejoin twice, but was rejected. He failed to appear in Melbourne Magistrate’s Court Monday for a scheduled hearing, since the court reset the committal hearing on May 25. He is represented by lawyer Julian McMahon.
Magistrate John Klestadt has lifted the suppression order which kept the suspect’s identity a secret but identifying photographs were barred from being released. Mr Sokaluk was remanded in protective custody from Morwell to a cell in Melbourne for his own safety amid fears angry prisoners will target him and real risk of vigilante attacks. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years imprisonment if convicted on the arson charge.
“This is an extraordinary case. The level of emotion and anger and disgust that the alleged offenses have aroused in the community is unprecedented.” Mr Sokaluk’s defense lawyer Helen Spowart argued. The prosecution has moved the Court for more time to prepare its case, saying there would be up to 200 witnesses to interview.
Slater & Gordon has indicated that they were awaiting the report of the to-be-established Royal Commission, expected in late 2010, before initiating any claims.
Armed with a $40 million budget, the Royal Commission’s Chair Justice Bernard Teague will be assisted by former Commonwealth ombudsman Ron McLeod, who led the inquiry into the 2003 Canberra bushfires, and State Services Authority Commissioner Susan Pascoe. The Commission has said its interim report is due on August 17 while the final report will be submitted by July 31, 2010.
John Mansfield Brumby, an Australian Labor Party politician, is the 45th Premier of Victoria, assuming office on 30 July 2007 after the resignation of Steve Bracks.
Image: Another melbournite.
Judge Bernard Teague has announced Tuesday he will meet with fire victims and fire authorities within the next two weeks. “We want to do that as soon as possible – probably not next week but starting to have these discussions the week after,” he said.
Julia Eileen Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and deputy leader of the federal Australian Labor Party (ALP) said the federal and Victorian governments would respond quickly to the royal commission’s report. “Everybody who has lived through this experience in Victoria and around the nation has asked the question: ‘Why? What can we do better?’. No one wanted to see the report “as a book on a shelf gathering dust,” she said.
Victoria bushfire experts, led by Forest Fire Victoria – a group of scientists and forestry experts – have condemned the government’s “Living with Fire” policy and the state’s failure to initiate serious fuel-reduction programs. The Victoria government had failed to seriously act on bushfire safety recommendations submitted last June by the Victorian Parliamentary Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
As death toll rises, evidence mounts of lack of planning prior to Australia’s worst bushfire. “Living with Fire” policy means Kinglake fire trucks were dispatched to an earlier fire in Kilmore, leaving Kinglake undefended. “Kinglake was left with no fire brigade and no police. The trucks had been sent to Kilmore. I’ve been in the fire brigade for 10 years. There was always a law—the trucks had to be on the hill. Because of the government we got gutted at Kinglake. They should have been getting generators ahead of the fire—so people would have had a chance of fighting it. As soon as the power went, I couldn’t keep fighting the fire at my place,” Rick and Lauren Watts, and their friend Neil Rao, spoke to the WSWS.
Rick has also criticized the lack of early warning communications systems, since emergency siren warnings in the town had been stopped some years earlier. Humevale resident Sina Imbriano who has six children was angry about the failure of state and federal governments to set up a recommended telephone warning system amid its “stay and defend or go” policy. Bald Spur Road residents Greg Jackson and his wife Fotini said the government’s “stay and defend or go” policy was “fruitless” since the critical issue was early warnings, but “they [the government] just won’t spend the money.”
Also on Friday, five law firms from Victoria’s Western Districts, including Warrnambool-based Maddens Lawyers and Brown & Proudfoot, held a meeting to discuss a potential class action in relation to the Horsham fire, which was also thought to have been started by fallen power pole that burnt vast swathes of land in Mudgegonga and Dederang, Victoria. The lawsuit will also focus on the fire that blackened about 1750 hectares at Coleraine.
Maddens senior attorney Brendan Pendergast said: “We don’t know who the defendant is at this stage. We are unsure who the electrical supplier is for that area but we should know in a few days. There were people who had their homes burnt to the ground and they will need to reconstruct, replace their contents,” he said. Maddens has initiated a register of affected landowners for the recent bushfires, saying the firm has included victims of the Pomborneit fire that burnt almost 1300 hectares in the proposed class action amid the CFA’s statement the blaze could have been deliberately lit.
Frances Esther “Fran” Bailey, Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives (1990-93 and 1996-present), representing the electorate of McEwen in Victoria said the Country Fire Authority (CFA) had told her one of the power lines had broken before the fire.
“The local CFA [Country Fire Authority] told me on that Saturday, with those very high winds, one of the lines had broken and was whipping against the ground and sparked,” she said. “Whether or not that is the cause of that terrible fire that actually took out Kinglake and maybe Marysville, the investigations will prove that, but we’ve got to do better,” she added.
The Supreme Court of Victoria is located on the corner of Lonsdale and William Streets, Melbourne – the same intersection as the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court and the County Court of Victoria.
Victorian Premier John Brumby said the power line claim would be examined as part of the Royal Commission into the bushfire. “No stone will be left unturned. So, I think it’s important the Royal Commission does its work. And, the Royal Commission will, of course, look at all of the factors with the fires,” Mr Brumby said. At least 550 houses were incinerated and 100 people have been killed, leaving more than 1,000 homeless in the Kinglake bushfire and surrounding areas.
SP AusNet – Singapore Power International Pte Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore Power Limited (51% interest in SP AusNet). SP AusNet’s electricity transmission and distribution networks, along with the gas distribution assets, enable it to deliver a full range of energy-related products and services to industrial and domestic customers in Victoria, Australia.
Singapore Power is a company which provides electricity and gas transmission, distribution services, and market support services to more than a million customers in Singapore. As the only electricity company in Singapore, and also one of its largest corporation, SP was incorporated as a commercial entity in October 1995 to take over the electricity and gas businesses of the state provider, the Public Utilities Board. Since 1995, Temasek Holdings controls the entire company with a 100% stake. SP is involved in a major investment in Australia’s Alinta in partnership with Babcock & Brown, after putting up a bid of A$13.9 billion (S$17 billion), beating out a rival bid by Macquarie Bank.
The devastating 2009 Victorian Black Saturday bushfires, a series of more than 400 bushfires across Victoria on February 7 2009, is Australia’s worst-ever bushfire disaster, claiming at least 200 deaths, including many young children, and is expected to pass 300. 100 victims have been admitted to hospitals across Victoria with burns, at least 20 in a critical condition, and 9 on life support or in intensive care. The fires have destroyed at least 1,834 homes and damaged many thousands more. Many towns north-east of Melbourne have been badly damaged or almost completely destroyed, including Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong, Strathewen and Flowerdale. Over 500 people suffered fire-related injuries and more than 7,000 are homeless. It has scorched more than 1,500 square miles (3,900 square kilometers) of farms, forests and towns.
The Supreme Court of Victoria is the superior court for the State of Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited jurisdiction within the state. Those courts lying below it include the County Court of Victoria, the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (which is technically not a court, but serves a judicial function). Above it lays the High Court of Australia. This places it around the middle of the Australian court hierarchy.>>
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‘Victorian Bushfires: CFA ill-prepared and reliant on obsolete firefighting technologies’
[Source: ‘‘Victorian Bushfires: CFA ill-prepared and reliant on obsolete firefighting technologies’, 20090703, by Tigerquoll, CanDoBetter.net, ^http://candobetter.net/node/1375]
Ed: The charred shell of a $350,000 CFA truck near Belgrave Heights during the 2009 Victorian Bushfires.
The tanker was able to protect three firefighters from an out-of-control bushfire as it burnt over them.
But a decade before in 1998, a burn-over incident during a bushfire at Linton, near Ballarat, saw five CFA volunteers burned to death.
Unacceptable – volunteers, professional, completely unacceptable and unforgiveable.
[Photo: Craig Abraham [courtesy: The Age 25-Feb-09]]
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A report by ABC journalist, Jane Cowan, 1-Jul-09, ‘Bushfire lawyers blast CFA’s Rees’ states that lawyers assisting Brumby’s Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian Bushfires have in an interim report concluded that the Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) was ill-prepared for Black Saturday.
The lawyers have criticised CFA chief fire officer, Russell Rees, as having been “divorced from fundamental aspects of the responsibilities” as chief officer, ‘including the provision of public warnings and the protection of life and assert that Mr Rees “should have made himself aware of predictions forecasting the path of the fires.”
Criticism has also been made about the reliance by the CFA on obsolete fire fighting technologies. Bushfire consultant assisting the Commission, Tony Cutcliffe, has stated “We still have people running these organisations who are predominantly devoted to a firefighting technology that is no longer in vogue let alone being attuned to the needs of behavioural management and leadership.”
What is most disturbing of all is that the CFA looks to continue business as usual. The CFA says it has full confidence in Mr Rees and expects him to be at the helm again this summer. Mr Cutcliffe has expressed his concerns that ‘whatever changes are made, as it stands now the same management team that presided over the system which failed to cope on Black Saturday will be required to implement the new regime.’
If the calamity of what happened to Victoria last summer won’t force an overhaul of firefighting in Australia, what will?
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The CFA’s old-school firefighting culture dies hard:
The CFA remains an emergency response organisation almost totally dependent on a disparate weekend volunteer base (not the fault of the volunteers who are effectively unpaid public servants)
The CFA’s bushfire notification system is wholly reliant on public calls to 000
The CFA’s fire fighting response system is centred around urban fire trucks that cannot access remote ignitions and so must wait until accessible from a roadside, when the fire is by then often out of control. Taking fire trucks into the bush to fight fires is deadly as the above photo shows
The CFA remains a public authority with carte blanche to allow and deliberately cause immense irreversible damage to Victoria’s remaining ecolgical habitat, yet with no ecological expertise in its management or ranks
The CFA is grossly underfunded by state and federal governments.
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Timeless Systemic Questions:
1. Given that unprecedented extreme weather was forecast and known to the CFA, what commensurate planning, preparation and response did the CFA deploy and when?
2. What improvements in fire fighting practices have been implemented by the CFA since the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires to avoid a repeat?
3. Where are the statistics showing the fire fighting performance in respect to each reported ignition, namely:
a. Elapsed time from estimated ignition time to detection time (CFA becoming aware of ignition)
b. Elapsed time from detection time and on site response time (CFA arriving at the fire site/front with fire fighting equipment)
c. Elapsed time from response time to suppression time (fire extinguished by CFA)
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These are the three core fire fighting performance metrics.
The Bushfire Royal Commission is following its terms of reference in assessing the specific facts and specific causes of the fires and logically as expected is starting to lay blame.
What’s the bet many findings are similar to those of previous bushfire investigations? If the Royal Commission finds that the current system and structure of Victoria’s (read Australia’s) volunteer firefighting organisation was at fault, then this is a constructive outcome.
Only at such a legal level will change be forced on the system and culture. Previous internal debrief meetings and investigations (e.g. the 2003 Esplin Enquiry) have managed to have lessons from bushfire disasters ignored and fire fighting practices remain relatively unchanged.
If fire fighting is becoming more effective then how can such tragedies be continuing and growing in scale? How much more 20-20 hindsight is needed by the so-called ‘experienced’ fire fighting leadership before we can observe tangible improvements in fire fighting performance?
Same old same old. Given the dire inadequacies of this organisation, the culture has forced to become one of absolute defeatism – the only way it believes it can deal with bushfires is to slash and burn as much of the natural burnable landscape as possible, so that there is nothing left to burn.
It’s as crackbrained as backburning through Belgrave Heights in order to save Belgrave.
Change cannot be brought to the CFA within the CFA. Change must come from Brumby and Rudd.>>
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[Ed. It’s called political leadership, and it is based upon political values and priorities. All Australian governments have long lost their innocence to bushfire, so have no valid claimable defence of ‘^Force Majeure‘]
“Now Lizzy… A rifle in the wrong hands can be you know, really dangerous.“
[Character, Mick Taylor, in the 2005 Australian film, Wolf Creek, co-produced and directed by Greg McLean]
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“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures“
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
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Strange Truths of the NSW Game Council
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Established in 2002 under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 introduced by the Carr Labor Government
Annual budget of $3.8 million, of which $2.5 million comes directly from New South Wales taxpayers
Received more than $12 million in NSW Government funding since 2002, including $2.7 million in 2011, despite NSW Government promises that it would become self-funded
16,000 recreational amateur hunters are registered with the Game Council of NSW
Licenses amateur hunters to use firearms, dogs, and bows to hunt in 400 State forests and Crown land areas
In the 12 months to 30 April 2012 the Council estimated licensed hunters took 15,663 animals, mostly rabbits, from public land. This represents a public expenditure of $159 per feral animal killed on public lands. [Ed: Imported Gourmet Farmed Cervena New Zealand Red Venison Striploin retails for a premium of AUD$108 per kilo, so $159 for a feral rabbit is far from ‘economical hunting’]
Since being established there has not been any assessment of the effectiveness of recreational hunting in controlling feral animals in a single State Forest.
It head Daniel Boon man has been found to have trophy hunted an endangered African elephant for sport and personal gratification
The NSW Game Council is a political minority interest group that has become a law unto itself
The political wing of the NSW Game Council is the NSW State Shooters and Fishers Party (perhaps as Sinn Fein is to the IRA).
In May 2009, Robert Brown MP of the Shooters Party lobbies for the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009 to be passed into legislation in New South Wales, so that many of Australia’s native fauna across NSW (including National Parks) would be condemned as ‘game animals’ just like in colonial times. The Bill is rejected.
