Elphinstone Plateau is magnificently wild, forming an outstanding undeveloped peninsula-plateau jutting out into the Megalong. It has long been a favourite wilderness destination for bushwalkers and rock climbers alike.
This predominantly natural and undisturbed plateau is mistakenly also referred to as ‘radiata plateau‘ due to a small invasive private pine plantation from the 1970s covering less that 5% of the plateau along an access track . The plantation failed and the owner went broke.
Yet little known Elphinstone Plateau remains special home to rare and threatened regionally native species, culturally significant to local Aboriginal peoples and a magnet for the local outdoor community.
Sitting on the southern escarpment, Elphinstone Plateau, just west of Katoomba, towers high above rolling valleys has outstanding topography. It remains the last remaining undeveloped peninsula-plateau in the upper Blue Mountains. The Plateau has significant biodiversity, including vegetation communities such Blue Mountain Swamps, Eucalyptus Oreades Open Forest and Blue Mountains Heath. It is also home to many endangered species including the Flame Robin, Glossy Black Cockatoo, Gang-Gang Cockatoo and the Varied Sittella as well as the Tiger Quoll, frequently sighted by locals. Threatened plants include one of only ten places on the planet where the Dwarf (Blue) Mountain Pine (Pherosphaera fitzgeraldii) is endemic on the planet to the immediate upper Central Blue Mountains with its distribution fragmented to a few south-facing hanging swamp cliff faces on the Blue Mountains western escarpment at Elphinstone above Nellies Glen and nearby around Wentworth Falls above the Jamison Valley.
The IUCN reports that this taxon is endangered. It faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future due to a small population size and severe population fragmentation, with no sub-population estimated to contain more than 250 mature individuals.
The Dwarf Mountain Pine endemic on the planet to wet rocks within the spray of waterfalls of Elphinstone and Wentworth Falls
(Harden 1990, Hill 1998)
Steven, one of our local conservationists says that this wild plateau has significant biodiversity – Blue Mountain Swamps, rare Eucalyptus oreades Open Forest and many endangered species including the Flame Robin, Glossy Black Cockatoo, Gang-Gang Cockatoo, and the almost unknown Tiger Quoll.
One of our local conservationists at Megalong Head on Elphinstone Plateau
Steven says that the plateau and its immediate surrounds provide are the only locality on the planet to naturally support the critically endangered Dwarf Mountain Pine and the little-known yellow flowering shrub Elphinstone Boronia (Leionema lachnaeoides). Both are threatened with extinction and their survival depends on the area remaining undisturbed.
Threatened species Elphinstone Boronia (Leionema lachnaeoides)
Endemic to Elphinstone Plateau (that means it grows natively nowhere else on the planet)
Survival depends on the area remaining undisturbed.
Steven says local resident Glenn Humphreys has been involved with trying to protect and save Mount Elphinstone from housing development on and off for more than 25 years, successfully halting all sorts of elaborate development proposals.
But now this wild and unique haven is at risk. An integrated part of the Blue Mountains western escarpment has come under threat of land use development again – Mount Elphinstone (also mistakenly called Radiata Plateau) situated a few kilometres west of Katoomba. Apart from a small area of Crown Land the majority of the Plateau is privately owned by a group that have repeatedly lodged development applications since the 1990s.
Elphinstone Namesake
Mount Elphinstone, being the highest rise on the plateau is believed named after Major General Sir Howard Craufurd Elphinstone, VC, KCB, CMG (1829 – 1890) who was a British Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross.
Born in Livonia (now Estonia), Elphinstone joined the British Corps of Royal Engineers as a gentleman cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 1847. With the outbreak of the Crimean War, Elphinstone was posted to the Crimea.
On 18 June 1855, he was 25 years old, and a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, during the Siege of Sebastopol when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.VC.
His citation read:
“For fearless conduct, in having, on the night after the unsuccessful attack on the Redan, volunteered to command a party of volunteers, who proceeded to search for and bring back the scaling ladders left behind after the repulse; and while successfully performing this task, of rescuing trophies from the Russians, Captain Elphinstone conducted a persevering search, close to the enemy, for wounded men, twenty of whom he rescued and brought back to the Trenches.”
With the end of the war he was decorated by both Napoleon III, Emperor of France being appointed as a Knight of the Legion of Honour.
Private Development Threats to the Plateau
A proposed private development threatens its future. Currently, two of three development applications recently lodged have been refused, leaving one approved for two dwellings. They pose an inappropriate development wedge to future residential exploitation of this still wild plateau.
Now is the time to prevent any building and move the Plateau in public ownership for protection. This could be the public’s last chance to secure the future of this stunning area and have Elphinstone Plateau become part of the National Park estate.
Blue Mountains residents, the local outdoor community, and the Blue Mountains Conservation Society are all firmly committed to seeking protection for the Plateau. We were delighted with all the community support our campaign received at Winter Magic – with lots of cheers from the crowd during the parade and most importantly all the letters sent off to the Minister for the Environment.
We are seeking to have Elphinstone Plateau purchased by the New South Wales or Australian Commonwealth governments and be incorporated into the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
But the battle is not yet won. The local Blue Mountains Conservation Society is championing an environmental campaign to oppose the land use development and to have the plateau incorporated into the adjacent Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
The Society is inviting locals and those passionate about protecting this special place, to join in a rally on Sunday 30th July at 1.30pm at Cahill’s Lookout, Cliff Drive, Katoomba.
[2] Elphinstone (Radiata) Plateau – Bushwalk: Bottleneck Pass and The Devils Hole (29 June 2016) by Dave Noble (NPWS), ^http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=11300
Looks natural, but decades of cattle have toxified the riparian zone’s soil and flora co-biology
From 12th-14th May 2017, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service has planned to set fire to 9km2 of designated wildlife habitat in the Abercrombie River National Park south of the town of Oberon. It’s about 150km west of the Sydney GPO as the crow flies.
NPWS Area Manager Kim de Govrik has contracted a helicopter to indiscriminately drop incendiaries into the remote and steep wilderness valleys and ridgelines around Silent Creek, west of Abercrombie Road. It will blanket burn vast swathes of remnant forest within the national park.
“NPWS will use a helicopter and ground crews in the steep terrain in the south-east corner of the Park,” Mr de Govrik said.
Any wonder how Abercrombie’s Silent Creek got its name?
Two generations ago, American marine biologist and author, Rachel Carson in 1962 launched her seminal book ‘Silent Spring’ telling how all life—from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children—had been “silenced” by the insidious effects of DDT on Cape Code, Massachusetts.
DDT stands for Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a hazardous agricultural synthetic pesticide developed in the 1940s that also contaminated food crops and ecology and caused human cancer and Alzheimer disease. Its use wasn’t banned until 2001.
Hazard Reduction policy is finishing the extinction job across New South Wales and Australia. Originally termed ‘prescribed burning’, it too has been used since the 1940s originally by US foresters.
A camp stay in Abercrombie River National Park will disturb any informed conservationist of how silent the birdlife is in the region. No dawn chorus like in healthy forest habitats. And try camping at Silent Creek after the hazard reduction.
“People are advised that smoke from the burn may impact upon the local area and they should close their windows and bring their washing indoors. Those with asthma or people who are susceptible to respiratory problems should avoid the area or remain inside with windows and doors closed. Motorists are reminded to drive to the conditions, observe all warning signs and follow directions from fire crews,”Mr de Govrik said.
It is another contribution by government to hazardous and unnecessary smoke, toxic air pollution, greenhouse gases, and human global warming that governments complain about. Yet in contradiction, this burn is part of the NSW Government’s $76 million package of what it calls hazard reduction over six years.
Hazard Reduction Fallacy
To protect the scarce Australia’s remaining national parks, hazard reduction arson is run by state governments each in turn cut funding and otherwise set fire to the wildlife habitat, in case it burns. In New South Wales, the misnamed National Parks and Wildlife Service brings in its petrol-laden trucks and with the the firie-eyed enthusiasm of the Rural Fire Service sets fire to these ‘national parks’ every time the bush has grown back.
‘Hazard reduction’ is spin for habitat reduction. Habitat is deemed a hazard, and its forest a fuel risk. It is a policy of perpetuating inadequate fire fighting funding to responsibly and quickly detect, respond to and put out bushfires, like their urban professional counterparts are tasked to do. Instead, the cheap and ecologically destructive approach is to burn the habitagt in case it burns, so less to worry about. It is self-defeating. Like setting fire to ones home to stay warm in winter. Read up on the demise of the Rapa Nui on Easter Island.
The government’s hazard reduction Managing fire-prone NSW national parks requires a three-pronged approach, including fire planning, community education, and fuel management. When it comes to fuel like dead wood, NPWS conducts planned hazard reduction activities like mowing and controlled burning to assist in the protection of life, property and community.
So the $76 million claims “to boost bushfire preparedness and double hazard reduction in the State’s national parks“. Many such hazard reduction operations undertaken by NPWS across NSW each year, many with the assistance of the RFS, who relish the opportunity. Yet when bushfires occur, the same slow response ensues and the same widespread destruction often results, with or without hazard reduction. Ember attack in high winds travels kilometres beyond any hazard reduction ground.
But the government arson cult is entrenched. The lack of responsible funding is chronic.
No flora species has ever been made extinct because it has not been fire ravaged, yet how many species of fauna are on the edge of extinction because they continue to be?
Anyone with respiratory problems or suffering from Asthma is urged to visit NSW Health or the Asthma Foundation. Remnant native wildlife like the locally indigenous Black Pademelon, not so Common Wombat and Ringtail Possum, will just have to suck it up. Each of these species is territorial which means that they don’t relocate when fire devastates their home range.
What about the locally indigenous Echidnas, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Emus, Platypus, Goannas, Eastern Water Dragons, Broad-headed Snakes, Wedge-Tail Eagles dependent the habitat and the more than sixty species of native birds?
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Abercrombie a habitat island within a logged landscape
Abercrombie River National Park is situated surrounded by a logged landscape to the horizon. The Park was gazetted in 1995 as part of a nature conservation strategy supposedly aimed at maintaining the state of New South Wales’ biodiversity. It claims to protect an important part of remnant bushland within the south-western central tablelands.
By incinerating it?
Actually, the truth is that the region has been too steep for pastoralists to trash, so it was left. Then the 19th Century gold prospectors got in and dig a lot of it up, before it was abandoned and surrounding farms let their pigs escape and go feral. Sadly, Abercrombie has become a play zone for weekend hoons.
When did the Parks Service last do a wildlife survey in Abercrombie? Back when the park was gazetted in 1995 when ecologist Christopher Togher wrote his Report on the Biodiversity and Land Management of the Abercrombie River Catchment.
Booroolong Frog (Litoria booroolongensis). Locally indigenous to the Abercrombie River region, an endangered species
How many left in Silent Creek?
The ‘Parks Service’ thinks it knows best, and has atrophied to presume it exists to facilitate anthropocentric tourism and recreation. So the tourism arm of the ‘Parks Service’ has set the region aside for exploitation for four wheel touring, fishing, camping, canoeing and bushwalking with two toilets.