In June 2010, NSW State Shooters and Fishers Party MP Roy Smith, dies suddenly aged 56, and is replaced by wildlife trophy hunter, Robert Borsak, holding the balance of power in the NSW Upper House.
In April 2011, The Shooters and Fishers Party presents its “shopping list” of ‘game demands’ to the freshly elected O’Farrell NSW Liberal Coalition Government, in return for the Party’s legislative support in the Upper House. Demands include introducing recreational shooting in NSW national parks and for shooting to be encouraged as a school sport (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Dunblane and Sandy Hook aside).
In June 2011, sure enough, with the Shooters Party’s supporting O’Farrell’s public sector wages cuts, the government has opened up more than 140 State Forests for recreational hunting for an unprecedented 10 years.
In July 2011 Shooters’ Party proposes its Firearms Amendment Bill 2011 to allow firearms and ammunition in National Parks, children to have ready access to air rifles without a need for a permit, allows a person to own purchase air rifles without restrictions, and to ease safety regulations on shooting clubs and firearms sellers. The Bill is rejected.
In June 2012, the O’Farrell Government does another deal with the Shooters Party allow shooting in national parks and other reserves, in exchange for support for State energy privatisation support. Amendments are made to the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002.
In November 2012, the O’Farrell Government does another deal with the Shooters Party to allow duck shooting licences in return for their support to privatise two major ports. Now the power over issuing duck shooting licences shifts from the National Parks and Wildlife Service to the pro-hunting Games Council. Amendments are made to the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 and the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. This is one step short of reintroducing Open Season Duck Hunting in NSW, long banned by the Carr Government in 1995.
In September 2012, illegal shooting of kangaroos in the Deua National Park camp is reported, which was subsequently verified by the Office of Environment and Heritage which reported: “After it was reported to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the investigating park Ranger sighted two kangaroos that had been shot. One animal was euthanised. The matter is under investigation by NPWS and NSW Police.”
Recently, the Shooters and Fishers Party announced that they plan to introduce legislation to repeal the Native Vegetation Act 2003, the law that controls broadscale land clearing and regulates logging activities on private land.
Robert Borsak, NSW Shooters & Fishers Party
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“Hunting is ingrained in human consciousness and genetics by at least 1.5 million years of evolution, according to the latest scientific evidence, and in the modern perspective, fishing is one of the nation’s most popular pursuits.” ~ Robert Borsak – NSW Shooters & Fishers Party, 2012.
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“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
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~ Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
<<We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm.
There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember… I… I… I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn’t know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it… I never want to forget. And then I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God… the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that!
Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men… trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love… but they had the strength… the strength… to do that.
If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment! Because it’s judgment that defeats us.>>
[Quote from character Colonel Walter E. Kurtz out of the epic Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now of 1979, directed by Frances Ford Coppola. Watch extract: ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxLFdJLSho8]
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“The joy of killing! The joy of seeing killing done – these are traits of the human race at large.”
~ Mark Twain, ‘Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World’ (1897), American Publishing Co., Hartford.
InkyA pure Fraser Island Dingo
persecuted by a colonial-mindset Queensland Government
..left ear ‘tagged’ by rangers and permanently damaged
..since shot by same rangers.
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Wildlife-based Tourism Exploitation
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<<Wildlife-based tourism is a major tourism activity and is increasing in popularity. For many international tourists visiting Australia, viewing Australian wildlife forms a major part of their visit (Fredline & Faulkner 2001). For domestic tourists, viewing wildlife and sometimes interacting with it is also an important activity, and it caters for specialists and generalists alike.>>
But it is this ‘Wildlife-based Tourism‘ industry sector where Australian tourism has taken on a dark side. The industry and the revenue and profits it generates are being used by Australian state governments to justify greater destruction of Australia’s fragile ecosystems. This innocuous euphemism is exploited by the Queensland Tourism industry to belie the true destructive ecological impacts of ‘Nature Tourism‘ or ‘Ecotourism‘.
This is like painting a bulldozer green and all subsequent use labelled as ‘eco-bulldozing‘.
Badge d’Exploitation.
.At least 50% of a tourism operator’s offerings must have a Nature-based focus
and some vague notion of ‘sustainability’ principles.
Pay our fee…et voilà!’ – eco-certification!
[Read More: EcoTourism Australia (a private company), ^http://www.ecotourism.org.au/]
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But the most disturbing trend is that even the state government custodians entrusted with ecological protection and conservation, the variously named National Parks and Wildlife Service agencies, have placed the aims of recreation and tourism at a higher management priority than their core function of ecological protection and conservation.
Perhaps this exploitative trend is no more prevalent than across Queensland’s Natural ecology, which is ‘managed’ by the Queensland Government’s Department of National Parks, Recreation and Racing. About Us: <<The department manages national parks and their use and enjoyment by all Queenslanders; encourages active lifestyles by providing recreational and sporting opportunities; and manages the racing industry which directly employs 30,000 Queenslanders.>>
<<Queensland’s parks and forests underpin the State’s thriving nature tourism industry. They attract millions of overseas and Aussie visitors each year and contribute billions of dollars to the Queensland economy. Tourists visiting Queensland’s national parks spend $4.43 billion annually—28% of all total tourist spending in Queensland.>>
[Source: ‘Commercial tourism on parks’, Department of National Parks, Recreation and Racing, Queensland Government, ^http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/tourism/]
.Queensland Government’s Coat of Arms
Left: a Red Deer entirely irrelevant to Queenslanders. Right: Queensland’s native Brolga (water bird) symbolising Queensland’s native wildlife population.
The Queensland state motto in Latin, “Audax at Fidelis”, means “Bold but Faithful” – faithful to whom?
Entirely, this emblem is one of the most meaningless and hypocritical of any government.
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Situated along Queensland’s central coast, World Heritage Fraser Island is a case in point. Here, tourism visitation has become unsustainable to the point of driving the island’s ecological destruction. The Queensland Government’s tourism marketing brands the area the Fraser Coast to take in whale watching in Hervey Bay, Reef diving and Fraser Island. The exploitation of Wildlife-based Tourism is focused on maximising visitation numbers, as if bureaucratic commissions are earned according to visitation numbers.
Fraser Island’s native top order predator, the Dingo, has been on Fraser Island for at least 1000 years. But the Dingo and its fragile ecology are being persecuted and destroyed by the Queensland Government because the prevailing 20th Century exploitative attitude is that Bevan Tourism generates income; Dingoes don’t. The wildlife tourism promotion of Fraser Island by the Queensland Government has exploited ‘the thrill of seeing a dingo ‘in the wild’ and used the Dingo as a major tourism drawcard.
Dingo Tourism on Fraser Island is actively encouraged by the Queensland Government
Fraser Island Discovery, with its dingo logo shown above, won a recent Queensland Government Tourism Award
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Bevan Tourism
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Bevan Tourism is the exploitative, destructive and disrespectful tourism that appeals to the uncouth, loud mouthed, red neck, yobbo, hoon element of Queensland society.
Particular to parochial Queensland, the ‘Bevan‘ is characteristically a young poorly educated Caucasian male usually very thin, or sometimes quite fat with the onset of manboobs, and displaying the clichéd antisocial behaviours such as hooliganism, swearing, reckless driving, alcoholism, Winnie blue smoking (with spare fag ducked behind ear), XXXX/Bundy Rum drinking, and habitually louting around in front of sheilas.
Bevans at Play
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Bevans are best avoided, especially at social gatherings, sports events, beaches and at campsites. (See also: ‘Bogan’ (Melbourne), ‘Westie’ (Sydney), ‘Ned’ (Glasgow), ‘Yob’, ‘Bozo’, ‘Low-Life’).
A Queenslander Bevan, royally succumbed to recreational stupor
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Bevan Tourism has taken cultural hold over a few popular holiday destinations along the Queensland coast. Over the past few generations, Bevans mainly from metropolitan Brisbane have particularly targeted the Gold Coast, Maryborough and Fraser Island.
Queensland’s Bevan Tourism most exquisitely expressed here by Fraser Explorer Tours – on Fraser Island
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Fraser Island, despite being recognised and listed as a Natural World heritage site since 1992, each holiday season is invaded by Bevan Tourism, targeted especially over Easter. In part this is because, Queensland Government’s own state tourism department, in cahoots with its national park agency, has marketed Fraser Island for ‘adventure’, ‘parties’, and ‘families’. Fraser Island’s international listing has been exploited as a tourism drawcard, more so than properly conserved for its internationally important remnant ecosystems, wildlife and flora.
The disturbing trend is that the in mindset of parochial Queensland Tourism, Bevan Tourism is marketed as an equitable right for all people, and that Nature exists in an anthropocentric sense simply to serve that right. This attitude to ecology is retrograde and straight out of the ancient Old Testament:
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<<And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.>>
[Source: Book of Genesis, 1:26, Christian Bible, Old Testament]
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The ‘Dominion Theology’ worldview of Nature
It’s there to be used, feared, exploited, persecuted, poached, butchered, eaten, enslaved, raped, shot, hacked, played with as sport, made extinct.
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Fraser Island heritage avoids Conservation
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Pure Fraser Island
[Source: Australian Geographic,
^http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/view-image.htm?index=8&gid=9642]
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Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, was afforded UNESCO World Heritage status because it satisfied the following three selection criteria:
Superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance (Natural Criterion 7)
Outstanding examples which represent major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features (Natural Criterion 8 )
Outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals (Natural Criterion 9)
Despite these recognise over-arching natural values, tourism and its negative impacts have been allowed to snowball in visitation volume since heritage listing in 1992, while custodial management has allowed the same values to deteriorate.
What has been conspicuously overlooked is proper recognition of Fraser Island’s status under UNESCONatural Criterion 10, for surely Fraser Island ‘contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.’
The custodianship of such valuable World Heritage properties across Australia is the ultimate responsibility of the Australian Government.
While Australia’s World Heritage properties are legally protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), conveniently responsibility for that protection is rather half-hearted since the Australian Government delegates management of all of them to the lesser state governments, which have considerably less resources and demonstrably less interest in delivering UNESCO-standard ecological conservation management.
The Queensland Government for instance, currently lumps Fraser Island management under its Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing. Clearly, the attitude of the Queensland Government to World Heritage and National Parks under its custodial responsibility exists for human recreational benefit and enjoyment – along with sport and racing.
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Fraser Island’s Record of Exploitation
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Prior to 1992, Fraser Island was industrially abused; mined for minerals and sand (1966-1989) and logged for old growth Turpentine timber (Syncarpia glomulifera) for over 130 years.
[Read: >‘Impacts of Logging on Fraser Island’]
Fraser Island’s ecosystems (its rainforests, Wallum woodlands, freshwater dune lakes and coastal dunes) came close to irreversible annihilation by over-exploitation by these two industries and condoned for such by successive Queensland governments.
Since logging and mining were stopped (only from international embarrassment), Queensland’s Tourism Industry has been supplanted as Fraser Island’s main threat, yet consistently encouraged and funded doggedly by a 20th Century mindset Queensland Government.
Wild Dingo Australia’s native top order predator
promoted by the Queensland Government as a tourism drawcard to Fraser Island
culled by the Queensland Government from 300 down to just 100 individuals
shot by the Queensland Government if ‘aggressive’ (wild)
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<<Fraser Island tourism has been burgeoning for decades. In 1971 the number of visitors to Fraser Island doubled from 5,000 in the previous year to 10,000 as a result of the publicity surrounding the sandmining controversy. It has steadily increased ever since. By 1999 it had reached over 300,000 visitors.>>
Current statistics for Fraser Island visitation are not readily published by the Queensland Government, but it is estimated that around 500,000 visitors, many from overseas, visit Fraser Island each year. [Source: ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, 2009, by Nick Alexander, in Ecos Magazine, ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/view/journals/ECOS_Print_Fulltext.cfm?f=EC151p18]
Hummers catering for Bevan Tourism– on Fraser Island
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<<For Lake McKenzie (Fraser Island) in particular, extremely high visitation levels over the course ofsummer are ultimately likely to influence the ecology of the system, particularly if a considerable proportion ofvisitors add nutrients to the lake, either through urination, washing or bathing activities (Strasinger 1994, Butleret al. 1996).>>
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[Source: ‘Effects of Tourism on Fraser Island Dune Lakes‘, 2004, by Wade Hadwen et al. Read the complete paper below under the heading ‘Read more about Tourism Impacts on Fraser Island‘]
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The Four Main Adverse Impacts of Tourism on Fraser Island
Certain Fraser Island areas are identified and marketed by tourist interests with the result that they draw tourists to them like bees to a honey pot even to the extent that they become needlessly degraded and overused. Eli Creek, Lake McKenzie and Central Station are such sites.
Daily hundreds of tourists from the Noosa area spend needless hours to drive past equally outstanding natural features in the Cooloola National Park so that commercial tour operators can capitalize on the “marketing of these well-known products”. This focus is unsustainable.
Such sites are being overused and yet tourists are reluctant to be redirected to other alternative areas which could sustain some increase in visitation.
Tourist saturation of Eli Creek, Fraser Island(Dingo habitat designated off-limits to Dingoes)
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2. Means of Access
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Once tourism becomes established, it is difficult to change.
Tourist guide books tend to be based upon past experience. Recommendations to intending visitors are largely based on such past practice. Thus although there are better ways to see Fraser Island than in largely lumbering four wheel drive buses or self of four wheel drive vehicles, this method of visitation has become so entrenched that it is difficult to change.