The National Parks Service website hypocritically states:
<<Abercrombie River National Park is a special place..This is an environment built for adventure. One of the most popular activities in the park is 4WD touring (and trail biking). Some of the trails running along gorges and ridges can be pretty challenging, even for the experienced driver. For those with plenty of energy, you can also explore these trails on mountain bikes..>>
Near Bummaroo Ford Abercrombie River (hoon park), 19th May 2015
On the same page, Parks Services recognises that Abercrombie River National Park is a special place for nature and wildlife conservation. Then it recommends people “get out into the national park and have an adventure!” It’s all about the experience see.
Oberon Council, home of lumberjacks, claims it is:
<<surrounded by a number of national parks and is the perfect base to experience these enormous sanctuaries of pristine bushland and all they have to offer. Our national parks are a haven for adventure seekers, with bushwalking, mountain biking, canyoning, camping, abseiling, rock climbing, fishing, 4WD touring and so much more.>>
But you have to drive through vast areas of clear felled forest and plantations around Oberon to get there.
There are four camping sites within the Abercrombie River National Park at Bummaroo Ford, The Sink, The Beach and Silent Creek – all overused.
Feral pigs run riot throughout the region, happily destroying the riparian zones of the watercourses with impunity. Over the decades, cattle and now feral pigs have dug up the riparian vegetation causing bank erosion. They have toxified the soil biology causing weed infestation and facilitating the spread of flora diseases such as dieback – so destroying the region’s native ecosystem.
Feral pigs thrive in the Australia bush and cause immense environmental damage especially to watercourses.
In the 1960s there were about 50,000 pig farmers across Australia, and many escaped. The Abercrombie River National Park has been left to become a haven for feral pigs. Yet the Plan of Management states: “Within the Abercrombie catchment is an extensive amount of remnant riparian vegetation which is extremely important in maintaining water quality and habitat for threatened aquatic ecosystems.” (Source: ‘Abergrombie River National Park Plan of Management 2006, 2.2.2. Significance of Abercrombie River National Park, page 2).
<<Feral pigs are opportunistic scavengers and prey on invertebrates, bird eggs, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and soil invertebrates. Their selective feeding habits also affect the biodiversity of vegetation and creates competition for food resources of native species. Feral pigs have negative impacts on native ecological systems including changing species composition, disrupting species succession and by altering nutrient and water cycles. Impacts can be direct or indirect, acute or chronic, periodic or constant, and may be influenced by changing seasonal conditions. Feral pigs tend to congregate around water as they are highly susceptible to heat. The impact of the pigs wallowing in wetlands and watercourses totally destroys these finely balanced ecosystems. They also prey on ground dwelling mammals, reptiles and birds, in some cases putting extensive pressure on rare and endangered species.>>
Then there are the feral rabbits, feral goats, feral deer and feral recreational hoons. The absence of park rangers is conspicuous.
How Australia treats its national parks
The ‘Parks Service’ website promotes “rivers and creek systems within the park provide habitat for trout cod and Macquarie Perch, which are totally protected species. River blackfish, silver perch and the Murray cray are also found which are regionally rare. Introduced trout may only be caught during the trout season from the October long weekend to the June long weekend.“
So it encourages people to fish protected species?
In Sunday 7th January 2014 (hot mid-summer), campers abandoned their camp fire without extinguishing it. Their haphazard campsite, situated on Macks Flat near a pine plantation about 1km north of The Beach, was not approved It burned around 50 hectares including within the Abercrombie River National Park. It was not a designated camping site and the campers went unpunished.
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service is legally responsible under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 to to protect and conserve areas containing outstanding or representative ecosystems, natural or cultural features or landscapes or phenomena that provide opportunities for public appreciation and inspiration and sustainable visitor use.
<<Under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act national parks are managed to:
Conserve biodiversity, maintain ecosystem functions, protect geological and geomorphological features and natural phenomena and maintain natural landscapes;
Conserve places, objects, features and landscapes of cultural value;
Protect the ecological integrity of one or more ecosystems for present and future generations;
Promote public appreciation and understanding of the park’s natural and cultural values;
Provide for sustainable visitor use and enjoyment that is compatible with conservation of natural and cultural values;
Provide for sustainable use (including adaptive reuse) of any buildings or structures or modified natural areas having regard to conservation of natural and cultural values; and
Provide for appropriate research and monitoring.>>
This environmental law applies to Abercrombie River National Park.
Yet strategic under-funding, under-resourcing and under-staffing forces the service to neglect these core responsibilities. Hoons run riot and the park is abused. What a disgrace! The environmental law is weak because there are no standards, measures or breach penalties. It was drafted to be a motherhood statement to appease malleable conservationists.
Since being gazetted in 1995, Abercrombie River National Park has been treated as a recreation park, not as a wildlife sanctuary in any way, except on paper to pretend the government actual has a conservation bone in its body. It’s called ‘Greenwashing’. NPWS works very closely with the Upper Lachlan Tourist Association, and the Rural Fire Service.
In 2010, National Parks and Wildlife staff carried out a 520 hectare hazard reduction burn in the north of Abercrombie River National Park, with the RFS in tow. Kanangra Boyd area manager Kim de Govrik said at the time the burn off took place in the Felled Timber Creek area.
<<The park is now open and ready for the influx of eastern campers,” Mr de Govrik said. “The operation was a great success thanks to the assistance of the local RFS brigades. RFS volunteers from Jerrong/Paling Yards, Gurnang and Black Springs helped in putting in the 11km of fire edge.>>
During 2009, National Parks and Wildlife completed a record 230 burns, covering nearly 80,000 hectares of native habitat.
NPWS is targeting the state’s 225 national parks and reserves for programmatic habitat reduction under its current $76 million programme:
[6] ‘The Story of Silent Spring – How a courageous woman took on the chemical industry and raised important questions about humankind’s impact on nature‘, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, ^https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring
Smoking Ceremony or Smoke and Mirrors?Staged for the delegates by National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales (NPWS), somewhere outside Sydney, Australia
[Source: ‘Global First Nations environmentalists share stories at the World Parks Congress in Sydney.5:30’, ^https://twitter.com/nitvnews, 20141113]
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Every ten years a World Parks Congress is a forum staged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to discuss the effectiveness of World Heritage Listed Protected Areas. For 2014, Parks Australia put up Sydney’s hand to host and fund it.
<<“We (Parks Australia) are delighted to be co-hosting the IUCN World Parks Congress with our colleagues in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service – and look forward to welcoming inspiring leaders from around the world.”>>
IUCN’s vision is a “just world that values and conserves nature.” The theme for the 2014 conference is “Parks, people, planet: inspiring solutions”.
The last congress was in Durban, South Africa eleven years ago in 2003 and significant messages from that congress were that:
Considerable progress has been made in the establishment of protected areas although significant gaps remain
Protected areas face many challenges, and management effectiveness must be strengthened
Protected areas play a vital role in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development
A new deal is needed for protected areas, local communities and indigenous peoples
There is a need to apply new and innovative approaches for protected areas, linked to broader agendas
Protected areas require a significant boost in financial investment
Protected areas management must involve young people
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Congress Cost Benefits ?
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The obvious first question for the 2014 Sydney Congress is what are the outcomes from these seven messages of 2003?
The second question is what is to be the conservation return on investment of staging the 2014 congress in Sydney? That starts with Parks Australia and NPWS disclosing the full costs of the congress. How much will it have cost by the time this week is over? Five million? Ten million? Twenty million? More? That also involves disclosure of the onground conservation outcomes, if any. The congress hosts more than 5000 delegates for a week-long event in Sydney.
If the answers are not forthcoming and/or the performances less than satisfactory, then perhaps the money could have been better spent (invested) by Parks Australia and NPWS on specific onground conservation of current and worthy Protected Areas in Australia. So the third question is what is the opportunity cost of the 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress which could have delivered the IUCN vision of a “just world that values and conserves nature”?
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Congress Opportunity Costs
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According to IUCN director general, Julia Marton-Lefevre, assessments during the past decade have found that half of the world’s protected areas at best — and possibly as few as 20 per cent — are managed effectively. “Some are what we refer to as ‘paper parks’ ” – parks just on paper.
The Australian Government’s $180 million allocation to expand the park reserve system expired last year.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a case in point. It is the iconic Protected Area in Australia. Its World Heritage listing along with various national zoning, management plans, permits, education and incentives are supposed to protect and conserve the marine ecosystems and migratory species from human threats. But farm and urban runoff continues to contaminate the rivers that flow into the Reef.
In 2009 and 2011, mining company Queensland Nickel discharged nitrogen-laden water and 516 tonnes of toxic waste water into the Great Barrier Reef.
On 21 July 2013, on the second day of the biennial joint training exercise Talisman Saber, two American AV-8B Harrier fighter jets launched from aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) dropped four bombs, weighing a total 1.8 metric tons (4,000 pounds), into more than 50 metres (164 ft) of water. On 3rd April 2010, The Shen Neng 1, a Chinese ship carrying 950 tonnes of oil, ran aground, causing the 2010 Great Barrier Reef oil spill.
In December 2013, Greg Hunt, the Australian environment minister, approved a plan for dredging to create three shipping terminals as part of the expansion of an existing coal port. According to corresponding approval documents, the process will create around 3 million cubic metres of dredged seabed that will be dumped within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
On 31 January 2014, a permit was issued to allow three million cubic metres of sea bed from Abbot Point, north of Bowen, to be transported and unloaded in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, just outside of Abbot Bay. The dredge spoil will cloud the water and block sunlight, thereby starving sea grass and coral up to distances of 80 km away from the point of origin due to the actions of wind and currents. The dredge spoil will smother reef or sea grass to death, while storms can repeatedly resuspend these particles so that the harm caused is ongoing; secondly, disturbed sea floor can release toxic substances into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Dredging the Great Barrier Reef for bulk export shipping
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The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has become just a blue line on a map. The trickle of funds for Australia’s national parks betrays a lack of appreciation of their economic contribution. Annual funding for the authority that runs Australia’s most famous reserve, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, is about 1 per cent of the $5.2bn it earns the country in tourism revenue.
Yet if the IUCN World Parks Congress cost a conservative $20 million to stage then a key opportunity cost would be the June 2014 Federal budget cuts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The budget axed 17 staff including five of its’ directors positions. These positions included the director of heritage conservation, the director of policy and governance and the director of coastal ecosystems and water quality as part of an internal restructure. It’s being described as the greatest loss of expertise from Australia’s most important natural wonder and it comes at the very time the Great Barrier Reef is facing the greatest threat to its survival.
The Greater Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been reduced by the Australian Government to being in name only and ineffective at protecting the reef.
Until recently, one of those five directors, Adam Smith, was charged with dealing with the contentious Abbot Point coal terminal development and the proposal to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil into the marine park. Despite Dr Smith’s concerns, the sea dumping was approved by the Marine Park Authority.
Dr Smith has since accepted voluntary redundancy and moved on after disagreeing with the Authority’s new economic leadership and values. Heritage conservation director Jon Day has left after 21 years, disillusioned too with the direction the Authority has taken to compromise the reef.
Next year UNESCO will decide whether to put the reef on its world heritage in danger list. Native Dugongs are already endangered. The deliberate extermination of the dugong and turtles which habituated the Gladstone area is a national tragedy. Dugongs are species listed under the Federal Environment Protection Biodiversity & Conservation Act, which requires the Federal government to legally protect these animals.
Prior to the massive dredging operation of 52 million cubic metres of seabed for the development of the world’s largest LNG Terminal, ( which is 62% completed) a study commissioned by the Gladstone Ports Corporation found that a take, or a quota, of more than zero dugongs would be unsustainable.