The most serious adverse environmental impacts now being experienced on Fraser Island are result of this form of transportation.
Ban 4WDs from Fraser IslandChange the 20th Century culture!
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3. “Traditional” Visitation Practices
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It takes very little time for modern society to claim that certain practices are so “traditional” that practitioners claim they can’t be changed.
This has been used by commercial fishers to demand to camp in the same site contrary to the Recreation Areas Management Act and to have vehicular access to beaches closed to other vehicular traffic.
Likewise the “tradition” of free range camping has become so entrenched that although this practice has been shown to be unsustainable there is a reluctance to phase it out despite compelling evidence that this form of tourism should be ended. Similar conservatism allows Fraser Island tourists to continue to squander resources and degrade the environment through open camp-fires.
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4. Surface Disturbance
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On Fraser Island, the impact of surface disturbance of any sort is more critical than most other natural areas which have a much more robust substrate (ground surface).
The susceptibility of the substrate to any disturbance magnifies the impacts of tourism on Fraser Island more than most other natural areas. (Coral reefs and semi-arid areas with cryptobionic crusts may be as susceptible to disturbance). The reason for this fragility is due to the fact that exposed sand surfaces in vegetated areas of Fraser Island have a very high degree of water repellence which makes them very susceptible to water erosion. Vegetated sand surfaces are much less susceptible.
If the visitors can be carried in such a way that they do not disturb the substrate surface by such means as board walks or by light rail, then the surface disturbance and thus the environmental impact of visitation is contained and reduced.>>
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Further Tourism Impacts
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5. Erosion of Wilderness Values
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Tourism erodes wilderness values through its infrastructure — motor vehicles, roads, modern buildings and the sounds of modern engines. The increasing penetration of more people into parts of the island previously exempt from intense visitation erodes wilderness. Aircraft overflying remoter parts of Fraser Island and other intrusive modern noise also erodes wilderness values.
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6. Spread of Injurious Agents
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Injurious agencies which impact on other values of Fraser Island include the spread of weeds, feral animals and pests, new pathogens, wild fires and litter. Tourism has the potential to facilitate the introduction and spread of these injurious agencies. In the end the impact of injurious agencies resulting from tourism have a greater potential to degrade Fraser Island than some other industries.
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7. Diversion of Management Resources
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Managing tourism is responsible for diverting much of Fraser Island’s very limited resources from natural resource management (control of fires, weeds, feral animals etc. and resource monitoring) to recreation management (including access, waste management, behaviour control, provision of infrastructure, maintenance for roads, etc.). Tourism produces a great deal of waste and human waste and this is resulting in some water pollution particularly as a result of inadequate treatment of sewage.
Increasing numbers of tourists also impede natural resource management strategies such as fire and dingo management because of the high priority given to public safety and property protection over resource management and protection.
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8. Perversion of political priorities
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Pandering to perceived tourist demands has resulted in political decisions which have over-ridden the Management Plan for Fraser Island such as relocating the Toyota Fishing Expo and reopening the dangerous Orchid Beach airstrip. Many politicians are motivated more by pursuing popularity than with implementing a Management Plan which some vocal dissidents with vested interests disagree with.
A Queensland Tourism ideal imagefor Fraser Island Maximising 4WD tourist numbers!
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Motor Vehicle Impacts
4WD road widening of Fraser Island
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The impact of four wheel drives on Fraser Island is extremely significant; affecting roads, wildlife, habitat and recreation amenity.
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9. Roads
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The largest impact is on the roads. Road traffic accelerates erosion. During every heavy downpour of rain thousands of tonnes of sand wash off the roads to fill lake basins and streams with sediment and smother many natural habitats. In February 1999, over two metres of sand was deposited at the intersection of the Pile Valley and Wanggoolba Creek Road burying a large stump. Sand from adjacent roads is being sluiced into Lake McKenzie, Lake Allom, Lake Boomanjin, Lake Birrabeen and more.
Opening of the canopy over the roads results in desiccation resulting in considerable changes to the micro-flora and a reduction of ^epiphyte numbers.
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10. Impacts on Wildlife
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Back in 1991, when Fraser Island was listed for its natural world heritage values, its Dingo population was about 300 individuals and believed to be ‘the largest genetically
unhybridised population on the east coast of Australia.
But Bevan Tourism saw increasing numbers of young families recklessly venturing into the wild Dingo’s habitat and feeding grounds. During one of the busy tourist holiday times, Christmas summer holidays, a young child was mauled by a dingo, and an ignorant vengeful media campaigned to demonise the Dingo. The media venom fabricated the term ‘Dingo Superpack‘.
During the following six years, the Queensland Government ordered the killing of over a hundred Dingoes on Fraser Island. In 2001, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Clinton Gage, was fatally mauled by a Dingo, which sparked another media Dingo witch-hunt, and a further 32 Dingoes were killed within a matter of a few weeks by the Queensland Government.
An infant (4 years old) was badly bitten by a Dingo on Fraser Island in April 2007 and another 3 year in April 2011. Both incidents occurred during the popular Bevan Tourism Easter holidays. Both involved irresponsible parents. In July 2012, a drunken German tourist, sleeping it off alone on an isolated bush track at night, was attacked by a Dingo. He was part of Bevan Tourist group organised by the Rainbow Beach Adventure Company.
Despite the protection status of the Dingo in its native habitat in a listed World Heritage Area, the Queensland Government has ignored the wildlife values and rights in favour of perpetuating Bevan Tourism rights. It has become standard management practice for the Queensland Government’s Parks and Wildlife Service to shoot kill any ‘aggressive’ animal or animal that ‘shows no fear of humans’ – that is, Dingoes.
Dingo pup tagged by rangers on Fraser Island, November 2012
Another ear permanently damaged
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Since 2009, researcher Dr Luke Leung from Queensland University, has feared the population has been reduced to around 100 animals and their genetic viability over the long term is being compromised.
In addition, shore bird numbers have been decimated by the unchecked growth of four wheel drive beach traffic. Oyster catchers, Red-capped dotterels and Beach thick-knees have been most affected.
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11. Eroding Habitat
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Roads occupy space, a space which takes a long time to revegetate after the roads cease to be used. Roads also act as barriers to the movement of wildlife. Distribution of many ant species and frogs is affected by roads. Some won’t cross roads to identical habitat on the other side.
As a consequence of habitat destruction, the availability of natural prey of the Dingo, such as bandicoots, rats, echidnas, fish, turtles and skinks, has declined. Dingoes have been forced to scavenge around tourist campsites for human food and garbage. Tourists ignorantly feeding Dingoes has encouraged Dingoes to become less independent upon reduced natural prey and more dependent on tourists, which has adversely altered the natural food chain only the island.
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12. Pollution
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Now there evidence is starting to appear that vegetation adjacent to “black holes” in the roads is suffering.
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13. Noise
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The aesthetic impact of noise is well known and understood yet it is largely ignored. The impact of the noise from traffic on the road above Wanggoolba Creek on the walking track beside this icon of Fraser Island significantly degrades this experience.
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14. Distortion of Priorities
Populist politicians condone novel commerce ahead of novel solutions
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Because so much of Fraser Island tourism is vehicle based, roads have been cannibalistic, consuming a disproportionate share all the financial and staff resources.
This stopped any progress towards a walking track management plan for the island for more than six years. Vehicle based tourism has also been responsible for preventing closing tracks due to be closed under the Management Plan for more than 6 years. Preoccupation with roads has stalled progress towards the establishment of a more ecologically sustainable light rail proposal.>>
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[Sources: ‘Values of Fraser Island Tourism’, Fraser Island Defenders Organisation (FIDO), ^http://www.fido.org.au/values-of-fraser-tourism.html; ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, 2009, by Nick Alexander, in Ecos Magazine, CSIRO Publishing, Australia. ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/view/journals/ECOS_Print_Fulltext.cfm?f=EC151p18]
<<In light of the rapidly growing tourism industry in the region, excessive tourist use of the dune lakes on Fraser Island could deleteriously affect their ecology and in turn, their aesthetic appeal to tourists. The findings from this research study suggest that the current level of tourist pressure on the perched dune lakes on Fraser Island is likely to have a significant long-term impact on the ecological health of these systems.>> [>Read Report 830kb, PDF]
This ‘Godzilla’ bus especially caters for Bevans to Fraser Island
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Day-to-day management and protection of the World Heritage property is carried out by the Queensland Government’s Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing’s – Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS). Much of their focus and activities is with accommodating the interests of tourists, not with respecting the viability, health of the Island’s important ecosystems, fauna and flora.
The Queensland Government has a revolving record of failed conservation management plans and strategies, reviewed and replaced since the Fraser Island Management Plan of 1975. This includes revisions in 1978, 1986, 1991, 2001, and 2006. The current strategy dated 2001 is termed the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy (FIDMS).
The overall objectives of the Dingo Management Strategy are to:
Ensure the conservation of a sustainable wild dingo population on Fraser Island (Ed: numbers not specified, Dingo recovery programme non-existent)
Reduce the risk to humans (Ed: kill native Dingoes if deemed ‘aggressive’ or ‘showing no fear of humans’)
Provide visitors with safe opportunities to view dingoes in environment in near as possible to their natural state (Ed: exploit native Dingoes and their habitat for the benefit of wildlife-based tourism revenue)
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The current Dingo Management Strategy includes a deliberate Dingo persecution set of directives:
Strategy 4: Programs will be implemented to modify dingo behaviour and habits which threaten human safety and wellbeing.
Strategy 5: Any dingo identified as dangerous will be destroyed humanely using accepted methods after receiving appropriate approvals.
Strategy 6: A cull to a sustainable level may be undertaken if research can show the population is not in balance.
A pure Dingo’s cruel fate
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“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.”
~ Chief Crowfoot (c.1821-1890) of the SikSika Nation of southern Alberta, Canada.
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Implementation of the current Dingo Management Strategy prescribes “direct management of dingoes (destruction of individuals or prescribed culling)…implemented if supported
by the results of research and/or in situations where risks to human life or safety are unacceptably high and cannot be diminished through alternative measures.
Responsibilities of the dingo management Rangers include:
Public contact to inform Island visitors of appropriate behaviour concerning dingoes
Enforcement of dingo-related regulations
Monitoring and recording the status of dingo packs in their management unit (photographic records)
When authorised, the trapping and destruction of problem dingoes
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Andrew Powell MP, purely for the Media Queensland Government’s current Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection
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“People…especially people in positions of power…have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently.”
~ David Suzuki
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‘Island Playground’ dictates Dingo Culling
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2009: ‘Residents protest Fraser Island dingo cull’
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<<Hervey Bay residents met last night and called for an end to the hazing and culling of dingos on Fraser Island. Submissions to the review of the State Government’s dingo management strategy closes next week. Seven dingos have been killed this year compared to three last year. The Opposition’s climate change and sustainability spokesman Glen Elmes says the Government needs to listen to the community.
“We have a situation where the current system and the planning that’s put place to deal with dingos on Fraser Island is all wrong – that’s not me swanning in for half an hour and making that statement. We had a meeting in Hervey Bay last night and we listened to about 30 locals, who represented not only the indigenous community but concerned locals from both the mainland and the island.”>>
<<Rangers on Fraser Island have destroyed another dingo at Cathedral Beach, but the K’Gari camp dog ‘Inky‘ still eludes them.
QPWS has decided to bring in a hired gun, a trapper, to destroy this animal. Is this the future of Fraser Island? Residents and visitors are encouraged to throw sticks, shout and kick sand at the animals and to ‘dob in a dingo‘. Some residents have even been advised to shoot them with a slingshot. There is no responsibility placed upon parents who leave children unsupervised or visitors who harass the animals, no fines or penalties, but the dingo pays the ultimate penalty and is destroyed.
The Regional Manager, Ross Belcher, admits the camp dog did not bite anyone, nor did the animal that was recently destroyed, but it has a destruction order because of a complaint by tourists who are considered unreliable and have no understanding of dingo behaviour.
This dingo has been wounded, has a mangled ear due to an infected ear tag and as a result is very wary. Therefore it would seem QPWS has achieved its aim of making the animal fearful of people, why then do they continue their campaign of search and destroy?
Locals lament a time when the dingoes could roam free and occasionally steal a fish or grab a towel from an unsuspecting tourist, it was all part of the Fraser Island experience, but now that animal would be considered dangerous and destroyed.
Unless the Management Strategy review finds in favour of the dingo and not the tourist dollar, the persecution and harassment will continue until there are no longer any animals remaining, this is the legacy of Fraser Island.>>
[Source: ‘Dingo eludes Fraser Island rangers..’, October 2012, by Cheryl Bryant, Save Fraser Island Dingoes Inc., ]
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Queensland Government Rangers ‘hazing‘ a Dingo pup in its native Fraser Island habitat
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‘Hazing’?
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<<Hazing is harassment, where you disturb the animal’s sense of security to such an extent that it decides to move on.
To be effective, harassment must be continuous, concentrated, and caustic, just like torture.
Always remember that you are trying to convince an animal to leave its home or food source. In short, you must become the animal’s worst neighbor. You must convince the animal that you are more bothersome than the possibility of starvation or homelessness.
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I. Continuous Harassment
You must harass the animal on a daily basis for as long as necessary. Don’t be surprised if this activity goes on for weeks.