In the face of massive mortality of dugongs, turtles and inshore dolphins during the ongoing massive dredging, both the Federal and Queensland governments ignored the slaughter.
Look at the stranding data from the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. Monthly cumulative Dugong strandings by year for Queensland, up to 31 January 2012.
There are 22,000 vessel movements a month in Gladstone Harbour. No ship strikes of Dugongs or of Green Turtles need to be reported. No audit of environmental conditions has been undertaken by the Queensland or Federal Governments. The wholesale slaughter of our marine wildlife is the price Australians are paying for the transformation of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area into the world’s largest unregulated quarry.
Mass tourism operators good for the economy Getting up close to protected Humpback Whales within their 100 metre Protected Area
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Australian protected areas have seen rule changes in the eastern states have allowed cattle to graze, recreational shooters to hunt and hotel developers to build in national parks. Shore-based recreational fishing has been allowed in areas of NSW marine parks previously zoned as no-take sanctuaries. National parks on land and in the ocean are dying a death of a thousand cuts, in the form of bullets, hooks, hotels, logging concessions and grazing licences.
Yet as host of the 2014 World Parks Congress, Australia is showcasing “our own inspiring places, inspiring people and inspiring solutions.” The Global Eco Forum within the Congress programme focuses on tourism exploitation of Protected Areas because like the new Greater Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the new values are not about conservation by the billions in revenue opportunity to Australia’s economy.
The October 2006 issue of National Geographic published an article “The Future of Parks: Hallowed Ground – Nothing is Ever Safe”.
It stated:
“Landscape and memory combine to tell us certain places are special, sanctified by their extraordinary natural merits and by social consensus.
We call those places parks, and we take them for granted.”
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Sydney’s 2014 World Parks Congress appears to be expensive window dressing, showcasing fraudulent conservation of Protected Areas in Australia.
It’s termed Greenwashing. The opportunity cost of the 2014 Congress could have instead funded the retention of the previously effective Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and so done more for Protected Areas than all the pomp, promising, luncheons, showcasing, and talk-festing of the congress combined.
White Lemuroid Possum(Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area in Danger)Has the white lemuroid possum become the first mammal to go extinct due to global warming?
The species, normally found above 1000m, has not been sighted during any nighttime spotlighting expedition since 2005. Experts fear a temperature rise of 0.8 degrees Celsius may be to blame for the animal’s disappearance. [Source: ^http://www.wherelightmeetsdark.com/index.php?module=newswatch&NW_user_op=view&NW_id=453]
Blue Mountains Swamps are globally restricted to the Central (and upper) Blue Mountains and to Newnes Plateau at altitudes between 600 m to 1200 m AMSL. They exist on peat soils above a sandstone substrate geomorphology. The soil tends to be water logged due to the presence of constant groundwater seeping over the impermeable claystone layers in the sandstone which impedes their drainage, however some swamps can be constantly flooded or else ephemeral, varying with seasonal rainfall patterns and more long term with El Niño/La Niña climatic phases.
Blue Mountains Swamps are typically situated at the headwaters of watercourses below ridges, but can also be hanging swamps on steep ridges, or valley bottom swamps. The structure and species composition of Blue Mountains Swamps varies with localised geology, topographic location, depth of the water table, extent and duration of water logging, drainage gradients, sedimentation and soil type.
Blue Mountains Swamp vegetation structure can range from being open or closed variants of sedgeland, rushland, heath, tussock grassland, tussock grassland, tall grassland, scrub and tall shrubland. The vegetation is typically under 3 metres in height, although taller shrubs may be present. Emergent tree species favouring wet root systems can occur on the swamp margins, and the vegetation here tends to be closed woodland in their undisturbed natural state.
Both the structure and species composition of swamp vegetation vary from site to site, and the individual species and structural types shown below do not all occur at every site. Within a single swamp area a complex mosaic of vegetation types (structure and species composition) may be present.
The structure of Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone vegetation includes sedgeland, closed sedgeland, open-rushland, open-heath, closed-heath, tussock grassland, closed-tussock grassland, tall closed-grassland, open-scrub and tall shrubland. The vegetation is usually less than 3 m in height, although taller shrubs may be present. Emergent trees may occur on swamp margins, and the vegetation here tends to open woodland.
Typical vegetation is characterised by the presence of sedges, graminoids (grass-like plants) and forbs (herbaceous non-grass or grass-like plants) with or without shrubs. They are endemic to the upper Blue Mountains, comprising numerous small patches which aggregate to being about 3,000 heactares in total area. They occur naturally nowhere else on the planet.
Blue Mountains Swamps are scientifically included as a class within the nationally recognised Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone ecological community. On 29th April 2005, Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone was included in the list of nationally threatened ecological communities under section 181 of Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. [Source: ^http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2005L01134]. This was mainly due to Threatened Species Scientific Committee recognising its limited distribution and vulnerability to ongoing threats.
It followed a ten year campaign by Blue Mountains environmentalists..
Twynam Swamp is essentially an upland Blue Mountains Sedge Swamp dominated by coral fern (Gleichenia dicarpa).
It is situated on a hillside at the headwaters of Katoomba Creek in the heart of the distribution area for Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone. The swamp here is predominantly a sedge swamp and is permanently water logged, probably due to the localised presence of natural groundwater springs.
This particular upland swamp area features a diverse ecological community including the following indicator swamp flora species:
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Coral Fern (Gleichenia dicarpa),
King Fern (Todea barbara)
Tasman Flax-lily (Dianella tasmanica)
Soft Twig Rush(Baumea rubiginosa)
Fork-leaved sundew (Drosera binata)
Red-fruit Saw Sedge (Gahnia sieberiana)
Alpine Heath (Epacris paludosa)
Spreading Rope Rush (Empodisma minus)
Mat Rush (Lomandra longifolia)
Peat Moss (Sphagnum cristatum) in the ground layer
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and a range of Hakea and Grevillea shrub species.
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Characteristic of this upper Blue Mountains ridgeline landscape, above this swamp margin stands emerging Eucalyptus oreades, endemically rare in their own right.
Twynam Swamp is but one of the Blue Mountains Swamps localised fragile ecosystems coming under increased pressure mainly by deforestation for housing development and by frequent bushfires especailly from broadscale hazard reduction regimes. Both practices are not only facilitated by government, but sanctioned and enshrined in legislation, despite being scientifically recognised as key threatened processes.
But try telling this to the local Blue Mountains Council. Council has just approved the bulldozing through and above this endangered and protected swamp for housing development.
Council’s zoning under its own Local Environment Plan of 1991 actually recognises this particular swamp as being environmentally protected. The swamp covers much of the Katoomba Creek headwaters site that has just been approved for housing development at the end of Twynam Street. It practically adjoins a restricted Sydney Water Catchment area on the ridgetop.
This site is a swamp. It has no connected water, power, gas or telephone. It has no stormwater connection. It is a swamp.
Not surprisingly, the developer’s Flora and Fauna Assessment has concluded that the bulldozing of the swamp will “unlikely.. (cause) any significant impact on any endangered ecological community, population or any threatened species and as such a Species Impact Statement.” [Source: Anderson Environmental Consultants, May 2012, for 121 Twynam Street, p. 13]
So Blue Mountains Council’s Senior Environmental Health and Building Surveyor, Daniel Roberts, approved construction two weeks ago (12th September 2013) for a two storey dwelling and driveway to carve through this Blue Mountains Swamp. The consent conditions for this development application (X/673/2012) read as if the site was just an urban block of land in downtown Sydney; nothing special.
Rules for some?
Still council’s wholesome vision advocates “respecting our heritage and safeguarding our fragile environment” – a clear disconnect between propaganda and practice.
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Blue Mountains Swampcare at Kittyhawke Swamp, Wentworth Falls.Similar swamp characteristics, just more convenient location for Council and Parks Service to jointly show they care.
[Source: Blue Mountains Council’s Upland Swamp Rehabilitation Programme (2007) enticing community volunteers.]
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Ed: To Blue Mountains Council development staff, ‘Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone’ national legislation is a discretionary matter depending upon where the swamp happens to be situated.
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Blue Mountains Council is content to be hypocritical about its stance on protecting Blue Mountains Swamps under its Swampcare Programme, while at the same time its development planning staff authorise destruction of these swamps. It is in flagrant breach of national legislation.
Fortunately, there remain many in the local Blue Mountains community who place high value and have due respect for Blue Mountains Swamps and their need for consistent protection under the national legislation, irrespective of where the swamps happen to be situated. Next door resident, Francis Scarano, has repeatedly objected to the Blue Mountains Council about this development’s certain destructive impact upon the swamp:
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“The swamp out the front will die along with the E. Oreades as they are not able to cope with excavation for the drive way across roots and concrete next to them and the swamp cannot cope with cut ground water supplies.
What happens when you build above a swamp? You kill a swamp even if you do not build on it. Development above is more than enough to do the job. Winding roads around Eucalyptus oreades grove and building turning bays is enough to make the trees in groves to fall down. Even though the developer is not clearing the oreades grove or swamp his actions will kill them all the same but more slowly.
The swamp particularily depends on the hydrology ie underground springs being undisturbed. They do not understand that building above a swamp will kill it anyway.”
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Her concerns have fallen on deaf, ignorant ears at Blue Mountains Council.
But council ignorance has not stopped local residents making a stand to save this precious remnant swamp.
‘Taxing Air : Facts & Fallacies about Climate Change’
A new book by leading environmental scientist Professor Bob Carter
and political cartoonist John Spooner, with Bill Kininmonth, Martin Feil, Stewart Franks, Bryan Leyland.
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Book released in June 2013:
<< In this accessible and beautifully produced full colour book, The Age (newspaper’s) brilliant political cartoonist John Spooner and leading environmental scientist Professor Bob Carter combine with colleagues to answer a series of critical and highly controversial questions about the politics and science of climate change.
Are human industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming?
If it is so then climate change surely is one of the great moral challenges of our time.
But is it possible that the so-called consensus science around global warming produced by lavishly funded research institutes and with its own international political lobby organization – the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – is wrong?
Could it be that the emperor has no clothes?
Climate Change AlarmismContinues to invoke taxpayer billions to be wasted without stopping the culprit, Pollution – notably worst from coal power, road traffic, petro/chemical industry, landfill into oceans…
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<< Accessible, clearly written and illustrated with simple scientific illustrations, and accompanied by Spooner’s brilliantly wry and telling cartoons, Taxing Air answers – without the spin, evasions or propaganda that pollutes most official writing on climate change – every question you have about global warming but have been too intimidated by the oppressive ‘consensus’ to ask. >>
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..Did You Know?
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• Just 8,000 years ago, there was virtually no summer sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean.
• Sea-level rise is natural, and declining in rate.
• Australian rainfall has not decreased over the last 100 years.
• A previous Australian drought lasted 69 years.
• By catchment management, the Murray-Darling Basin now contains almost 3 times as much water as it held naturally.
• Global air temperature has not increased for the last 16 years, despite an 8% increase in CO2.
• Global ocean temperature is also steady or cooling slightly.
• Australian territory absorbs up to 20 times the amount of CO2 that we emit.
• The CO2 tax will cost about $1,000/person/year; and rising.
• The result of reducing Australian CO2 emissions by 5% by 2020 will be a theoretical (and unmeasurable) cooling of between 0.0007 O and 0.00007 O C by 2100.