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II. Concentrated Harassment
Your efforts must focus on the animal causing the problem. For example if you are using noise it must be centered at where the animal is living. Failure to concentrate the harassment technique simply makes the animal get used to the problem because the problem will be everywhere. It’s like living in N.Y. City. You get used to the traffic noise.
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III. Caustic Harassment
The harassment technique must be bothersome to the animal. The greater the discomfort to the animal the faster the technique will develop results. Warning: when you harass an animal there are no guarantees where it will decide to take up residence next. It is not out of the question that a raccoon, upon leaving your chimney will decide to enter your attic.>>
[3] ‘Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy‘, November 2001, Environmental Protection Agency – Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS), Queensland Government, ^http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/register/p00500aa.pdf [>Read Strategy]
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[4] ‘Review of The Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy – Terms of Reference‘, Department of Environment and Heritage Protection,
[8] Wildlife Protection Association of Australia Inc. (WPAA), PO Box 309, Beerwah, Queensland Australia, 4519, President: Pat O’Brien, ^http://www.wildlifeprotectaust.org.au/
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[9] Coalition for Wildlife Corridors, Kindness House, 2nd Floor, 288 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065, Victoria, Australia, (no website found)
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[10] ‘ If they could talk to the animals…‘, book by Jonathan Knight, in Nature, Vol.414, pp.246-247, (no website found)
<<Many present-day Australians see the dingo as a threat and a pest to human production systems. An alternative viewpoint, which is more in tune with Indigenous culture, allows others to see the dingo as a means to improve human civilisation. The dingo has thus become trapped between the status of pest animal and totemic creature. This book helps readers to recognise this dichotomy, as a deeper understanding of dingo behaviour is now possible through new technologies which have made it easier to monitor their daily lives.
Recent research on genetic structure has indicated that dingo ‘purity’ may be a human construct and the genetic relatedness of wild dingo packs has been analysed for the first time. GPS telemetry and passive camera traps are new technologies that provide unique ways to monitor movements of dingoes, and analyses of their diet indicate that dietary shifts occur during the different biological seasons of dingoes, showing that they have a functional role in Australian landscapes.
Dingo brings together more than 50 years of observations to provide a comprehensive portrayal of the life of a dingo. Throughout this book dingoes are compared with other hypercarnivores, such as wolves and African wild dogs, highlighting the similarities between dingoes and other large canid species around the world.>>
An Ecologically Respectful Custodial Strategy for Fraser Island (by FIDO).
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<<For more than 28 years, the Fraser Island Defenders Organization has been researching the management of Fraser Island to be in the best position to advocate the wisest use of its natural resources. The organization has a longer history associated with the management than any other organization, including the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and its predecessors.
The Fraser Island Defenders Organization has studied and considered the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy prepared by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and this submission is a response to that document released in April, 1999.
This organization has examined Draft Dingo Management Strategy and recommends some very important issues which need to be recognized and also some significant changes which need to be made to the actions.
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1. FIDO wants the genetic status of Fraser Island dingoes recognized and protected.
2. Dingoes should be allowed to remain free to roam in the wild on Fraser Island.
3. The strategy should address all of the issues relating to the dingo population, including the characteristics, and the changes during the past century.
4. There is a need to review the population dynamics of Fraser Island dingoes to ensure that the island environment is managed to achieve an optimum dingo population. This needs to recognize that historically there was a much higher population on Fraser Island.
5. Dingoes should not suffer because of the intervention of humans which have induced changed behaviour.
6. A humane system of tagging should be established and all Fraser Island dingoes should be individually identified to provide more precise data on the actual population numbers and to assist in further research on animal behaviour.
7. The strategy should recognize how environmental changes during the last century on Fraser Island have impacted on dingoes and move to minimize these impacts.
8. The QPWS should develop a code of conduct which not only outlaws feeding of dingoes but also one which stops people encouraging dingoes to approach closer than 10 metres to be photographed thus encouraging them to loose their wariness of humans.
9. FIDO generally supports the first four recommendations of the Draft Dingo Management Strategy but is opposed to the recommendations for relocation, destruction, and culling.
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1. Significant Omissions
There are a number of significant omission in the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy. The most important omission seems to be a clear objective for the strategy. Other omissions relate to the history of the dingo on Fraser Island, the significance and genetic purity of the dingoes on Fraser Island, the status of dingoes and the impact of environmental changes during the last 100 years.
1.1 The need for a clear objective: The Strategy should clearly state its objective. Without such an objective being clearly and publicly stated implementations of the final three recommendations could result in the extermination of the dingoes on Fraser Island. Is it to protect people from harassment by dingoes or is it to protect the animals? Is it to be an outcome that the genetic strain of Fraser Island dingo is only to be preserved in a zoo or behind barriers or is it to ensure that dingoes are to be allowed to roam wild on Fraser Island?
At present the objective could be construed only as stopping dingoes attacking humans.
The Fraser Island Defenders Organization believes the Final Management Strategy should carry wording such as:
“The biologically importance of the Fraser Island dingo strain is a value which must be preserved in as pure a form as possible. The fact that dingoes have lived on Fraser Island in the wild for thousands of years makes it important that the dingoes are allowed to roam as wild and unconfined animals on Fraser Island.
“The object of this strategy is predicated by the need to ensure that a viable wild population of dingos is maintained on Fraser Island.”
1.2.1 History: The bibliography of the Draft Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy fails to include any reference to any material relating to dingoes prior to 1994. The Draft Strategy doesn’t refer to any material from early in the Century which would give the current situation a different perspective. FIDO believes that this is a significant omission because it fails to give a proper perspective to the current dingo management problems on Fraser Island.
In 1976, FIDO began formally collecting and recording oral history from veterans whose memory of Fraser Island extended back as far as 1905 (Jules Tardent). This collection of historical perspectives has continued since. In all of FIDO’s questioning, there was never any mention of dingoes attacking humans. There were also many reports that dingoes were afraid of humans.
1.2.2 Past Populations: All accounts appear to support the claims that the dingo population on Fraser Island in the early part of the 20th Century was much higher. This needs to be compared with the current estimated “population of 25 to 30 packs peaks at approximately 200 animals during whelping in June-July” which is stated in the draft strategy.
1.2.3 Past population estimates: While all estimates are very subjective were likely to have greatly exceeded 1,000. In personal conversations Rollo Petrie puts the population around 1915 to 1922 as possibly up to 2,000. In “Early Days on Fraser Island — 1913-1922″, he provides a theory of why he believed that the dingo numbers built up rapidly when they no longer had to compete with the Aboriginal population of 2,000 to 3,000 for food.
Petrie refers to comparative number (pp 59-60). He refers to numbers: “(Available food) would not be as plentiful now if there was an equivalent number of dogs on Fraser Island, as in the early 1900’s. The few dingoes now live comfortably on scraps …” Further on he reports: “George Jackson on a trip to Indian Head, found a freshly shot stallion on the beach a few miles south of Indian Head. George … poisoned the carcass and then camped not far away. Next morning he had 100 scalps and not a great deal of the horse was left.”
1.2.4 Relevance of historical dingo population: The significance of the size of Fraser Island’s dingo population in the past is important because it reflects on the carrying capacity in the past. It would seem to indicate that environmental changes are responsible for a diminution of the island’s carrying capacity for dingoes.
Other aspects of dingo numbers are important because most geneticists would regard a population of 100 on an island, isolated from other genetic sources as a very risky. This will be discussed further below as that has major implications for management.
1.3.1 Significance of Fraser Island Dingoes: The significance of the genetic purity and the importance of the Fraser Island Dingo population is significantly understated in the Draft Strategy. The Draft (Para 2) only states, “Fraser Island dingoes … are likely to be the purest strain of dingoes on the eastern Australia seaboard.” Nowhere else does the strategy even refer to the fact that such an important gene pool needs to be protected and perpetuated.
It is FIDO’s submissions that the genetic significance of the Fraser Island dingo strain justifies all efforts to protect and preserve this gene pool.
1.3.2 Preserving the Gene Pool: Assuming that the population peak of 200 is accurate, this is a very small gene pool on which to base a program for further reducing that gene pool. It is more worrying in the context that on anecdotal evidence the population has significantly declined over the past 8 decades.
If the numbers drop below “100 animals when breeding recommences”, as the draft strategy states, then the viability of the gene pool is at risk.
The significance of this special genetic purity of the Fraser Island dingo seems to have been overlooked in the final 3 actions recommended in the draft management strategy which refer to relocation destroying and culling. FIDO is therefore strongly opposed to these three actions.
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2. Keeping dingoes in the wild
2.1 Keeping Dingoes in the Wild: There is little acknowledgment that dingoes have a right to remain on Fraser Island in the wild. This is an a very important principle. It is not stated in any objective.
Dingoes have roamed free on Fraser Island probably since they first appeared in Australia which is at least thousands of years. Therefore, dingoes have a right to continue to roam freely over the island within the constraints of any wild animal which has learnt to be wary of other predators such as humans in their natural environment.
2.2 Saving a wild population in the wild: This organization does not want to see the Fraser Island dingo gene pool preserved only in wildlife parks or zoos or in special enclosures on Fraser Island. The establishment of large dingo free areas while it could be administratively convenient would be unacceptable. However, having said that this organization believes that it is important to try to ensure that dingoes do not become dependent on humans. Therefore they should be discouraged from areas where there is likely to be unnatural close interactions with humans. FIDO therefore would like to see more attempt made to deter dingoes from frequenting the settlements and camping areas such as Central Station and Lake McKenzie.
FIDO is vigourously opposed to any form of enclosure and artificial feeding programs. This is only encouraging a naturalized animals to behave unnaturally. Furthermore the Thylacines became extinct because they were hunters and would not accept being fed in a zoo. While dingoes are opportunistic feeders and will accept any handouts, it is still unnatural to hand feed them.
The loss of dingoes in the wild on Fraser Island would represent a much greater tragedy than the loss of the European wolves, because whereas wolves threatened humans in their domestic circumstances, Fraser Island dingoes only represent threats to humans in their recreation. We see the need to recognize and state these principles categorically in the final form of the management strategy.
Recommendation: In view of the above FIDO urges that a new section be written into the Strategy which addresses all of the issues relating to dingo population, the characteristics, the changes during the past century, and the need to maintain a viable population in the wild.
3. Population
We need a much better idea of the Fraser Island dingo population. We need to know the dynamics of reproduction and replacement rates, distribution of the population, the degree of interbreeding and an understanding of the reasons for any changes.
3.1 Accurate data needed: Because of the apparently critical size of the gene pool, there is an urgent need to have more precise information about the current population both in a macro and a micro sense.
More detailed work is needed to accurately determine:
(a) the current population in total,
(b) the distribution,
(c) the annual loss deaths of marked animals,
(d) the recruitment of new animals to the population on an annual basis and
(e) the identity of individual animals to that their behaviour can be observed.
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3.2 Tagging: We believe that it is necessary to have a more precise estimate of numbers on Fraser Island even if this may mean tagging of every individual. This would then enable a better understanding of the numbers and the distribution and assist in identifying individuals.
The process of tagging also has other potential implications for dingo management which are discussed below. Depending on how it is done it could help reinstate a greater caution of humans and encourage them to keep their distance. This organization is aware that the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service tagged every crocodile in the East Alligator River as part of its program to better manage the largest single population of estuarine crocodiles in the world. If it was possible to tag every crocodile in this part of Kakadu 20 years ago, it should be possible to tag the estimated 100 dingoes on Fraser Island before whelping. The results of that tagging which was done almost 20 years ago continues to yield valuable research results in helping understand the behaviour of those animals. We believe that crocodiles are a more dangerous and difficult animal to catch and tag than dingoes and therefore this should be a priority task to any ongoing research program.
Recommendation: A humane system of tagging should be established. All dingoes on Fraser Island should be tagged to enable them to be readily identified. The objective of tagging would be also to provide more precise data on the actual population numbers and to assist in further research on animal behaviour.
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4. Environmental Changes
The Draft dingo management strategy makes no reference to the environmental changes which have occurred on Fraser Island during the last century. A reference to old photographs and Petrie’s Fraser Island memoirs will show that there have been very significant environmental changes to the whole island during the past 80 years. Petrie’s observations are confirmed by all people who knew Fraser Island before the 1930s. These observations are also borne out by photographic evidence.
It is FIDO’s belief that these environmental changes have very significantly impacted on the dingo food sources.
4.1 Understorey changes: In “Early Days on Fraser Island 1913-1922”, Petrie described a number of changes. He described the lack of understorey on the island. Evidence of this is demonstrated by the number of horses which the island accommodated. Petrie estimated numbers as high as 2000.
With the change in the fire regime the understorey has caused not only the loss of grass but also the loss of a number of small mammals such as bandicoots. For example, “Bandicoots were fairly plentiful in the 1915 to 1920s in the Wanggoolba area,” Petrie said.
4.2 Changes to the traditional Fire Regime: FIDO attributes the loss of habitat of small mammals, which would have been traditional dingo food, to the changes away from the traditional Aboriginal burning regime. There is strong evidence to link the growth of the dense woody understorey, and in turn the reduction in small mammal population, (and in turn the decline of Fraser Island’s dingo population) with the absence of fire particularly in the tall forest where fire was deliberately excluded for more than a century.
Recommendation: FIDO believes that Fire Management Plan for Fraser Island to return the island to a habitat which is more suitable for small mammals and in turn for dingoes should be developed and implemented as a matter of the highest priority
4.3 Tradition hunting on beaches: Petrie also said that then dingoes used to eat wongs (eugaries) from the beach and fractured shells were regularly found in dingo droppings. It is apparent the use of the beach by so much beach traffic has denied this source of food to dingoes and / or they have lost this traditional hunting skill.