• No scientist can tell you whether the world will be warmer or cooler than today in 2020.
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Just a selection of the fascinating facts provided in answer to more than 100 basic questions about global warming and climate change that are covered in the book. >>
James Cook University caves in to Climate Change Evangelism and Bullying
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So much for “higher” education.
James Cook University (in Townsville, Far North Queensland, Australia) has blackballed Professor Bob Carter, not because of any flaw in his scientific reasoning, but because he speaks outside the permitted doctrine. His views on climate science do not fit with the dominant meme (or the grant applications). And then there were pesky complaints and emails from disgruntled fans of the prophets-of-doom. (Quite a drain on the office.)
They took his office a while back, then they took the title. Carter was still supervising a student, and another professor hired him for an hour a week with his own budget. It meant Carter could continue supervising and keep his library access. But that wouldn’t do. Professor Jeffrey Loughran blocked that as well. The library pass and the email was shut off on June 21. It takes an active kind of malice to be this petty.
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Professor Bob Carter
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In years to come when everyone admits that the Great Global Warming Scare was hyped, James Cook University (JCU) could have been seen as one of the rare beacons of academic honour and principle. Instead, apparently, it’s as spineless as any other bureucratic collective. The irony for James Cook University, is that Bob Carter has been working there for 31 years, and they only had to put up with him for a little bit longer in order to claim their glory (albeit post hoc) and then pretend that really they had supported him all along.
The dominant meme is collapsing, thousands of respected scientists are speaking out and skeptic blogs are storming the awards. The evidence has turned, the carbon market has sunk to junk status, and assertive daring articles are appearing in mainstream media in places they would never have been seen a few years ago, like the New York Times, and the Economist. The climate scientists themselves are admitting they don’t know why the world isn’t warming. But the man who was right about that all along is persona non-gratis.
Professor Bob Carter has been a key figure in the Global Warming debate, doing exactly what good professors ought to do, challenging paradigms, speaking internationally, writing books, newspaper articles, and being invited to give special briefings with Ministers in Parliament.
He’d started work at James Cook University in 1981 and served as Head of the Geology Department until 1998. [UPDATE: to clarify, sometime after that he retired]. Since then he’s been an honorary Adjunct Professor.
All James Cook University had to do was to approve an extension of this arrangement, giving him library and email access, at little cost to them, and he could have continued to help students and staff, provide a foil, a counterpoint, and keep alive the spirit of true scientific enquiry. (Not to mention his continued speaking, books, and influence on the National debate).
Instead every person in the chain of command tacitly, or in at least one case, actively endorsed the blackballing. Each one failed to stand for free speech and rigorous debate. In the end, James Cook University didn’t even make any effort to disguise the motive. The only reasons given were that the staff of the School of Earth and Environmental Studies had discussed the issue (without any consultation with Carter) and decided that his views on climate change did not fit well within the School’s own teaching and research activities.
Apparently it took up too much time to defend Carter against outside complaints about his public writings and lectures on climate change. (Busy executives don’t have time to say “Why don’t you ask Carter yourself?” or “We value vigorous debate here.” Presumably they are too busy practising their lines and learning the litany? )
Each of these eminent professors, no doubt, is certain that they are independent minded, tolerant of other views, and have exacting ethical standards. I gather any one of them could have risen above the lap-dog obedience to the dogma of the day.
1. Australia is the world’s #1 Developed Nation polluter
Consulting the US Energy Information Administration database (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/ ) we obtain the following information on “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” in “tonnes (t) per person per year” for Australia and other major polluters (2004 data): 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh).
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2. Germanwatch index places Australia #54 in the list of the worst polluters (#56 being worst)
Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate impact. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ), takes other parameters into account in ranking. In this ranking of 56 top CO2 emitting nations, Sweden and Germany are #1 and #2 for greenhouse responsibility, while shale-oil-rich Canada (a US ally), coal-rich Australia (a US ally), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (US-linked) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ).
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3. In 2004 Australia (0.3% world population) gave 3% total fossil fuel
Consulting the US Energy Information Administration database (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/ ), in 2004 Australia (0.3% world’s population) yielded 1.4% of world’s fossil fuel-derived CO2 (3% including coal exports). The World’s 27,043 Mt fossil fuel-derived CO2 (2004) comprised 10,850 Mt (petroleum), 5602 Mt (gas), and 10,592 Mt (coal) with the Australia breakdown being 810 Mt (total), 117 Mt (petroleum), 52 Mt (gas), 217 Mt (coal, domestic), 424 Mt (coal exports).
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4. Australia world’s largest coal exporter (30% total world coal exports)
From Australian Coal Association (see: http://www.australiancoal.com.au/exports.htm ) Australia maintained its position as the world’s largest coal exporter with exports of 233 Mt in 2005-06 ($A24.5 billion) or 30% of the world total (777 Mt) (M, G, T = million, billion, trillion).
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5. Australia produces about 6% of world hard coal (black coal)
From World Coal Institute (see:
http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=188 ) total World: hard coal consumption 5339 Mt (2006); coal production 5370 Mt (2006); World brown coal 914 Mt ; Australia 309 Mt hard coal (5.8% of World production; used for thermal electricity and as coking coal for steel production).
Australian brown coal production for 2005/06 was 67.7 Mt (valued at $849 million) – all was from Victoria and used to generate electricity. Australia has about 24% of World recoverable brown coal and is ranked first. However, Australia produces about 8% of the World’s brown coal and is ranked fifth largest producer after Germany (22%), Russia (10%), USA (9%) and Greece (8%).
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7. Australian coal reserves
Australia has about 77 billion tonnes of coal resources
Carbon (C, atomic weight 12) to carbon dioxide (CO2, molecular weight 44 ) conversion involves a stoichiometry of 12 g C -> 44 g CO2 i.e. 1 g C to 3.7 g CO2. 1 g coal yields about 1.9 g CO2 (depends on coal type). Thus the US Energy Information Agency estimates World total CO2 from energy-related coal burning at 12,898 Mt in 2008 (see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/environment_faqs.asp#source_by_fuel ) and the World Coal Institute estimates 2008 coal production at 5,845 Mt hard coal and 951 Mt brown coal/lignite (see: http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/ ), this yielding 12,898 Mt CO2/6,796 Mt coal = 1.9 Mt CO2/Mt coal, the specific values for different kinds of coal being 2.85 Mt CO2/Mt coal (anthracite), 2.47 Mt CO2/Mt coal (bituminous), 1.86 Mt CO2/Mt coal (sub-bituminous) and 1.40 Mt CO2/Mt coal (lignite, brown coal) (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html ). In a coal-fired power station 0.327 kg coal yields 1 kWh (kilowatt hour) of energy.
Greenlivingpedia (see: http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Australian_coal_exports ) estimates that in 2008 Australia exported 288 Mt CO2/120 Mt thermal coal (2.4 Mt/Mt thermal coal) and 238 Mt CO2/140 Mt coking coal ( 1.7 Mt CO2/Mt coking coal) for an average value of 526 Mt CO2/260 Mt coal (and an average value of 2.0 Mt CO2/Mt coalexported from Australia).
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A further estimate comes from 12,064 Mr CO2 from coal in 2006 (see US EIA: http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html ) and World production of 6779 million short tons of coal (6779 x 0.9072 = 6,150 Mt of coal) in 2006 (see US EIA: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb1114.html ) – 12,064 Mt CO2 /6,150 Mt coal = 1.96 or about 2.0 Mt CO2 per Mt coal (this includes brown coal and low quality sub-bituminous coal in the denominator and would thus would underestimate the CO2 from the burning of exported Australian coal).
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9. Australia gets 77% of its electricity from coal, 92% from fossil fuels
According ot the Australian Uranium Association (see: http://www.uic.com.au/nip37.htm ) electricity generation in Australia involves about 51 billion W (51 GW) capacity; the price varies during the day etc at about 4 c /kWh; in 2006 Australia’s power stations produced 255 billion kilowatt hours (trillion Wh = TWh) of electricity; the energy source breakdown was 92.2% Carbon-based (black coal 54.8% , brown coal 21.9%, oil 1.3%, gas 14.2%, hydro 6.8%. and renewables 1%; 77% is coal-based electricity.
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10. The true cost of coal energy is 4 times the market cost (Ontario Government study) – 4,860 Australians killed by coal annually @ $1.6 million each?
In Ontario (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836) the cost/kWh jumped from $0.04 to $0.164 with environmental and human impacts added; pollution from coal plants producing 27 TWh/year (20% of supply) kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12.2 million) suggesting coal plants producing 77% of Australia’s annual 255 TWh of electricity (see: http://www.uic.com.au/nip37.htm) i.e. 0.77 x 255 = 196.4 TWh/year might kill about 196.4 TWh x 668/27 TWh = 4,859 people annually in Australia (population 21 million); in Australia 255 bn kWh x $0.04/kWh = $10.2 bn; 0.77 (coal-based) x $10.2 bn = $7.85 billion; $7.85 bn /4,859 deaths i.e. Australian electricity consumers pay for electricity @$1.6 million per fellow Australian killed by coal. >>
<< Over the past 10 years black coal exports have increased by more than 50%.
Japan takes 39.3% of Australia’s black coal exports – the largest share, with a total of 115.3 million tonnes exported last financial year.
China is our second largest market with 42.4 million tonnes in 2009-2010, almost double the previous year.
The Republic of Korea accounts for 40.7 million tonnes, India for 31.92 million tonnes and Taiwan for 26.53 million tonnes, rounding out the top five destinations for coal from Australia.
Together these five countries accounted for 88% of all black coal exports with a further 28 countries taking the remaining 12%.
Demand for coal in China and India is expected to increase dramatically over the next decade in line with these countries’ projected need for coal for energy and manufacturing.
Australia was the only one of the world’s 33 advanced economies to grow in 2009 during the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
The principal reason for this was our continued coal exports. The importance of coal in the economy is also evident in its growing share of Gross Domestic Product.
This share has more than doubled, from 1.7 % in 2006-07 to 3.5 % in 2008-09, making it the largest contributor to the mining sector.
In 2011, Australia’s thermal coal exports grew by four %, relative to 2010, to total 148 million tonnes. Projections for 2012 see an increase of 10% in 2012 to 162 million tonnes, then growing at an average annual rate of 11 % between 2013 and 2017, to total 271 million tonnes by the end of the period.
Australia’s exports of metallurgical coal are forecast to increase at an average annual rate of eight %, reaching 218 million tonnes in 2017, with total earnings forecast at $40 billion in current Australian dollars..
Looking to purchase coal?
Please contact our members for further information. >>
Orange-Bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster) Critically endangered and breeds only in Tasmania, Australia
[Source: Photo by John Harrison, in article ‘Threat of extinction demands fast and decisive action’, 20120724, by Tara Martin, published in The Conversation,
^http://theconversation.com/threat-of-extinction-demands-fast-and-decisive-action-7985]
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Government Ecological Hypocrisy
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While Australia’s governments at federal and state level continue to allow and encourage logging, burning and mining of Australia’s native forest ecosystems, many conservationists are well aware of that the loss of these forests habitats, and other human harmful actions are driving the extinction of Australia’s flora and fauna.
Threatened species can only be saved from extinction if first their habitat is properly protected from harm. Many species such as the Orange-Bellied Parrot which has now become critically endangered require more than just habitat protection, but active recovery intervention to save it from extinction. Yet this parrot species’ native habitats restricted to southern coastal Victoria and Tasmania are actively being destroyed as if government were sadistically and callously encouraging its extinction.
In governments we trust. Yet infamously in July 2009, the man who used to belt out “And the company takes what the company wants/And nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground”, Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett, as then entrusted Environment Minister, approved the Beverley Four Mile Uranium Mine in South Australia.
Beverley Four Mile Uranium Mine550km north east of Adelaide
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At the most senior level, the Australian Government minister who is ultimately responsible and accountable to protect Australia’s natural ecology and to prevent flora and fauna extinctions, has his environment task diluted. Tony Burke MP is currently the Minister for (1) Sustainability (2) Environment (3) Water (4) Population (5) Communities (6) the Arts, which reflects the low value that the Australian Government places on protecting Australia’s Ecology.
Australia’s recent Environment Ministers, respectively Peter Garrett and Tony Burke
Both Babyboomer Middle-Aged Men
Invariably in business, in politics, Babyboomer Middle-Aged Men
are the demographic drivers of ecological destruction across the planet.
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Tony Burke has recently approved open coal mining that will destroy the Leard State Forest in New South Wales, remnant home of the increasingly rare Koala [^Read More].
Tony Burke has approved mining in Tasmania’s Tarkine (the last continuous wilderness region of Gondwana Rainforest home to more than 60 species of rare, threatened and endangered species including the Giant Freshwater Lobster, the Wedge Tailed Eagle, the Tasmanian Devil and the Orange-bellied Parrot [^Read More].
Tony Burke has recently approved logging to continue in recognised high conservation value native forests in Tasmania, previously agreed to be protected in an Intergovernmental Agreement between the federal and Tasmanian governments in Launceston on 7th August 2011 [^Read More].
Tony Burke has recently approved port development and shipping movements through the Great Barrier Reef for Rio Tintos’ bauxite mine in western Cape York, as well as a huge new coal export terminal at Abbot Point and at dredging of Gladstone Harbour despite the ongoing damage vital marine habitat supporting endangered species including turtles, dugongs and dolphins. [^Read More]
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“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
~ Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World
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The 100 tonne coal ship the ‘Shen Neng 1’ which went aground on 5th April 2010, while negotiating the Great Barrier Reef
The ship destroyed 3km of the coral Douglas Shoal which it “completely flattened” and “pulverised” marine life. The marine park authority’s chief scientist, Dr David Wachenfeld, expressed concerned also about the toxic heavy metal anti-fouling paint scraping off the hull.
[Source: ‘Three kilometres of Great Barrier Reef damage, 20 years to mend’, 20100414, by Tom Arup, The Age newspaper,
^http://www.theage.com.au/environment/three-kilometres-of-great-barrier-reef-damage-20-years-to-mend-20100413-s7p8.html]
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Threatened Species Scientific Committee
– a toothless agency abused for ecopolitical spin
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Then, at a lower level of government, a committee has been established since 2000 to advise Australia’s Environment Minister on issues associated with Australia’s increasing list of threatened species.
The Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) is legally established for under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), which superseded the 1992 Endangered Species Protection Act. The committee’s function is to advise the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (currentky Tony Burke MP) on:
Amendments and updating of threatened species and threatened ecological communities lists
Key Threatening Processes
Preparing Species Recovery Plans and Threat Abatement Plans
Scientific input into the Species Profile and Threats Database (^SPRAT)
Advice on the presence of hybrids in listed ecological communities
Hold periodic workshops dealing with issues concerning Australia’s threatened species and threatened ecosystems
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Every year the committee publishes an annual report, except it has been six years since the Australian Government published one on its website. Here is the latest report from 2006-07. [>Read 2006-07 Report.pdf , 40kb) ]
As at the date of this article, the Australian Government lists the following statistics as our native fauna currently threatened with extinction to varying degrees, or now extinct.
Beware that government websites can change with whim and so the existence of the link below may disappear at any time.
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The above list is out of date, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) records are also out of date, because of the lack of diligent timely monitoring efforts by the Australian Government, and tardiness by the Australian Government in updating pertinent threatened species information back to the IUCN. Basically the Australian Government simply doesn’t care enough about Australian Ecology and dependent species about to become extinct.
It is a dire situation disgracefully detestable and sad.
According to an article in The Conversation back in December 2012, in respect to Australian mammal fauna, there are not four species deemed to be critically endangered to extinction, but now twelve, as listed below. Some of these may well be extinct such as the Christmas Island Pipistrelle..
The plight and demise of these species is not new. The Australian Government and its committees, reviews, reports and laws have confirmed this for many years. More committees, reviews, reports and laws equates to unforgiveable avoidance of moral and legal responsibility by the incumbent Environment Minister, this man:
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Tony Burke – the only grey haired Babyboomer in this photo
His demographic is responsible for the worst destruction of ecology across the Planet,
because the Nature-compromising values of males in this generation were formed when Nature was still considered plenty and its exploitation a God-given gospel.
Tony Burke’s values are wrong, inappropriate and his powerful decisions irreversible.
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Woylie (Bettongia penicillata) also known as the Brush-tailed Bettong, or Brush-tailed Rat Kangaroo; a small marsupial found from south-west Western Australia across southern Australia.
Mountain Pygmy Possum (Burramys parvus) – this tiny possum occurs as three isolated, genetically distinct populations in the alps of Victoria and NSW.
Christmas Island Shrew (Crocidura trichura) – endemic to Christmas Island and hasn’t been seen since 1985. It is possibly extinct.
Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii) – approximately 200 of these wombats remain; they are limited to Epping Forest National Park (Scientific), and a reintroduced population at the Richard Underwood Nature Refuge, in Queensland.
Lesser Stick-nest Rat (Leporillus apicalis) – this central-Australian rodent is probably extinct, with no reliable sightings since 1970.
Bramble Cay (Melomys Melomys rubicola) – limited to a small cay in the Torres Strait, this rodent has one of the most restricted distributions of any mammal species.
Lord Howe Long-eared Bat (Nyctophilus howensis) – known only from a single skull found in 1972, but Lord Howe Islanders continue to report bat sightings.
Christmas Island Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) – while listed as critically endangered, it’s generally accepted this little bat is now extinct.
Gilbert’s Potoroo (Potorous gilbertii) – only 40 or so of these rabbit-sized marsupials live in south-west Western Australia, but the population seems stable.
Kangaroo Island Dunnart (Sminthopsis aitkeni) – this little hand-sized marsupial is restricted to a very small area of Kangaroo Island.
Carpentarian Rock Rat (Zyzomys palatalis) – a rodent found in sandstone gorges in the Northern Territory, there are thought to be less than 2000 remaining.
Central Rock Rat (Zyzomys pedunculatus) – this rodent is found only in the western MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory.
According to Tara Martin, Research Scientist at Ecosystem Sciences at the CSIRO:
<<When it comes to mammal extinctions, Australia’s track record over the last 200 years has been abysmal. Since European settlement, nearly half of the world’s mammalian extinctions have occurred in Australia – 19 at last count. So, when faced with the additional threat of climate change, how do we turn this around and ensure the trend doesn’t continue?
Learning from previous extinctions is a good place to start. A comparison between two Australian species, the recently extinct Christmas Island pipistrelle and the critically endangered but surviving orange-bellied parrot, provides some insight into the answer to this question. Namely, that acting quickly and decisively in response to evidence of rapid population decline is a key factor in determining the fate of endangered species.
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‘Government Delay condemn a species to extinction’
A Case of Government Delay:
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Species Extinction on Peter Garrett’s Watch
<< The Australian Government will invest $1.5 million to begin the rescue of Christmas Island’s ecosystem, including a mission to capture the last remaining Pipistrelle bats for captive breeding. “Volunteers and help from the Australasian Bat Society will be invaluable in this capture effort.” “My top priority now is to prevent any further extinctions and to restore the island’s environmental health,” Mr Garrett said.>>
A year later the critically endangered Christmas Island Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) was declared extinct.
[Source: ‘Christmas Island Pipistrelle Rescue’, 20090703, by Bat Conservation & Rescue Qld Inc., ^http://www.bats.org.au/?p=710]
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<<Endemic to Christmas Island, the pipistrelle was a tiny (3.5 gram) insect-eating bat. It was first described in 1900, when numbers were widespread and abundant. In the early 1990s this began to change. The decline was rapid and the exact cause uncertain.
By 2006, experts were calling for a captive breeding program to be initiated. These pleas were ignored until 2009 when it was finally given the green light. Sadly the decision came too late, and two months (the then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett MP) announced that the rescue attempt had failed.>>
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A Case of Government Action (so far):
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<<Concern about the orange-bellied parrot began in 1917, but it wasn’t until 1981 that it was confirmed to be on the brink of extinction. In an attempt to save the parrot, a multi-agency, multi-government recovery team was set up and a captive breeding program began in 1983.
Like the bat, threats to the parrot remain poorly understood. In 2010, monitoring showed that the species would become extinct in the wild within three to five years unless drastic action was taken. The recovery team immediately took action to bolster the captive population as insurance against extinction. There are currently 178 birds in captivity and less than 20 in the wild.
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<<…How we manage endangered species ultimately comes back to the decisions made, including who makes the decisions, who is held accountable, and the timing of these decisions.
Examining these cases in the context of decision-making reveals some clear differences and highlights some important recommendations for the future management of endangered species.
One of the key differences was in the governance and leadership surrounding the two cases. Experts involved in monitoring the pipistrelle provided recommendations to government bodies, but did not have the authority to make decisions nor was there an effective leader to champion the urgent need to act. Conversely, the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team had the authority to make decisions and act on them. Indeed, thanks to the Recovery Team’s broad representation, any failure to act would likely have resulted in public outcry – which raises the issue of accountability.
Management of endangered species requires tough decisions, yet they are decisions we must make. If we monitor declining populations without a process for deciding between different management options, we will only document extinctions. In some cases, the logical decision may be to employ a triage system where priority is given to species with a high likelihood of recovery. Assigning institutional accountability around the management of endangered species could help to ensure that tough decisions are made and that the processes involved are transparent.
Finally, the cases of the bat and the parrot also highlight the need to act quickly when a species is found to be on the brink of extinction. Delaying decisions only narrows our choices and removes opportunities to act. We may not always have all the answers, but this cannot be used as a reason to delay decision making. Based on a triage system a decision to not to act might be the best way forward, but if we delay the decision it becomes the only way forward.
..scientific analysis can be used to determine how much information we need to inform a good conservation decision. In the case of the Christmas Island pipistrelle, the decision to start a captive breeding program came many years too late.
By evaluating the costs, benefits, and feasibility of taking different management actions in the light of what we know about a species’ decline (or don’t know – i.e. the degree of uncertainty), it is possible to get the timing right.
Research into the methods used to stem species decline is also underway. For example, captive breeding and reintroduction programs are generally regarded as having good success rates. Further investigation into genetic management, habitat restoration, and effective techniques for reintroduction and risk management will help ensure the success of these programs for a variety of species.