FIDO believes that some more research should be undertaken to identify ways which would encourage dingoes back to this traditional food sources such as wongs from the beach.
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5. Modifying the Animal Behaviour
The major problem seems to result from the changed behaviour of animals to humans. FIDO contends that to a large extent this changed behaviour is human induced. In this section, FIDO focusses on what needs to be done to modify animal behaviour.
5.1 Domestic Animals Attacked: Petrie and others referred to the fact that domestic animals were vulnerable to dingo attacks. “I have seen working bullocks bogged in the peat swamps. … The dingoes started eating them from the rear.” (p59) and “… my horse Moses was freshly bogged and already dingoes were circling around him…” (p 60) The writer has recorded oral history of dingos cornering brumbies in the surf. There are many stories of dingoes attacking and eating domestic dogs in the 1970s until domestic dogs were banned from Fraser Island. However, despite the predatory behaviour of dingoes towards other mammals, there are no records or reports of dingoes representing threats to humans on Fraser Island.
5.2 Loss of Fear of Humans: FIDO attributes the recent behaviour of dingoes to the fact that dingoes have lost their fear or wariness of humans. That the change dingo attitude is apparent from this recorded Petrie anecdote: “Recently when I camped out on the island, I heard something close by. I sat up in my swag. In the moonlight, I saw two dingoes about 15 feet away. I picked up a bit of wood and tossed it towards them. The dogs trotted to the stick and smelt it. It was a far cry from the days when they would have fled at my first move.” (p 60) Similar stories were reported by other early visitors to Fraser Island.
5.3 Problem Not Confined to Fraser Island: This behaviour change has only happened in the last fifteen years but the boldness of the dingoes continues to grow manifesting itself into an increasingly serious problem. The problem is coincidental with changes to dingo behaviour in other Australian National Parks with significant dingo populations. This was demonstrated by the Azaria Chamberlain case at Uluru. However, similar patterns are now being observed at Kakadu and in Jabiru township where dingoes refuse to be chased away as the writer observed as recently as February, 1999.
5.4 Feeding is Not the Only Problem: The Draft Management Strategy makes a case for feeding dingoes as the main reason that dingoes have lost their fear. FIDO has reason to believe that it is not only feeding which has transformed dingo behaviour. Dingoes have been fed by humans on Fraser Island for at least 50 years in the writers experience. Ignoring the past history is to overlook the underlying cause for this quite dramatic change in behaviour from one of wariness of humans to one of boldness.
5.5 Tagging to aid research: As mentioned above, if there are only 100 animals now left on Fraser Island, then tagging every animal is not an insurmountable problem and it will greatly assist identifying rogue animals and in studying animal behaviour. It should be noted that on Maria Island where detailed studies are made of the Tasmanian native hens, every animal in the vicinity of Darlington is tagged and these tags are observed to identify individuals when studying behaviour. The whole estuarine crocodile population in the east Alligator River section of Kakadu National Park was also caught and tagged.
5.6 Tagging to Discourage Approaching Humans: Normally animals who are trapped are very wary of approaching humans again. This is particularly true of cats, foxes and dingoes. However, some animals welcome the gentle treatment after trapping and back up again and again to be caught. The trapping must be done humanely but in ways which dramatically increases the wariness of approaching humans. Each animal should be trapped and tagged in ways which subsequently discourage them from approaching too close to humans.
5.7 Destroying Rogues: As indicated above, this organization is opposed to the destruction of rogues. We are more alarmed because by our estimates more than 30 animals have been destroyed over recent years. This great loss to the population has not diminished the occurrence of dingo attacks on humans.
While destruction of rogues is a recognized short term solution such methodology should have been carrying out with more foresight. For example if others in the pack saw a rogue approaching a human or the human approaching the rogues and then seeing the rogue die, this would be soon communicated widely amongst dingos. Instead, in some cases such as following a Happy Valley attack, whole packs were eliminated.
Nothing was gained from this slaughter other than creating a territory soon taken up by other animals which were not witness to the killing of their reasons. Thus, FIDO can’t support such a counter-productive spontaneous reaction.
5.8 Identifying Humans with Unpleasant Outcomes: It is important that when reprisals do occur all animals are able to identify humans with the unwelcome outcome. This will help to reinstate the wariness of humans.
While aversion baits might be important to discourage scavenging for food scraps, this program is unlikely to ensure that dingoes to keep their distance from humans or even attacking them. However, we accept that aversion baiting may reduce scavenging.
5.9 Use of repellents: This organization supports more research to find and develop more effective dingo ultrasonic deterrents. If this is successful they should be used at all significant places where humans congregate such as Lake McKenzie, Central Station and the urban centres to try to keep dingoes out of these places.
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6. Changing Human Behaviour
The Dingo-Human interaction part of the Strategy should identify the two distinct aspects of the problem. Just as important as causing dingo behaviour to revert to its previous pattern, the public must be better educated by both carrot and stick to recognize that every human has a responsibility to ensure that dingoes keep their distance.
6.1 Camera enticements: FIDO considers that the most overlooked factor has been the fact that dingoes have been increasingly enticed to come closer and pose for the cameras. This enticing of dingoes to approach humans without fear is quite deliberately saying to the animals that they have nothing to fear from humans. FIDO believes that this is even more subtle than feeding the animals as a form of changing animal behaviour and it should be stopped. The change in dingo behaviour to humans seems to occur only on national park and areas where there is no threats to the animals. The increase in the frequency of photography of the animals seems to have contributed significantly.
Recommendation: The QPWS should develop a code of conduct which not only outlaws feeding of dingoes but also one which stops people encouraging dingoes to approach closer than 10 metres to be photographed. This should be enforced with vigour.
6.2 The Blind Eye: It is true that feeding has been a factor but it is also true that a blind eye has been frequently turned towards the feeding of dingoes. On every occasion the author has spent more than 5 days he has observed someone feeding dingoes.
FIDO therefore support the recommendation in the Draft Dingo Management Strategy that feeding will be prohibitted. We just hope it will be pursued with more determination than we have observed in the past.
6.3 More active Interest from the QPWS: This organization also believes that more concern needs to be taken of the reports of dingo attacks on humans. In 1996, the writer’s sister who has been visiting Fraser Island for more than 30 years was subject to an unprovoked attack by an animal on the beach as she was walking alone near the surf edge. She reported it to the Eurong Visitor’s Centre to a completely disinterested staff and she is not even sure that any record was made of her report.
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7. Destruction, Culling and Relocation
This Organization supports the first four recommendations of the Draft Dingo Management Strategy in principle with some modifications and revision in the light of the above submissions. We particularly believe that more research is warranted to understand the behaviour patterns of particular animals.
FIDO though is opposed to the last three recommendation options in the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy, relocation, destruction, and culling. These have all been used regularly over the last five years without any significant benefit in improved dingo behaviour. In fact the dingo behaviour has if anything changed to the dingoes becoming even bolder. While such measures may assuage the injured feelings of the public immediately after any attack by dingoes on humans, it has been demonstrated over the years that they provide no long term improvement in animal behaviour.
Therefore on practical as well as humane grounds, FIDO is opposed to these measures. However, more significantly, in view of the size of the dingo gene pool on Fraser Island of just 100 breeding animals, we do not believe that these measures can be justified on conservation grounds. The preservation of genetic diversity must be one of the foremost objectives of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Thus we are opposed to further reducing the gene pool of Fraser Island’s pure dingoes.
The Fraser Island dingo should not become like the European bears, wolves, and an number of other wild creatures which culled to the point of extinction outside zoos and a few isolated populations because they competed with human populations.>>
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Ed: When will government grow up and become wise, accept its stewardship, plan long term and slow down?
McIntyres Hut Bushfire in Brindabella National Park, New South Wales, 8th January 2003It was manageable then, but negligently left to burn for days by the Rural Fire Service
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On 8th January 2003, reported lightning strikes had ignited remote fires in the Brindabella National Park inside New South Wales and in Namadgi National Park in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
Ten days later, the McIntyres Hut Bushfire along with the Bendora Bushfire, the Stockyard Spur Bushfire and the Mount Gingera Bushfire, coalesced and burnt out of control into the south-western suburbs of Canberra.
It tragically became The 2003 Canberra Firestorm.
Four people perished
435 people were injured, many suffering horrific burns
487 homes and 23 commercial and government premises were destroyed
215 homes, commercial premises, government premises and outbuildings were damaged
Mount Stromlo observatory (an institution of international renown) was destroyed
An inestimatable number of animals (livestock and wildlife) were killed
Almost 70% of the ACT, some 157,170 hectares were burnt
The ACT Coroner Maria Doogan conducted an inquiry into the cause, origin and circumstances of the bushfires and inquests into the four deaths associated with those fires. On December 2006, her findings: ‘The Canberra Firestorm‘ concluded that “failure to aggressively attack the fires in the first few days after they ignited” was a key factor that led to the firestorm.
Coroner Doogan was also scathing of the ACT’s Emergency Services Bureau (ESB) for:
Failing to attack the fires that had been burning for 10 days before they reached the capital.
Failing to warn residents of the danger early enough, saying this exacerbated the property losses and caused panic and confusion on the day of the firestorm.
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But responsibility for fire suppression inside the Brindabella National Park also lay with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Today ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Terence Higgins has found that the New South Wales Government (Rural Fire Service) was negligent in the way it tackled the January 2003 blaze.
One of the plaintiffs suing the NSW Government, Brindabella landowner Wayne West said today “We have won the case on negligence, the judge has made a decision the fire should have been fought and could have been fought in a different manner, and we win the case at common law.’’
Mr West, along with plaintiffs represented by insurance giant QBE Insurance, have been suing the NSW Government for gross negligence.
But the NSW Rural Fires Act 1997 confers immunity from liability if the Rural Fire Service acted “in good faith”. This means that even though the Rural Fire Service is guilty of gross negligence, it and its members are immune from prosecution for negligence, becase they can hide behind the NSW Rural Fires Act.
So Chief Justice Higgins has ruled in favour of the NSW Government.
“The result I have reached is that the plaintiffs’ claim must, as a matter of law, be denied,” Chief Justice Terence Higgins said today in an 86-page judgment.
“However, but for the express limitations on the liability which otherwise would attach at common law, those plaintiffs who suffered loss or damage would have been entitled to compensation for their losses. Effectively, they are deprived by statute of what would, under the general law, be regarded as just compensation.”
“The legislature has, however, spoken so as to exempt NSW from such liability, and the courts must apply the law as parliament has decreed it.”
The judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the NSW Rural Fire Service embraced an “inadequate and defective strategy. “The question is, however, whether the adoption of that strategy, albeit negligent, was ‘so unreasonable that no authority could properly consider the act of omission to be a reasonable exercise of its functions’.”
The judge identified failures in strategic planning, but made no criticism of the front-line firefighters “at any level”.
Mr West said while the ultimate decision was “devastating” the case was never about the money.
“That fire was allowed to burn, there could have been action taken to prevent the fire escaping or being enticed to escape. The fires shouldn’t have burnt the houses and [caused] the injuries and the four lives in Canberra, that’s what we were here for from day one.’’
When asked what lessons should be taken from the firefighting response Mr West replied:
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“Get in the fire immediately and look at the fire – don’t look at it 50 kilometres away.”
Bushfire Progress – click on image
(The top red patch is the McInture Bushfire inside NSW)
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Alan Conolly, representing the QBE clients, said they would read the judgment and consider their options.
“There’s always, in a case as big as this, there’ll be issues we have to look at, and at the moment we first have to read the judgment and advise our clients,” he said.
West has immediately flagged a decision to challenge this decision and to take that fight to the ACT Court of Appeal.
“We have only fallen over in the courtroom today on an Act the [NSW] government put in place…the state doesn’t have a duty of care to an individual, and that’s where we fell over today”, West said.
The general community has right to expect that government, as the public authority, must be at all times properly diligent in performing its duty it owes to its dependent community. This is perhaps no more so than its implied fiduciary duty to protect the community from harm. Outside the military, the emergency services duty of government – be it police, ambulance, fire, disasterresponse – stands at the forefront of this fiduciary duty because this is where the risk and consequence of harm to thecommunity is greatest. This is the basis of community trust in government and the rule of law, otherwise as a society we resort to ‘every man for himself’ chaos.
Under Division 1, Section 63 of the Rural Fire Act 1997, there is a prescribed duty of the public authority (the Rural Fire Service) to prevent bush fires, and this necessarily includes taking:
“any other practicable steps to prevent the occurrence of bush fires on, and to minimise the danger of the spread of a bush fire on or from any land vested in or under its control or management.“
Allowing the known McIntyre Fire to burn for multiple days without diligent suppression response has been found by the ACT Coroner and the ACT Supreme Court to have been negligent. Since this fire was situated on Crown Land in New South Wales, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service owed a fidicuary duty of care to the community to ensure resource capability, to diligently suppress and properly extinguish the fire, which it fundamentally failed to do.
The Rural Fire Service owed a higher duty of care to the community to properly extinguish the fire, than with other concerns such as cost mitigation by avoiding the cost of aerial suppression. It is a breach of that duty of care when a public authority under-resources and under-performs emergency management response. It is shameful that governments continue to hide behind legislation and volunteers when the risk and consequences of bushfire and wind changes are known. The community has a right to entrust government capability and to trust legislation to serve the bests interests of the community, not the convenience of government bureaucracy.