Stemming the global loss of biodiversity through Species Recovery Planning will require brave decision-making in the face of uncertainty. Monitoring must be linked to decisions, institutions must be accountable for these decisions and decisions to act must be made before critical opportunities, and species, are lost forever.>>
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[Source: ‘Threat of extinction demands fast and decisive action’, 20120724, by Tara Martin, Research Scientist, Ecosystem Sciences at CSIRO, (based on a paper by Tara Martin and with input from co-authors Mark Holdsworth, Stephen Harris, Fiona Henderson, Mark Lonsdale, in The Conversation, ^http://theconversation.com/threat-of-extinction-demands-fast-and-decisive-action-7985]
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Principles to Properly Protect Threatened Species
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The Australian Government is accountable for the conservation of Australia’s natutral environment and dependent species, particularly those at risk of extinction. It is charged with the democratic authority to do so and the Australian people entrust it to act responsibly. The Australian Government since 1999 had in place a national law protecting threatened species under its Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and since 2000 had an expert Threatened Species Scientific Committee advising it on priorities for threatened species and key threatening processes and recommended conservation actions.
But having a framework for conservation action is two steps short of the conservation action itself. Without proper funding and timely onground action, government environmental conservation is but hypocritcal lip service.
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Gilbert’s Potoroo – only 40 left
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2008 Review of Threatened Species Protection
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Section 522A of the EPBC Act requires it to be reviewed every 10 years from its commencement. So on 31 October 2008, Peter Garrett MP as the then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, commissioned an independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), the Australian Government’s central piece of environmental legislation.
The Terms of Reference were:
the operation of the EPBC Act generally
the extent to which the objects of the EPBC Act have been achieved
the appropriateness of current matters of National Environmental Significance
the effectiveness of the biodiversity and wildlife conservation arrangements
Seek input from state and territory governments, members of the community and industry
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The review to be guided by key Australian Government policy objectives:
To promote the sustainability of Australia’s economic development to enhance individual and community well-being while protecting biological diversity and maintaining essential ecological processes and systems
To work in partnership with the states and territories within an effective federal arrangement
To facilitate delivery of Australia’s international obligations
The Australian Government’s deregulation agenda to reduce and simplify the regulatory burden on people, businesses and organisations, while maintaining appropriate and efficient environmental standards
To ensure activities under the Act represent the most appropriate, efficient and effective ways of achieving the Government’s outcomes and objectives in accordance with the Expenditure Review Principles.
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The review was undertaken by Dr Allan Hawke (government representative) supported by a panel of experts- a retired NSW judge Paul Stein AM, Professor Mark Burgman (Environmental Science), Professor Tim Bonyhady (Environmental Law), Rosemary Warnock (ethical standards and the environment).
Community participation in the review was encouraged and 220 written submissions were received and 140 face-to-face consultation meetings were held in capital cities around Australia. An Interim Report on the review was released and a further 119 written comments were received. The Final Report was delivered to the Minister on 30 October 2009 and publicly released on 21 December 2009.
On 24 August 2011, the Minister released the Australian Government response to the independent review, three years after the review process began and about a year after the ten year review deadline.
The response centred around four key themes:
Abandonning targeted actions to save critically endangered threatened species, and instead to vague “strategic approaches” and more plans
Simplification of the assessment and approval processes for threatened species – vague, cheaper and less research work
Big picture ecosystem approach
Compromise of national standards to “harmonise” conservation approaches with the States having different priorities
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Irrespective of the 220 written submissions and 140 face-to-face consultation meetings, out of the 71 recommendations in the Final Report, the Australian Government agreed either in part, in principle, in substance, but has since done precious little to protect Australia’s threatened species.
The review process was stipluated in the EPBC Act, but all it achieved was an opportunity for the Australian Government to undermine the 1999 standards, water down national environmental protection legislation, simplify the government’s administration and save money. Effectively the EPBC Review was a bureacratic talk fest and an expensive waste of time and taxpayer money that would have been better spent on implementing known critically endengerd species and their habitats.
The survival of Australia’s threatened species remain at the whim of federal and state governments.
What did the entire review process cost including the consultants? The amount is secret. Was it $10 million, more? The estimated cost of a Species Recovery Plans and Threat Abatement Plan to save the critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot is how much?
Meanwhile, as few as 250 Orange-bellied Parrots remain in existence, making the species one of the most endangered species on the planet.
Meanwhile, community volunteers with The Friends of the Orange-Bellied Parrot and Wildcare Inc. in Tasmania continue to monitor the Orange-bellied Parrots during their breeding season in far southwest Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area. Members live for periods of 10 days at Birch Inlet and Melaleuca in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area, making observations of the daily lives of the OBPs, including birds that have been bred in captivity and released at the beginning of the season as part of the Species Recovery Plan for the Orange-Bellied Parrot.
They don’t get money from the Australian Government and so have set up the Save the Orange-bellied parrot Fund. Wildcare Inc volunteers receive a small reimbursement allowance from the Tasmanian Government’s watered down Department of (1) Primary Industries, (2) Parks, (3) Water and oh yeah (4) Environment to assist with their costs.
After the entire the EPBC Act Review process and a year after the Australian Government’s response to it, on 31 October 2012 the Australian Senate this time set up yet another review into the Effectiveness of Threatened Species and Ecological Communities’ Protection in Australia. It commissioned a Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications for enquiry and report.
This second review process came in light of the rubber stamp realisation by The Greens Senator Larissa Waters of how the Australian Government had poorly treated the EPBC Review and in light of the Auditor General report that Victoria’s environment and primary industry departments are failing to act as proper watchdogs [^Read More]. Further to that we’ve seen Professor Tim Flannery publish his opinion piece (from the Monthly’s Quarterly Essay) on the extinction crisis pointing some of the blame at the Commonwealth’s inaction [^Read More].
Public submissions were to be received by 14th December 2012 and the reporting date scheduled to be 7th February 2013, but rather late again on 14th May 2013, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting until 20 June 2013 (one month’s time from the date of this article).
The Terms of Reference are:
(a) Management of key threats to listed species and ecological communities
(b) Development and implementation of Species Recovery Plans
[Ed: About time, and what about commensurate Threat Abatement Plans? One is ineffective without the other.]
(c) Management of critical habitat across all land tenures
(d) Regulatory and funding arrangements at all levels of government
(e) Timeliness and risk management within the listings processes
(f) The historical record of state and territory governments on these matters
Public submissions received by the Senate Committee
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1 Mr Gabriel Lafitte (PDF 39KB)
2 Dr Todd Soderquist and Dr Deborah Ashworth (PDF 41KB) Attachment 1(PDF 395KB)
3 Mr Marcus Coghlan (PDF 91KB)
4 Australasian Native Orchid Society and the Australian Orchid Council (PDF 309KB)
5 Ms Fay Jones (PDF 4KB)
6 Monaro Acclimatisation Society Inc (PDF 267KB)
7 Mr James Samargis (PDF 56KB)
8 Mr Stephen Chara (PDF 432KB), Supplementary Submission(PDF 1213KB)
9 Mr Sab Lord, Lords Kakadu and Arnhemland Safaris (PDF 9KB)
10 Ms Kylie Jones (PDF 43KB)
11 East Gippsland Wildfire Taskforce Inc (PDF 1483KB)
12 Regent Honeyeater Project (PDF 9KB) Attachment 1(PDF 2946KB)
13 Mr Rob Brewster (PDF 2063KB)
14 Mr Tom Kingston (PDF 16KB)
15 Professor David Lindenmayer (PDF 44KB)
16 Mr Frank Manthey OAM, Save the Bilby Fund (PDF 189KB), Supplementary Submission(PDF 1154KB)
17 Friends of Tootgarook Wetland Reserves (PDF 390KB)
18 Mr Jim Walker (PDF 193KB)
19 Ms Harriett Swift (PDF 34KB), Supplementary Submission(PDF 11KB)
20 Island Conservation (PDF 1011KB)
21 Wildflower Society of Western Australia (Inc) (PDF 161KB)
22 Mr Daniel Bell (PDF 11KB)
23 Marie-Louise Sarjeant, Chris Sarjeant, Sonia Hutchinson, John Marsh, Maxine Jacobsen, Diana Kellett, Lesley Palma (PDF 945KB)
24 Save Tootgarook Swamp Inc (PDF 1777KB)
25 Ms Joan Spittle (PDF 83KB)
26 Mr John Jeayes (PDF 431KB)
27 Zoo and Aquarium Association (PDF 57KB)
28 Ray and Marion Lewis (PDF 239KB)
29 Mr Jean Dind (PDF 32KB)
30 Associate Professor Adrian Manning (PDF 97KB) Attachment 1(PDF 370KB), Supplementary Submission(PDF 167KB)
31 Port Campbell Community Group Inc (PDF 152KB)
32 Mr Philip Collier (PDF 790KB)
33 Mr Trevor Parton (PDF 58KB)
34 Mr Ian Wheatland, Mr Kai May, Dr Katherine Phillips and Mrs Nina Kriegisch (PDF 126KB)
35 Ms Susan M Broman (PDF 890KB)
36 Sister Marian McClelland sss (PDF 29KB)
37 Finch Society of Australia Inc (PDF 65KB)
38 Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition (PDF 250KB)
39 Ms Mary White rsm (PDF 273KB)
40 Ms Marie Hilarina Fernando (PDF 103KB)
41 Dr Emma Rooksby and Dr Keith Horton (PDF 63KB)
42 Zoos Victoria (PDF 240KB)
43 The Colong Foundation for Wilderness (PDF 376KB)
44 Mr Stewart Kerr (PDF 5KB)
45 Mr Peter Berbee (PDF 24KB)
46 Dr Andrew Burbidge (PDF 69KB)
47 Name Withheld (PDF 45KB)
48 Professor John Woinarski (PDF 157KB)
49 Ms Lee Curtis (PDF 100KB)
50 Mr Thomas Weiss (PDF 36KB)
51 Dr Peter Kyne (PDF 387KB)
52 Dr Greg P Clancy (PDF 218KB)
53 Mr Trent Patten (PDF 1536KB)
54 Ms Sabine Ritz-Kerr (PDF 47KB)
55 Dr Martine Maron (PDF 196KB)
56 Ms Claire Masters (PDF 39KB)
57 The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists (PDF 2022KB)
58 Mr Jonathan Meddings (PDF 817KB)
59 Mr Nigel Sharp (PDF 329KB)
60 Assoc Prof Mark Lintermans (PDF 54KB)
61 Ms Pamela J W Miskin (PDF 66KB)
62 South East Forest Rescue (PDF 646KB)
63 Clarence Environment Centre (PDF 137KB)
64 Mr Craig Thomson (PDF 116KB)
65 Ms Peta Whitford (PDF 222KB)
66 Mr Daryl Dickson, Wildcard Art, Mungarru Lodge Sanctuary (PDF 269KB)
67 Ms Sera Blair (PDF 349KB)
68 Ms Kerryn Blackshaw (PDF 5KB)
69 Yarra Ranges Council (PDF 107KB)
70 Lawyers for Forests (PDF 1159KB)
71 Name Withheld (PDF 23KB)
72 Mr Greg Miles (PDF 157KB) Attachment 1(PDF 600KB) Attachment 2(PDF 4770KB)
73 Bendigo and District Environment Council, Bendigo Field Naturalists Club and Bendigo Sustainability Group (PDF 364KB) Attachment 1(PDF 173KB) Attachment 2(PDF 1923KB)
74 Dr Jasmyn Lynch (PDF 80KB)
75 Blue Mountains Conservation Society (PDF 202KB)
76 Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (PDF 246KB)
77 CSIRO (PDF 284KB)
78 Dr Chris McGrath (PDF 245KB)
79 Mr David Blair (PDF 195KB)
80 Name Withheld (PDF 183KB)
81 WWF-Australia (PDF 553KB) Attachment 1(PDF 378KB) Attachment 2(PDF 204KB)
82 BirdLife Australia (PDF 715KB) Attachment 1(PDF 1129KB)
83 Australian Deer Association (PDF 732KB)
84 LIV Young Lawyers’ Section, Law Institute of Victoria (PDF 1209KB) Attachment 1(PDF 4436KB) Attachment 2(PDF 1303KB), Supplementary Submission(PDF 335KB)
85 Stanislaw Pelczynski and Barbara Pelczynska (PDF 245KB)
86 Friends of Grasslands (PDF 100KB)
87 Dr Kerryn Parry-Jones (PDF 239KB) Attachment 1(PDF 2143KB)
88 Humane Society International (PDF 550KB)
89 Mr Jeremy Tager (PDF 1441KB), Supplementary Submission(PDF 185KB)
90 Ms Karena Goldfinch (PDF 141KB)
91 Mr Ray Strong (PDF 95KB)
92 Healesville Environment Watch Inc, MyEnvironment Inc and Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum Inc (PDF 2435KB)
93 Mr Ian Whitford (PDF 226KB)
94 Greenfleet (PDF 105KB)
95 Mr Barry Rowe, Candlebark Community Nursery Inc (PDF 178KB)
96 Conondale Range Committee (PDF 156KB)
97 Dr John Clulow (PDF 61KB)
98 Ms Melinda Taylor (PDF 73KB)
99 Mr David Hudson (PDF 78KB)
100 Ms Yasmin Kelsall (PDF 340KB)
101 S. Burgess and E. Bradley (PDF 61KB)
102 Ms Glenda Pickersgill (PDF 86KB)
103 Dr Tanzi Smith (PDF 249KB)
104 The Greater Mary Association Inc. (PDF 234KB)
105 Mr Philip Rance (PDF 651KB)
106 Caldera Environment Centre (PDF 416KB)
107 Mr Bruce Boyes (PDF 1505KB)
108 Australian Wildlife Health Network (PDF 418KB)
109 Friends of Hoddles Creek (PDF 1403KB)
110 Australasian Bat Society Inc (PDF 413KB)
111 Confidential
112 Confidential
113 Canberra Ornithologists Group (PDF 229KB)
114 Urban Bushland Council WA Inc (PDF 112KB)
115 MRCCC (PDF 559KB)
116 Threatened Ecosystems Network (PDF 1606KB)
117 Wildlife Disease Association Australasia (PDF 71KB)
118 Name Withheld (PDF 237KB)
119 Mr Andrew Heaver (PDF 126KB)
120 Name Withheld (PDF 76KB)
121 Ms Kate Leahy (PDF 35KB)
122 Dr Jonathan Rhodes (PDF 68KB)
123 Professor Lee Godden and Professor Jacqueline Peel (PDF 136KB) Attachment 1(PDF 123KB) Attachment 2(PDF 327KB)
124 Earth Learning Incorporated (PDF 352KB)
125 NSW Council of Freshwater Anglers (PDF 671KB)
126 Mr Mark Selmes (PDF 141KB)
127 Professor Hugh Possingham and Associate Professor Michael McCarthy (PDF 102KB)
128 Ms Susan Bendel (PDF 99KB)
129 The Wilderness Society Inc (PDF 68KB)
130 Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection Queensland (PDF 3463KB)
131 Ms Lorraine Leach (PDF 293KB)
132 Dr John Bardsley (PDF 1070KB)
133 Mr Wayne Gumley (PDF 144KB)
134 Nature Conservation Council of NSW (PDF 783KB)
135 Middle Kinglake Primary School (PDF 2301KB)
136 The Judith Eardley Save Wildlife Centre (PDF 1595KB)
137 Australian Network of Environmental Defender’s Offices Inc (PDF 214KB) Attachment 1(PDF 1129KB)
138 Ms Jenifer Johnson (PDF 1917KB)
139 Batwatch Australia (PDF 270KB)
140 Invasive Species Council (PDF 421KB)
141 Dr Rupert Baker (PDF 50KB)
142 National Parks Australia Council (PDF 331KB) Attachment 1(PDF 734KB) Attachment 2(PDF 3164KB)
143 Department of Sustainability Environment Water Population and Communities (PDF 1098KB)
144 Director of National Parks (PDF 249KB)
145 National Parks Association of NSW (PDF 196KB)
146 Mr Don Butcher (PDF 694KB)
147 Australian Conservation Foundation (PDF 725KB) Attachment 1(PDF 1129KB)
148 Australian Fisheries Management Authority (PDF 638KB)
149 Environment East Gippsland Inc. (PDF 2834KB)
150 Nature Conservation Society of South Australia (PDF 196KB)
151 Arid Lands Environment Centre (PDF 182KB)
152 Ms Prue Acton (PDF 394KB)
153 Ms Bronwyn Baade (PDF 55KB)
154 Threatened Species Scientific Committee (PDF 255KB)
155 VETO (VETO Energex Towers Organisation) (PDF 1695KB) Attachment 1(PDF 199KB)
156 Gecko – Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council and Save Bahrs Scrub Alliance (PDF 508KB) Attachment 1(PDF 569KB)
157 Threatened Plant Action Group (TPAG), Nature Conservation Society of South Australia (PDF 332KB)
158 FrogWatch (PDF 121KB)
159 Department of Land Resource Management, Northern Territory Government (PDF 8000KB)
160 Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Gold Coast and Hinterland Branch (PDF 202KB)
161 North Coast Environment Council (PDF 594KB) Attachment 1(PDF 3788KB) Attachment 2(PDF 1914KB)
162 Australian Wildlife Conservancy (PDF 400KB) Attachment 1(PDF 637KB) Attachment 2(PDF 433KB)
163 MyEnvironment Inc (PDF 6137KB)
164 South East Region Conservation Alliance Inc (PDF 3514KB)
165 Logan and Albert Conservation Association (PDF 306KB) Attachment 1(PDF 197KB) Attachment 2(PDF 147KB)
166 PGV Environmental (PDF 916KB)
167 National Farmers’ Federation (PDF 61KB)
168 Wide Bay Burnett Enviroment Council (PDF 1311KB)
169 Premier of Western Australia (PDF 14211KB)
170 Confidential
171 Confidential
172 The Wilderness Society Victoria Inc (PDF 1182KB), Response from VicForests, dated 29 January 2013(PDF 78KB)
173 Brisbane Region Environment Council (PDF 965KB)
174 North East Forest Alliance (PDF 2272KB), Response from Forestry Corporation, NSW(PDF 2036KB)
175 Eagle Junction State School (PDF 12260KB)
176 Hunter Bird Observers Club (PDF 387KB)
177 Ms Margaret Peachey (PDF 63KB)
Southern Corroborree Frog (Pseudophryne corroboree)Endemic to yet critically endangered in the Australian Alps.
Its demise has been directly caused by habitat destruction from recreational 4WD use, development of ski resorts, introduced feral animals and human degradation of the frogs’ habitat. As of June 2004 it was estimated to have a population of just 64.
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Submission #82 by BirdLife Australia
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Australia’s leading independent conservation advocate for native birds and their habitats, BirdLife Australia, has its own Threatened Species Committee. In its submission to the review, BirdLife Australia called on Australia’s national environment law, the EPBC Act, to:
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Be accountable
Be transparent
Deliver on our international commitments
Specify measurable ecological outcomes
Have a mandate to intervene on matters that are national in scope
Be resourced and enforced
Give the Australian Community a voice on national environmental matters
Be based on independent advice
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Specifically these were its recommendations in detail:
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Be accountable
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a. The Act should require that national environmental accounts are developed (Recommendation 67), produced annually, and include Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES). Within this the IUCN Red List Index could be used to provide a measure of performance in the threatened species protection and management.
b. The Act should establish an Independent Environment Commission to provide objective, science-based advice to the Minister to improve decision-making and ensure greater transparency and accountability (Recommendation 71). The Commission should be responsible for independent monitoring, audit, compliance and enforcement activities under the Act.
c. The Act should prescribe mandatory decision-making criteria for ecological outcomes (Recommendation 43). All actions should be legally required to maintain or improve ecological outcomes, or to demonstrate a net improvement in national environmental accounts (for each relevant MNES).
d. Regional Forest Agreements require an independent review and a more rigorous approach to auditing. A process for public input and sanctions for serious non-compliance are required. The full protections of the Act should apply to forest activities where the terms of the RFAs are not being met (Recommendation 38).
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Be transparent
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a. Transparency in decision-making must be maintained and improved. Current proposals do not go far enough, for example statements of reasons for all decisions made by the Minister and delegates under the Act should be released at time of the decision (Recommendation 44(1)(c)).
b. The Act must provide greater access to the courts for public interest litigation. The Government’s Rejection of Recommendations 48-53 is a key failure of the Government’s response to provide suitable checks and balances for proposals to “streamline” processes.
c. A core element of Hawke’s reform package was to provide for environmental performance audits and inquiries. The Australian Government should be subject to regular environmental performance audit under a new specialist Environmental Performance Audit Unit in the Australian National Audit Office, provided for under the Auditor-General Act 1997.
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Deliver on our international commitments
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a. Critical habitat must be protected, with impacts on critical habitat equated to impact on species, and consideration given to the critical habitat required under climate change (Recommendation 12 (1)). However we feel that the critical habitat register should be retained and its remit expanded.
b. The Environment Minister requires powers to develop and implement management plans to protect the values of World Heritage properties, National Heritage Places and Ramsar wetlands where the collaborative processes have not produced effective plans (Recommendation 34).
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Specify measurable ecological outcomes
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a. The Act should specify required ecological outcomes. This could be delivered through specified reporting periods for MNES, such as on Species Recovery Plans and Threat Abatement Plans to ensure accountability. The Government agreed the Act should include provisions that enable the auditing of environmental outcomes (performance audits) (Recommendation 61).
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Have a mandate to intervene on matters that are national in scope
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a. The primary object of the Act should be ‘to protect the environment’ (Recommendation 3).
b. The Act, and the way it is administered, needs to better reflect the principles of Ecological Sustainable Development (Recommendation 2).
c. The process proposed in the Government response for listing ecosystems of national significance under the Act is too restrictive and inflexible.
d. The National Reserve System should be included as a MNES.
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Be resourced and enforced
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a. Cost recovery mechanisms under the Act are needed to ensure that the Environment Department is adequately resourced to ensure operation of the Act and monitor performance (Recommendation 62).
b. A Reparation fund should be established (Recommendation 60). Give the Australian Community a voice on national environmental matters
a. We strongly support the creation of a call in power for ‘plans, policies and programs’ that may have a significant impact on a MNES to better deal with cumulative impacts.
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Be based on independent advice
a. The quality of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) information needs to be substantially improved. An industry Code of Conduct for consultants supplying information for EIA and approval under the Act should be developed and the Minister, or the Environment Commission, should audit assessment information (including protected matters) to test assertions made in EIAs (Recommendation 24).
b. The Environment Commission should also be tasked with establishing a process to free consultants from their commercial dependency on proponents.
<<We acknowledge the Indigenous Nations of Australia as the traditional owners of its land and waters. We thank them for the ecological wisdom they did and continue to pass to us.