The McIntyre Fire started off some distance from human settlement and would have been operationally treated as a defacto hazard reduction. It is past time that the high duty of fire fighting to protect life and property extends to protecting the valuable ecological integrity of the community’s national parks. The interface between life, property and national parks has become intertwined and all it takes is a change of wind for bushfire risk to morph from being ‘contained’ to being ‘catastrophic’.
Click above image to play video: ‘Appetite for Destruction: China’s trade in illegal timber’
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China is the World’s Top Buyer of Illegal Timber driving deforestation.
<<BEIJING: China, emergent superpower and the world’s second biggest economy, is effectively standing on the sidelines as its exponential growth devastates forests in a trade worth billions of dollars a year.
In the new report Appetite for Destruction: China’s Trade in Illegal Timber, launched today in Beijing, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reveals that China is now the single largest international consumer of illegal timber, importing wood stolen by organised criminal syndicates on a massive scale.
In the past 10 years, significant progress has been made to protect shrinking forests around the world from the devastating impacts of illegal logging. As major timber-consumers, the United States the European Union and Australia have now taken legislative steps to exclude stolen timber from their markets, while key producer countries such as Indonesia have dramatically improved enforcement against illegal logging.
Yet although China has taken vigorous and laudable steps to protect and re-grow its own forests, it has simultaneously nurtured a vast and ravenous wood processing industry reliant on importing most of its raw materials.
“China is now effectively exporting deforestation around the world,” said Faith Doherty, head of EIA’s Forests Campaign.
“Any further meaningful progress to safeguard the forests of the world is being undermined unless the Chinese Government acts swiftly and decisively to significantly strengthen its enforcement and ensure that illegal timber is barred from its markets.”
EIA investigators has been conducting field investigations into flows of illicit timber, including working undercover and posing as timber buyers, since 2004 in China, Indonesia, Laos, Madagascar, Mozambique, Myanmar, the Russian Far East and Vietnam.
Appetite for Destruction examines the extent and impacts on these countries of China’s voracious consumption, and features several case studies from countries whose forests are being severely depleted.
“This report makes a clear and concise case for action by China,” added Doherty. “The burden of making any further progress in the international fight against deforestation, illegal logging and the criminal networks behind it now rests squarely on its shoulders.”>>
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Chinese have become the worst deforesters on Earth
1. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is a UK-based Non Governmental Organisation and charitable trust (registered charity number 1145359) that investigates and campaigns against a wide range of environmental crimes, including illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging, hazardous waste, and trade in climate and ozone-altering chemicals.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is an independent campaigning organisation committed to bringing about change that protects the natural world from environmental crime and abuse.
Following years in Iraq and Afghanistan, two Australian ex-Special Forces operators set up the IAPF in Zimbabwe. Their frontline now is global conservation.
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IAPF ?
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International Anti Poaching Foundation (IAPF)
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<<Damien Mander had a military career of nine years, three years of which were spent in Iraq. He has invested his life savings including the sale all investment properties to fund the start up and running costs of the IAPF for the first few years.
In 2010 Damien’s long time best mate, Steven Dean, sold up everything and put the funds into the IAPF – moving to Africa to help with the struggle. Collectively, they have invested the savings of seven years of working in war zones towards conservation. Africa is now their frontline. The IAPF is now funded through public donations, grants and fundraising activities.
They are totally commited using drones, night vision and thermal imaging to get the poachers.>>
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<<The IAPF’s academy in Zimbabwe can only train Zimbabwean or regional nationals for work in IPZs (Intensive Protective Zones) within the country.
However, the IAPF accredited academy in South Africa (across the southern border) run by Eco Ranger, does give participants the opportunity to be trained from the grassroots level. No previous experience is necessary. (Then ambition and service rests with you). Contact JC Strauss at Eco Ranger ^www.ecoranger.co.za for more information on upcoming courses.>>
JC
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In 2005 – 2007, JC trained and developed 350 Wildlife Rangers for Limpopo Parks Board in South Africa and headed the Anti-Poaching teams covering 53 Protected Areas that brought down rhino and elephant poaching to 0% for 3 consecutive years.
Is there something sinister lurking behind South Africa’s legal rhino trade?
<<As the Rhino death toll continues to rise in South Africa, disconcerting information regarding the country’s legal rhino trade continues to emerge.
One of the most well-known (“alleged”) exploiters of legal trade loopholes is Dawie Groenewald of the notorious “Groenewald gang“, who legally purchased a significant number of Rhinos prior to his arrest in September 2010.
Investigators later found a mass grave of 20 de-horned Rhinos on Groenewald’s property.
Groenewald’s heinous activities are part of a deadly scourge – using Rhino trade loopholes to launder rhino horn – and there is no shortage of others like him, who are more than willing to cash in on backward medicinal myths about ‘Rhino horn‘.
Let’s take a look at the scams and schemes.
Public documents obtained from South Africa’s Parliamentary Monitoring Group website indicate that in 2008, a “Mr. J.F Hurne” purchased at least six Rhinos at auction and subsequently delivered them to a “Mr. D. Groenewald”.
(Note: Currency values are hown in South African Rand – currently comparable with the US Dollar)
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More recently, there is unconfirmed information circulating via mass email and social media networks of a 2011 transaction between Dawie Groenewald and a “Mr. John Hume” (a prolific game rancher mentioned in Bloomberg) involving the sale of nine rhinos. Update 07/14: It is now confirmed by IOL that Groenewald “has a contract” to buy nine rhinos. If the deal goes through, three male rhinos will be sent to Groenewald’s Prachtig property and the six female rhinos will be sent to Hume’s ranch.
Hume is (by his own admittance to Bloomberg) an advocate of legalized trade in rhino horn, and connected to professional hunter Peter Thormahlen, who was twice arrested for suspected involvement with Vietnamese “pseudo-hunts.”
Even Peter Thormahlen has been prosecuted for leading hunts feeding the horn trade. In 2006 at the Loskop Dam Nature Game Reserve, he paid a token fine after his Vietnamese hunter casually told an official that he did not know how to shoot.
The second time, in Limpopo province in 2008, Thormahlen was indignant and fought the citation in court with the help of lawyer Tom Dreyer.
(Thormahlen’s second case was dismissed.)
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‘A significant number of Rhinos’
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According to the publicly available document referenced above, which shows a series of rhino transactions from 2007 to 2010, Dawie Groenewald and/or a “Mr. D. Groenewald” seems to have acquired a significant number of rhinos between 2008 and 2010.
Take a look:
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2008
Six rhinos previously referenced:
2009:
Here’s a rather large acquisition worth noting (2009):
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2010:
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Meanwhile, copies of permits granting Dawie Groenewald permission to “hunt or convey” White Rhinos – issued despite his arrest in 2010 – are circulating via email and have now surfaced on various social media networks, such as Facebook ®.
Take a look at the permit copies here. (If you are using Facebook ®, you can easily locate these images.)
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Laundering Rhino Horn with Hunting ‘sick safaris’
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Just days ago, a Thai national named Chumlong Lemtongthai was arrested – along with five Thai “hunters” – in South Africa.
Lemongthai had allegedly arranged rhino hunting expeditions for the purpose of buying the horns from the hunters. He would then ship the horns abroad to be used illegally in traditional Chinese medicine.
However, the identity of the South African trophy hunt operators who aided Lemongthai remains unclear.
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With the right kick-arse arsenal....like this Finnish-engineered Sako TRG42, with an effective range of over 800 metres against poachers.. ‘ our troubles here would be over very quickly’. .Politics is always a case of deals and priorities and enough money is always available.
Vietnam and China’s TCM Rhino Horn Poaching Scheme
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It is highly unlikely that China’s multi-million dollar rhino farming scheme could have developed without South Africa’s willingness to legally export over 100 live Rhinos to China between 2007 and the present.
Despite the fact that China and Vietnam had already been implicated as a destination for illegal rhino horn sourced from Southern Africa , at least 18 Rhinos were exported to China from South Africa during a six-month period in 2010.
What is particularly disturbing about these multiple Rhino deals between South Africa and China is that in addition to the escalation in Rhino killings between 2008 and the present, there was no shortage of indicators that should have been noted by the country of export, South Africa.
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The first was in 2007, when the Chinese Government infused Traditional Chinese Medicine quack research with USD $130 million – five times more than the previous year’s budget – to “standardize and modernize” traditional Chinese medicine. How did this not pique the interest of authorities?
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Ed: Chinese Quack ‘Medicine’ competes for immorality with Japanese ‘Scientific Whaling Bullshit’ – how backward and depraved can primitive human superstitions lower themselves to?
Africans should be a wake up to East Asian barbaric persecution of precious African wildlife’
Then in 2008, a Chinese research proposal revealed the location of China’s “rhino farm” and “horn harvesting experiments”, along with intentions to circumvent CITES. For additional information, see:
This matters because there is growing evidence which strongly suggests that widespread abuse of South Africa’s existing legal trade loopholes is fueling and feeding the demand for rhino horn, and camouflaging the illegal rhino horn trade.
The extent to which the illegal rhino horn trade is being aided and augmented by legal trade in South Africa – both in live rhinos and trophy exports – is indeed unsettling, and is certainly deserving of deeper scrutiny.>>
<<The dead elephant, a huge bull, lay on his side, right leg curled as if in wrenching pain. Dirt covered the exposed eye—magic done by poachers to hide the carcass from vultures. The smell of musth and urine, of fresh death, hung over the mound of the corpse. It was a sight I had seen hundreds of times in central Africa. As I passed my hand over his body from trunk to tail, tears poured down my cheeks. I lifted the bull’s ear. Lines of bright red blood bubbled and streamed from his lips, pooling in the dust. His skin was checkered with wrinkles. The base of his trunk was as thick as a man’s torso. Deep fissures ran like rivers through the soles of his feet; in those lines, I could trace every step he had taken during his 30 years of life.
This elephant’s ancestors had survived centuries of raiding by the armies of Arab and African sultans from the north in search of slaves and ivory. He had lived through civil wars and droughts, only to be killed today for a few pounds of ivory to satisfy human vanity in some distant land. There were tender blades of grass in his mouth. He and his friends had been peacefully roaming in the shaded forest, snapping branches filled with sweet gum. Then, the first gunshot exploded. He bolted, too late. Horses overtook him. Again and again, bullets pummeled his body. We counted eight small holes in his head. Bullets had penetrated the thick skin and lodged in muscle, bone, and brain before he fell. We heard 48 shots before we found him.
Souleyman Mando, the commander of our detachment of mounted park rangers, was silent. I sensed a dark need for revenge. The feeling was mutual.
Shrinking Koala Habitat – completely dependent upon the whims of Australians, if we give a toss. Being systematically destroyed by O’Farrell Government Loggers across coastal New South Wales, Australia
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Koala Habitat is being trashed across New South Wales
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<<The dull, grinding roar of logging trucks has become background noise in the hills around Eden, on the New South Wales south coast. Equally familiar is the sight of people photographing the loggers’ loads as they are hauled down to the local woodchip mill and on to ships bound for Japan. The campaigners are looking for signs of tree trunks that have hollows and may have supported native sugar gliders or owls.
About 1,200 kilometres north, in the subtropical rainforest near Casino, botanists and zoologists are poring over maps and Google Earth, tracking breaches of logging conditions – trees cut down inside protection zones, trees felled that supported endangered wildlife or nourished other flora.
The tit-for-tat battle in the forests has led to frustration on all sides, with forestry workers complaining of ”manic hatred” directed at them. Anti-logging activists say the damage to state forests is systematic and routine, as established rules in the NSW Forest Agreements are disregarded.
”It’s not exactly a surprise to us that there are so many breaches because the fox is in charge of the hen house,” says Lisa Stone, a campaigner with South-East Forest Rescue. ”It keeps happening over and over again. You have got areas where they are supposed to be taking out single trees and then you go there and it’s practically clear-felled.”
For each state forest targeted for logging, a plan must be drawn up that leaves some trees untouched, in accordance with the ”environmental protection licences” issued to logging contractors working for the state government agency, Forests NSW.
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What the hell is Government’s Forests NSW doing to Wildlife Habitat?
Forests NSW Greenwash:
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“Forests NSW is committed to ensuring a supply of timber from NSW State forests today and into the future while also protecting other forest values such as biodiversity, clean air and water and public access for recreation. We are committed to running a safe and profitable business for the people of NSW.”
“The NSW (O’Farrell) Government has announced it will make Forests NSW a state owned corporation (SOC). Forests NSW will remain publicly owned and the nature of the business and business relationships will remain largely the same but the governance structures will change to improve the organisation’s commercial performance.
As a state owned corporation under the direction of a skilled commercial board, Forests NSW will be able to focus sharply on its core business of growing and harvesting timber to meet the community’s needs for hardwood and softwood products while still providing recreational opportunities for the people of New South Wales.”
Ed: So to the O’Farrell Government the forests are only about human needs – a babyboomer mindset, just like in the Old Testament. “..And God said unto them be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” [Bible, Old Testament, Book of Genesis 1:28] ..and humans have been self-righteously buggering the planet ever since.
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<<The many-layered oversight system produces a lot of work for the handful of NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water staff, some of whom have found themselves visiting the same logging sites repeatedly.
Forests NSW stressed that a warning letter can refer to separate breaches, which partly explains why the number of warnings issued to Forests NSW is so much lower than the number of times rules get broken.
Nonetheless, department staff have told the Herald that guidelines are often applied indifferently by loggers and some contractors are serial offenders. Forests NSW has also lost staff through voluntary redundancy this year which, some workers argued, affects its ability to police logging contractors.
A spokeswoman for the Environment Department said logging licences contained ”strict provisions to protect the environment, threatened species and its habitat”. Audits of logging operations are carried out every month as part of its compliance program.
”[The department] is concerned about the number of recent alleged breaches being reported in the south-east of NSW and in response is conducting several comprehensive field audits of Forests NSW work in the region. If any of the alleged breaches are found to be substantiated then the [department] will take appropriate action.”
New spice has been added to the deluge of investigations by the recent so-called ”peace deal” in Tasmania, which saw major logging companies, including Gunns, agree to stop logging in old-growth native forests. The deal also included an effective end to large-scale burning of native timber as a source of renewable energy, a process that is now permitted in NSW. The National Association of Forest Industries said it would oppose any effort to transfer the Tasmanian deal to mainland Australia.
A woodchip company, South-East Fibre Exports, is planning to build the state’s first wood-fired electricity plant at Eden, burning ”offcuts”. The company says opposition to its power plant is driven by people with the broader agenda of ending logging in native forests altogether. This seems likely to be true. South-East Fibre Exports blames anti-logging campaigners for setting up a fake website that mocks the company’s proposal, and a campaigner against the power plant, the former fashion designer Prue Acton, found an electronic bugging device in her home earlier this year. No one knows who is responsible for planting the bug, and there is no suggestion it is linked to the logging dispute. Police are investigating.
The NSW Primary Industries Minister, Steve Whan, said he had faith in the forestry companies and Forests NSW. ”Allegations of ‘systematic damage’ are overstated,” says Whan. ”The majority of the alleged breaches in question are minor in nature – with little to no impact on the environment.”
Former NSW Labor Minister for Minerals and Forest Resources, Steve Whan,who also had Primary Industries, Emergency Services and Rural Affairs – i.e. politically imposed conflicts of interests. .
In southern NSW, the forestry organisation is regularly scrutinised and was operating within the rules.
”Forests NSW southern region has received no penalty notices and not one case has been brought to prosecution for at least the past three years. ‘As a local member in the area as well as the Minister for Forest Resources, I personally welcome the intense environmental scrutiny that forestry operations in the area are subjected to. It is very important that any logging operations in the region comply with all the environmental conditions in place.”
Documents maintained by Forests NSW staff show there were 13 breaches recorded in south-eastern NSW last year.The breaches include cases of ”lack of care taken by operator”, ”operator did not see marking tape” and ”poor rigour in completing surveys”. Some could be explained by mishaps such as a vehicle slipping on a steep hillside into a protected area. In one case a logging contractor cut down trees in an area marked as ”old growth forest” because a global positioning system device had run out of batteries.
Of the 13 recorded incidents, eight resulted in verbal warnings to forestry contractors and one, in which the estimate of damage made by environment department staff differed from Forests NSW’s, resulted in a warning letter. Environmental damage was in every case assessed to be ”nil” and no remedial action was taken.
In part, the mistakes could be put down to forestry workers working to tight deadlines in rugged terrain.
But anti-logging activists are not prepared to be that charitable. The parallels with the situation in northern NSW are remarkable. In the state forests around Casino and Tenterfield, a group called North-East Forest Alliance has identified damage to stands of trees inhabited by koalas, stuttering frogs, sooty owls, powerful owls, golden-tipped bats and yellow-bellied gliders. The same types of breaches are evident, with contractors failing to follow guidelines about properly marking up vulnerable trees. Trees up to two metres wide at the base were cut down inside an area of rainforest described as a ”special protection zone”.
Five sets of allegations, covering dozens of alleged individual breaches in separate forests, were sent to the Environment Department early this year. Staff undertook a joint investigation with the forestry agency, and Forests NSW said a ”compliance response team” had been established.
South-East Forest Rescue recently surveyed state forests at Mogo, near Batemans Bay, and found recent logging in areas that were supposed to have been preserved, including an Aboriginal cultural site and conservation areas. In a report sent to the government, it alleges that many hectares of forest that should have been off-limits to loggers had been cleared.
The group has also walked through south coast state forests Tantawangalo, Yambulla, Glenbog and Dampier, collecting photographs of logging sites. Earlier surveys of the various regions by the Environment Department show habitat supporting sooty owls, yellow-bellied gliders, square-tailed kites, giant burrowing frogs, bent wing bats, tiger quolls, glossy black cockatoos and powerful owls may have been damaged.
The group’s surveys have been passed on to the Environment Department. The department said its own studies in the area are expected to run until mid-November. Stone says the group wanted Whan to visit the logging locations they had surveyed.>>
<<Critical habitat supporting the so-called Strzelecki “super-koala” and endangered powerful owls is to be bulldozed as part of a controversial road-widening project in South Gippsland.
Several hundred trees, many home to koalas and with hollows suitable for nesting owls and other wildlife, will be lost, despite consultants warning the Latrobe City Council that the damp forest habitat is virtually irreplaceable in a region largely cleared of native vegetation.
The local member for Morwell, Brendan Jenkins, is appealing to Environment Minister John Thwaites for an 11th-hour reprieve after local conservationists lost their case in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Latrobe Council wants to widen Budgeree Road so that logging trucks servicing plantations can pass each other. Trucks now travel one way down the road and return via another route. Budgeree Road is also a tourist drive to Tarra Bulga National Park.
The tribunal initially raised strong objections to the project, near Boolarra, in the face of evidence that the council took little account of the vegetation affected, that traffic volumes did not justify the scale of the works, and that a redesign could save most trees. Then, in a surprise turnaround, it approved the project last month with minor amendments.
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‘Strzelecki koalas are a genetically superior group that may hold the key to the species’ long-term survival in Victoria.
All other koalas in the state are descended from a handful of individuals transferred to French Island more than a century ago, a few years before koalas were hunted to near-extinction on the mainland.’
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Ed: This is a ecological cry of impending Koala regional extinction and a representative indictment of Australia’s deliberate and evil extermination of its wildlife.
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The French Island colony was used to repopulate the state, but inbreeding is now becoming apparent. The Strzelecki koalas, however, appear to be a remnant of the original and genetically diverse mainland population.
The roadside forest is rare in its own right, being of “very high conservation significance”. This category has legislative protection under the Native Vegetation Management framework, and can be cleared only under exceptional circumstances.
The loss of hollow-bearing trees is also listed as a threat under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. Consultants from Biosis Research told Latrobe Council it would be difficult to find other damp forest areas that could offset the loss of roadside remnants.
Susie Zent, from Friends of the Gippsland Bush, said VCAT had set conditions for the roadworks based on a mistaken classification by the Department of Sustainability and Environment as to the vegetation’s significance. She said the VCAT decision could be set aside if the department admitted to an error of judgement and requested amendments to its permit conditions.
Latrobe’s chief executive officer, Paul Buckley, said he expected VicRoads to sign off the final plans within three or four weeks. He said the additional width was needed to improve safety.
A spokesman for Mr Thwaites said the department was waiting for final details from the council, particularly in relation to offset measures. “Offset measures are required to ensure there is no overall loss of areas that have ecological significance,” he said.>>
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Strzelecki Koala Endangered
(South Gippsland Victorian, Australia)
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<<Of major concern due to the logging and clearing activities of both Hancock Timber Resource Group and PaperlinX is the long term survival of populations of the Strzelecki and South Gippsland Koalas whose entire habitat is now owned by these companies.
An investigation carried out by Dr Bronwyn Houlden, School of Biological Science, University of New South Wales, 20th March 1997 and 6th April 1998 confirmed that the genetic pool of these koalas has not been compromised. Dr Houlden indicates that on a national basis koalas generally are not considered to be threatened. She advises that this assessment has unfortunately led to an extremely simplistic view of conservation of biodiversity in the species.
Through extensive analysis by herself and her collaborators she has revealed that the species is composed of highly differentiated populations with low levels of gene flow between populations throughout their range. The Strzelecki Koala population constitutes a separate management unit and is significant in terms of management of biodiversity on a regional and state basis. Dr Houlden found that the Strzelecki Ranges had the highest level of genetic variation, of any Victorian population she has analysed. This is important, given the low levels of genetic variability found in many populations in Victoria, which have been involved in the translocation program.>>
The Critical Habitat Truth behind Hancock Timber Resource Group
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Foreign-owned and controlled Hancock Timber Resource Group, claims publicly that its Victorian timber plantation operation, Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP) is committed to…
“environmental responsibility is underpinned by the company’s environmental policy and management system, forest stewardship program, best management practices, which include internal and external performance measures, and active community consultation program, working with groups such as Landcare, field naturalists and Waterwatch.”
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Hancock Victorian Plantations claims…
“HVP sets its own high standards, its operations are monitored by local shires, water catchment management authorities, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and the Victorian Department of Environment and Sustainability. The company is also subject to regular audits to maintain its Australian Forestry Standards (AFS) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifications.”Around 70 per cent of HVP’s total landholdings are sustainably-managed plantations, growing largely on land that was previously cleared for farming. The company maintains the remaining 30 per cent of its holdings for plantation protection, conservation and other community values.In the Strzelecki Ranges, HVP has set aside almost half of its land from timber production, managing this native forest for conservation.”
Editor: It all sounds wonderful coming from this United States industrial logger. But since when has anyone trusted US corporations? Read the snapshot log below.
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Road hit female koala with broken jaw. Had to be euthanised after 6 weeks. Urgent research is required to determine breeding populations, location and numbers. Logging seriously impacts on long term populations of this animal.
[Source: Hancock Watch, ^http://hancockwatch.nfshost.com/docs/koala.htm#content_top]
South Gippsland, Victoria (October 2002) – systematically being destroyed for corporate profit by United States multi-national ‘Hancock Timber Resourse Group’:
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Jeerlang West Road Strzelecki Ranges
Locals outraged by removal of native vegetation – Koala Feed Trees. Koala corridor destroyed. Koalas are now not sited in this area. 8 Koalas have died in this area in the last 12 months.
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Strzelecki Ranges (Jeeralangs)
Eucalypts globulus – Bluegum (4ssp.) Southern Blue Gum – subspecies globulus. Restricted on the mainland to South Gippsland and Otways. Road works resulted in logging of older trees. Prime koala habitat destroyed by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. A recent change in management will hopefully result in the end of this type of practice.
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Strzelecki Ranges (Jeeralangs)
Prime koala habitat destroyed without permit application by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. Destruction of the rare Globulus globulus.
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93-41 Creswick plantations
Creek crossing over Anderson’s Gully which feeds into Creswick Creek. Tullaroop Water Catchment. Drinking water for Maryborough, Carisbrook, Talbot, Adelaide Lead, Alma, Havelock, Majorca and Betley. Sediment enters waterways mainly via creek crossings and roads.
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93-41 Petticoat Plantation
Tributary of Anderson’s Gully in the headwaters of the Murray Darling Catchment (Loddon River). Logging machinery driven straight through creekline.
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93-41 Petticoat Creek
Closeup of machinery entering tributary of Anderson’s Gully in the Tullaroop Water Catchment. Note build up of sediment which will wash into gully after rain. Note also buildup of stagnant water.
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93-41. Petticoat Plantation
Tullaroop Proclaimed Water Catchment. Machinery access into Anderson’s Gully tributary.
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Morwell River East Branch/Strzelecki Ranges
Creek crossing with sediment washing into waterway. Note also Slender Tree Fern an FFG listed species. Australia’s first FSC Assessment team in the Strzelecki Ranges. Discussing roading/landslide issues in the Jeerlangs.
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Traralgon Creek in the Latrobe River catchment (Strzelecki Ranges)
Recent pine logging with limited bufferzone in a pine plantation by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. As part of the Friends of the Gippsland Bush/Australian Paper Agreement of 1997, 50 m buffers of native vegetation will be established along Traralgon Creek after pine logging. There were also problems with a creek crossing at this location, which can be seen eroding into the creek in this photo.
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Tributary of Jeeralang Creek with cool temperate rainforest (Strzelecki Ranges)
A Myrtle Beech tree is in the centre of the gully. The person in the photo is holding a twig with Myrtle Beech leaves taken from the base of a tree in the gully. According to the 1997 8 Point Agreement 50m buffers along Jeeralang Creek will be replanted with indigenous species. This area should not have been logged at all. Cool Temperate Rainforest needs much greater buffer for its long term protection and survival.
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Jeeralang West Road
(Non-plantation) Blackwood and Austral Mulberry cut down along roadside easement which is Crown Land. Logged by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock.
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Billy’s Creek Catchment/Strzelecki Ranges
Twenty metre buffer should be reinstated at this site as in accordance with Billy’s Creek Water Supply Catchment, Plan no 1870. (Ideally the entire slope should be retired from timber production due to its steepness).
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Billy’s Creek catchment/Strzelecki Ranges
20m buffers should be reinstated in this plantation area.
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Jumbuk Road/ Strzelecki Ranges
Logging of roadside buffers/easements. Wildlife corridors destroyed at this site as well as the head of a gully feeding into Billy’s Creek.
What is the long term impact on water yield from pine plantations in this catchment?
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93-41 Petticoat plantation (Headwaters of the Murray Darling catchment [Loddon River])
Tullaroop Water catchment is currently at 30% of its capacity due to primarily to drought. Hancock logged 223ha of pine in this catchment in 2001/2. Much of the land within the Creswick State Forest has in the past been affected by gold mining activities. Stabilisation of the worst affected areas was achieved with softwood plantations. Will sediment from these mining sites be disturbed by current plantation logging. Tullaroop catchment supplies towns such as Maryborough with drinking water. What is the impact of logging on water quality and quantity in this catchment?
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Korweinguboora Reservoir catchment.
Recently logged by Hancock. Note lack of buffer zones for this wetland feeding into the Reservoir. This reservoir supplies Geelong and other towns with drinking water.
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Korweinguboora catchment (Geelong’s water supply)
How can Hancock guarantee that herbicides and fertilser residues will not enter Geelongs water supply? Note lack of buffers surrounding this drainage line.
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A tributary of Creswick Creek in the Tullaroop Water supply catchment
Note lack of creek buffer zones and ripping of soil into creek banks. Will herbicide residues enter water from this site? What impact will operations at this site have on quality of water for all species including people? Is this sustainable?
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Tributary of Creswick Creek in Tullaroop water supply catchment
Over 200 ha of pine plantations in this catchment were logged in 2001/2. What is the long term effect of fast rotation plantations on water quality and quantity? Pines cut out of creek itself and creek banks at this site.>>
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Bligh Labor Government flogs off Queensland’s forests for $603M to Hancock
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<<The Queensland Labor government has announced the sale of Forestry Plantations Queensland – the first transaction in its controversial asset sales. Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the 99-year licence for the timber plantation business would be sold for $603 million to Hancock Queensland Plantations. The sale price is well in excess of the $500 million that had been anticipated. Mr Fraser said he signed the contract on Tuesday morning.
“By reaching agreement on a price of $603 million, this exceeds original expectations and is great news for Queensland taxpayers,’‘ Mr Fraser told state parliament on Tuesday. “This is the first of the five commercial businesses to be sold, licensed or leased to the private sector, as the government reforms the state balance sheet and builds a stronger Queensland economy.”
He said award staff would have their jobs guaranteed for three years. Mr Fraser said Hancock Queensland Plantations, a company managed by Hancock Timber Resource Group on behalf of institutional investors, had won the right to grow and harvest the trees.
Crown plantation land on which the majority of the business sits will remain in government ownership. The sale includes about 35,000 hectares of freehold land, which is about 10 per cent of the total estate.
Hancock Timber Resource Group manages more than two million hectares of timberlands worth approximately $US8.5 billion ($A9.7 billion) across the United States, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.>>
<<The opposition has accused NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker of allowing the logging of koala habitats on the state’s mid-north coast. Opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley said the minister had received a “scathing” letter from the local councils protesting her decision to allow logging of core koala habitats in the area.
“These councils are traditionally pro-development – but even they are alarmed that Robyn Parker is allowing a national icon to be endangered thanks to her ‘unsound ecological approach’,” Mr Foley said in a statement on Thursday.>>
He said that…
On October 27 Ms Parker said “logging protects koalas”
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Editor: Robyn Parker has not got a clue about her Environment portfolio. She is another teacher-turned-politician and clearly insecure. Last month Parker sacked the head of her department, Lisa Corbyn, and has been through five press secretaries.
The opposition’s environment spokesman Luke Foley: “When will Premier O’Farrell do the decent thing and get a new environment minister?”
<<The NSW Government has allowed 2,000 heactares of koala habitat to be logged at Coffs Harbour in northern NSW, despite a local koala conservation plan endorsed by the local council, a Senate inquiry has heard.
One of Australia’s leading koala researchers, Alistair Melzer, has accused federal environment bureaucrats of doing little to avoid ”an escalating conservation crisis” as koala populations decline.
Dr Melzer, who heads Central Queensland University’s koala research centre, told the Senate environment committee inquiry it appeared that Canberra’s bureaucrats ”do not seem to be sensitive to the real state of the environment”.
The six-month inquiry, into the conservation status and sustainability of Australia’s koalas, is investigating threats to the future survival of the species.
In his submission, former Coffs Harbour City Council deputy mayor Rod McKelvey said the NSW Department of Environment’s private native forestry division granted logging permits which resulted in the loss of 2000ha of ”core koala habitat” protected by the council’s koala conservation plan. Mr McKelvey said the department subsequently argued the plan ”did not fall under” NSW environmental planning policy.
”I do not want to be included in the generation who stood by and did nothing while we systematically destroyed koala habitat, making it almost impossible for them to live here,” he said.
Gunnedah farmer Susan Lyle, who has koalas on her three properties, raised concerns about a mining exploration licence issued for open-cut coal mining in the region.
”Our koalas will be decimated. This mining licence is primarily in isolation and to allow such a development is sheer lunacy … There are many, many other resources that can be used for energy, but there is no replacement for the koala,” she said.
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Federal Forest Enquiry a Sham
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[Source: ‘Federal Forest Inquiry a Sham’, 20111130, North East Forest Alliance, ^http://nefa.org.au/]
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<<Conservation Group, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), is outraged at the bias of the Federal House of Representatives report ‘Inquiry into the future of the Australian Forestry Industry’ and its refusal to consider the timber supply crisis and the over-logging of north-east NSW’s public forests.
NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, said that most of the evidence presented in NEFA’s 111 page submission was ignored by the inquiry on the grounds that it “criticised the industry”. “What they didn’t ignore they misrepresented. This pretend inquiry was a sham” he said.
“The Commonwealth is party to the North East Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) and claims that it satisfies its national and international obligations for the protection of world heritage, national estate and threatened species.
“While national heritage values were meant to be addressed as part of the RFA, they were not, so the Commonwealth gave the NSW Government an extra two years to complete the process. A decade later and there has still been no assessment and the Federal Government does not care.
“Similarly the RFA was meant to provide protection for nationally threatened species. The evidence we presented, such as the illegal trashing of a population of the nationally endangered fern Lindsaea incisa at Doubleduke, that was meant to be protected by a 50m buffer, was ignored because we were being ‘critical’.
“What is most astounding is that the inquiry refused to consider the evidence we presented on the current timber supply crisis due to the over-commitment of wood from north-east NSW’s public forests.
“Ever since new Wood Supply Agreements for timber from public land were given to sawmillers in 2004 Forests NSW have not been able to supply the committed volumes,” Mr Pugh said.
“The NSW Government’s recklessness in issuing these new Wood Supply Agreements has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars to buy back committed volumes and to compensate BORAL for Forests NSW’s failure to supply. As the crisis worsens, taxpayers exposure to multi-million dollar compensation claims grows.
“In vain efforts to meet shortfalls and reduce their payouts Forests NSW have been over-logging plantations, cutting trees before they mature, increasing logging intensities, logging stream buffers, and logging trees and areas required to be retained for threatened species. They are cutting out the future of the industry and causing immense environmental harm in the process.
“It is appalling, that an inquiry dealing with forestry has completely ignored this crisis and recommended that the Commonwealth Government condone and support this grossly unsustainable and irresponsible logging.
“Local Page MP, Janelle Saffin features in the inquiry’s report despite her electorate being one of the worst affected by the timber supply crisis, rampant illegal logging and widespread forest dieback.
“We call upon Janelle to please explain why the Commonwealth continues to ignore the gross over-logging, fails to identify and protect national heritage values, refuses to take action on the illegal logging of the habitat of nationally threatened species and refuses to consider the dieback of tens of thousands of hectares of public forests in her electorate. She needs to tell her constituents what she is going to do about it”” Mr. Pugh said.>>
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South East Forest Rescue cranking it in south-east NSW
<<South East Forest Rescue have taken some crackerjack action this morning, halting forestry operations with a giant tripod and tree sit structure to highlight illegal logging in the Yambulla State Forest, south of Eden. The logging compartment where breaches have been identified by SEFR contains records of nationally listed endangered species such as glossy black cockatoos, smokey mice, southern brown bandicoots, tiger quolls, eastern pygmy possums, bent wing bats, yellow-bellied gliders, gang gang cockatoos and white-footed dunnarts.
“The response from Forests NSW shows the complete lack of regard for the licence conditions that Forests NSW and their contractors must abide by. The licence conditions for threatened species and habitat conservation are not being adhered to, even though the conditions are grossly inadequate” said forest campaigner Lisa Stone.
“We have reported the breaches in this compartment to the Office of Environment and Heritage,” said Ms Stone. “We stated last time that the probability of further breaches in this compartment if harvesting continues is high given that this logging contractor is a repeat offender and that FNSW still is not complying with the licence conditions” said Ms Stone.>>
<<The NSW Liberal government is failing to protect koalas by allowing logging in remaining habitats, the opposition says. Environment spokesman Luke Foley accused Environment Minister Robyn Parker of breaking an election promise to protect koalas after logging went ahead at the Bermagui State Forest on the south coast.
Logging also started last week at Boambee State Forest on the mid north coast, one of the last habitats for the vulnerable species in the area, Mr Foley said.
“For you to fail to respond and fail to intervene is a gross breach of your election policy to protect our national icon,” Mr Foley said at a budget estimates hearing in Sydney today. “Surely the precautionary approach would be for you as Environment Minister to stop the logging of this key koala habitat?”
Ms Parker denied breaking any election commitments, and said the government was working hard to protect koalas.
“When it comes to forestry, we are about getting a balance and protecting our native species. We are working very hard on them,” she said. “We have written to Forests NSW recommending a precautionary approach to managing impacts on koalas in the Boambee State Forest…The agreement that allowed logging to take place had been signed by the previous government, Ms Parker said. “Perhaps you should go back and look at what was going on when your government signed up to that agreement.”>>
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Koala habitat cleared to make way for more houses
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[Source: ‘Koala habitat cleared to make way for more houses’, 20121127 (today), by Nicole Fuge, Sunshine Coast Daily, ^http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/koalas-lose-vital-coast-habitat/1637085/]
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<<More than 100 hectares of koala habitat has been cleared to make way for more houses, another nail in the coffin for one of Australia’s icons.
Work has begun clearing the land behind Aussie World and the Ettamogah Pub for a 334-lot rural residential development.
Despite more than 30% of the 145-hectare site secured for environmental reserve and 12 hectares of revegetation to offset present clearing, Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue volunteer Ray Chambers fears it’s not enough.
Mr Chambers said the area’s koala population was already fragile and the removal of so many trees would have a disastrous affect.
“We do have the odd koala in part of the Palmview area, it’s not a great deal but we know they are there,” he said. “From Forest Glen to the Caloundra turn-off is a koala corridor.”
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Mr Chambers said there were only about 100 koalas left on the Coast, representing 18% of the Queensland population.
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A council spokeswoman said despite approval of the development pre-dating an introduction of state-wide regulatory provisions for koala conservation, the council and Department of Environment and Heritage Protection officers had enforced koala protection measures and vegetation offsets.
Developer guidelines include:
More than 30% of the original site secured in environmental reserve.
Traffic calming, speed bumps, and fauna under and overpasses installed to minimise car strikes.
Building envelopes to be enclosed with dog-proof fencing, leaving the balance of each lot free for fauna movement.
About 12ha of revegetation, including planting koala food trees, to be carried out to offset the clearing.
The spokeswoman said a fauna spotting catcher had also been present during clearing.>>
"We're coming to you from the custodial lands of the Hairygowogulator and Tarantulawollygong, and pay respects to uncle and grandaddy elders past, present and emerging from their burrows. So wise to keep a distance out bush."
The tusks of 600 elephants seized in Hong Kong in October 2012 (just 3 months ago)
Elephant cruelly butchered for Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’ (read ‘quackery’)
TCM: ‘Timeless Wisdom for a Modern World”?
No, TCM has the same legitimacy as Cannibalism
Works better than TCM – guaranteed!
African savanna elephant and calf
(Loxodonta africana africana), Amboseli National Park, Kenya
Photo © Martin Harvey, World Wildlife Fund
^http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/species/species_pictures/moms/
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Poor Victim of Organ Gangs
[Source: ^Bloomberg, 20111101]
779 elephant tusks uncovered in Hong Kong shipping containers in January 2013 (just 3 days ago)
The crime is escalating!
The tusks discovered in Hong Kong this week were presumably going to be turned into jewelry, knicknacks, and religious icons.
(Photo: SkyNews.com/YouTube Screengrab)
Plains below Kilimanjaro
(Source: Photo © Keven Smith,^http://www.naturepicoftheday.com/archive/2009-02-03)
(Click image to enlarge)
TCM Witchdoctoring in Wildlife Parts
Africa’s Kilimanjaro and its native Elephants
(Source: Photo © Daryland and Sharna Balfour, ^http://www.awf.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Elephant-DarylandSharna_Balfour.jpg)
(Click image to enlarge)
Seized rhino horns are shown with alleged Vietnam smuggler Pham Quang Loc, 56,
arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport when he arrived from Ethiopia on his way to Vietnam
Lam Tak-fai, acting head of (Hong Kong) Ports and Maritime Command, arranges Rhino horns,
part of a shipment of 33 horns, ivory chopsticks and bracelets seized by the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department,
during a news conference in Hong Kong.
Rhinoceros de-horned to save it from TCM poaching
Black Rhino
(Photo byJeff McNeely)
<<Illegal and/or unsustainable wildlife trade can cause a species to reach a point where its survival hangs in the balance. In fact, illegal wildlife trade is one of the main reasons that many species are endangered.
With the right kick-arse arsenal..
..like this Finnish-engineered Sako TRG42, with an effective range of over 800 metres against poachers.. ‘ our troubles here would be over very quickly’.