We have read and agree with the contents of the two submissions to the Committee from Marie-Louise Sarjeant, Chris Sarjeant, Sonia Hutchinson, John Marsh and Maxine Jacobson, and from Wendy Radford for BDEC, Stuart Fraser for BFNC and Sara Hill and wish to take this opportunity to register with the Committee our endorsement of them.
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Introduction
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<<When about 50 years ago we became involved in environmental issues, we never thought that we will be witnessing in our lifetime the degree of environmental degradation we are witnessing now.
The rate at which the degradation is now occurring is very alarming, as given that global warming and loss of biodiversity exacerbate each other, there is a real possibility that unless we act now, this positive feedback cycle will escalate beyond our ability to prevent it from resulting in the collapse of our life supporting natural ecosystems.
Over the last 20 years that we lived on a property in the forest near Bendigo we personally witnessed the progressive local extinction of the swamp wallaby due to road kills, loss of habitat to development, degradation of the Greater National Park due to fuel reduction burns and weed infestation, including invasive plants escaping from ornamental gardens, replacement of native trees in Bendigo’s streetscapes with exotics and escalation of a thriving population of Indian mynas – and all this, in spite of the biodiversity strategies, environmental protection legislations and scores of submissions, Panel and VCAT hearings.
Why is it then that we are failing to provide effective protection to our biodiversity?
In this submission we will list some of the reasons for this failure.
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Evidence of the ineffectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities’ protection in Australia
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The ineffectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities’ protection is evident from the Natural Heritage Trust’s “Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment 2002” report and from the successive “State of the Environment” reports which show that all the important environmental indicators are getting worse.
The reasons for this ineffectiveness is:
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Promotion of populations growth
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Concerns about the unsustainability of population growth and its impact on the natural environment is very well documented (Bartlett 1998, Catton 1982, Lowe 2005, p 59, Suzuki2010, pp 20 and 21) and yet population growth continues to be supported and promoted by politicians (Creighton 2012) and business, while the wide spread misconceptions about it still persist without effective challenge (Lowe 2012).
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We submit that the Committee recommends that an ecological limit to population growth is determined and implemented into our policy and decision processes
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Failure to recognize the role apex, or top-order, predators play in the conservation of Australia’s biodiversity
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The failure by Euro-Australians to recognize the apex terrestrial predators function in sustaining a balance of species that is viable in the long term and in keeping the numbers down of introduced feral species, has and continues to contribute to the decline of Australia’s biodiversity and adversely affects the effectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities protection.
In the case of the avian apex predator, the Wedge-tail Eagle (Aquila audax), the recognition and acceptance of its value to the environment and to farmers took number of years after CSRIO published its research results in the second half of last century.
Unfortunately, in the case of the mammalian apex predator, the dingo (Canis lupus dingo), until recent years “dingoes have rarely been studied to reach a larger understanding of our place in the Australian environment. Dingoes have mainly been studied so humans can maximize the efficacy of control efforts, capitalize on available resources and increase short-term economic gain” (Purcell 2010, p. 117), with the obvious consequent enforcement of people’s misconceptions and detrimental treatment of the dingo.
The adverse effects of the current management under the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy as detailed in Marie-Louise Sarjeant et al Submission of 23-11-12 to this Committee and of the mainland controls, especially by aerial baiting (Bullen 2012, Purcell 2010, p. p 3, 116, 137) on the dingo population and its culture as well as on livestock, show the urgency with which the current research (De Bias 2009, Johnson et al 2007, Purcell 2010, Wallach and O’Neill 2008, Brook et al 2012, Wallach and Johnson) needs to be taken seriously, supported by funding and implemented.
We stress here that unlike domestic dogs, cats and foxes that breed twice a year, dingoes breed only once a year, like wolfs do, are self- regulating (Purcell 2010, pp 10 and 113) and do not breed during droughts (Purcell 2010, p 24); they form small packs with hierarchical structure with only the alpha pair reproducing. The alpha pair teaches its offsprings about the packs territory and what and how to hunt, especially how to hunt kangaroos. These characteristics and not its coat colour, skull shape or genetic “purity” makes the dingo so important to Australia’s ecology (Purcell 2010, pp 39, 40, 101). Our disturbing its pack structure and culture is what causes the problem (Purcell 2010, pp3, 116,137). After all, the dingoes coexisted with Aboriginal people for thousands of years without being a problem to humans or ecology. Because their diet consists mainly of kangaroos and rabbits and not as popularly believed livestock (Purcell 2010, p 50), dingoes, like wedge-tailed eagles, are also beneficial to farmers.
We therefore submit that the Committee recommends that in order to improve the effectiveness of threatened species protection, management of key threats to listed species and of Species Recovery Rlans, the dingo needs to be reclassified as protected. New research should be funded and its findings implemented into management and a Species Recovery Plan.
We also submit that, given the Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge of the dingo, its role as the apex predator, the interdependence of species and the importance of maintaining balance (Parker 2007, Rose 1987, Rose 2000, Rose 2011), the Committee recommends that the object 3(2)(9)(iii) of the EPBCA 1999 be taken seriously and Indigenous Peoples’ role in and knowledge of the dingo and its part in the conservation of biodiversity be implemented into the management of the conservation of species and ecological communities.
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Failure to address our cultural maladaptations, especially our culture of exuberance
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“The culture of exuberance seemed to impute almost supernatural capabilities to Homo sapiens. It prevented us from seeing that the process of “creating our own habitat” might be a trap, the technology might come to enlarge our resource appetites instead of our world’s carrying capacity” (Catton 1982, p 122).
In the new branch of the study of human ecology, cultural maladaptation is defined as those cultural delusions, i.e. ideas and assumptions that are sheer nonsense, lending to behaviours which are equally nonsensical, which result in activities that cause a great deal of unnecessary human distress, or undesirable damage to ecosystems, or both (Boyden 2004).
Our society’s most deeply entrenched cultural maladaptation is the delusion that “humanity is apart and above natural world and in command of inexhaustible resources”. (Christie 1993)
This cultural maladaptation, or culture of exuberance, which was reinforced by our colonial expansions, technological innovations in food production, harvesting of oceans and access to minerals became the basis of our economy and as such is now fiercely defended and promoted by main stream economists, businessmen and politicians (Catton 1982) making our society more and more dependent on finite resources and responsible for the current unprecedented biodiversity crisis we now find ourselves in.
We submit that the Committee recommends that in order to make it possible to improve the effectiveness of the protection of biodiversity, this cultural maladaptation needs to be urgently addressed as “men who continue to perceive our predicament according to a pre-ecological paradigm simply will not recognize limits imposed by our world’s finiteness” (Catton 1982, p 31).
We further submit that the Committee recommends the development of a program to raise community’s awareness about both the fundamental truth, namely that “the economy is a subset of human society which, in turn, is part of the environment” (ASE 1996, p 5), as well as about the new ecological paradigm (Catton 1998, p 238), so that the most important reason for conserving biodiversity and protecting our natural environment is understood and implemented into our decision processes.
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The dominance of economy in our decision-making processes
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“In the short term, of course, financial considerations dominate national decision making. But behind the financial transactions there are real physical processes whose effects accumulate over long periods, and lead to serious environmental problems”. (Cocks 1996/97)
Section 3A(a) of EPBC Act 1999, provides that “decision-making processes should effectively integrate both long-term and short term economic, environmental, social and equitable considerations.”
The fundamental truth that we, the human species, are part of and therefore dependent on the environment while economy is of our making and so is part of our society and therefore dependent on both us and the environment, implies that environment needs to be given priority in our decision-making processes or alternatively, the decision-making processes need to be made subject to environmental constrains dictated by ecological sciences in the same way as they are made subject to constraints dictated by physics.
Yet the reality is that economy still continues to play dominant part in our decision-making processes. If this were the case with physics, then our buildings, houses etc would be collapsing and aeroplanes falling from the sky.
We therefore submit that the Committee recommends that in order to ensure the effectiveness of the protection of biodiversity, the decision-making processes should be given priority to the environment over economy and that such justification as “triple bottom line” and “achievement of balance” are no longer relevant in decision-making processes as the environmental bottom line has been already breached long time ago and the achievement of balance breaches it even more each time it is applied.
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The emphasis on threatened species and ecological communities in the protection of biodiversity
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It is now well documented that the conservation of biodiversity including threatened species and ecological communities’ protection, depends on the extent of functioning ecosystems and the ecological connectivity such as biolinks, between them (Tepper 1893, Archer 1993, Milburn 1996, Recher 1999). Yet in spite of the fact that we have cleared and fragmented the native vegetation beyond their ability to sustain their biodiversity, we place emphasis on the protection of threatened species and ecological communities while still continue to issue permits to exploit and clear land for various non-ecological purposes and economic gains.
In Victoria, we even found a way to get around the Victoria’s Biodiversity Strategy’s objective for management of biodiversity goal of ensuring that within Victoria “there is a reversal, across the entire landscape, of the long-term decline in the extent and quality of native vegetation, leading to a net gain with the target being no loss by the end 2001”, by inventing the habitat-hectare measure and designing an offsetting system which, in the case of medium and higher quality of native vegetation can be shown by simple mathematics to always lead when applied to net loss of the native vegetation’s extent.
We therefore submit that the Committee recommends that in order to improve the effectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities’ protection, Prof Harry Recher’s recommended most urgent actions to “end the clearing of native vegetation, reduce grazing pressure, remove inappropriate fire regimes, control feral and native animals whose abundance threatens native species, and restore functional ecosystems, with emphasis on native vegetation, to a minimum of 30% of the landscape” be implemented (Recher 1999) and the restored ecosystems be interconnected by restoring effective biolinks.
The ending of the clearing of native vegetation is very important as it is easier to restore the habitats when remnants are present than when the land is cleared. Also the remnats provide habitat for fauna while restoration is in progress.>>
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Conclusion
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When we are healthy, we tend to be unaware of the presence of our organs in our bodies and of the functions they perform. Only when one of our organs fails and we have to replace its functions by artificial means do we become aware of how valuable and well performed its function was.
It seems to us that our attitude to the natural environment is the same as it is to our bodies. The air conditioner, water purifiers and desalination plants should make us aware of the value of the services our natural ecosystems provide us with (Constanza et al 1997 estimated the value of world’s ecosystem services as being more than double the global gross national product, remarking that in a sense it is infinite, as without it the economy would grind to a halt). Yet somehow we fail or refuse to see the connection. The danger is that when eventually we wake up to it, it will be too late to stop the consequences of our abuse of the environment.
It is for this reason that we have included the issue of cultural maladaptation in our submission.
Because a number of important issues, including those relating specifically to the Fraser Island’s dingo and to Bendigo region as well to the ecological reasons for rejecting COAG’s proposal for handing Federal Government’s responsibility for environmental approval to the states are covered in the two submissions to the Committee we are endorsing, we have decided not to duplicate them in our submission.
Finally we would like to draw the Committee’s attention to two books, “Legacy”(Suzuki 2010) and “Resetting the Compass”(Yencken and Wilkinson 2000, in particular chapter 13, “The four pillars of wisdom”), as they explain in a very comprehensive way the issues we have raised in our submission.>>
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References
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1. Alexander, N. 2009 – “Concerns heightening for Fraser Island Dingoes”; Ecos 151, Oct.-Nov., 2009, pp 18-19
2. ASE 1996 – “Australia, State of the Environment”, Executive Summery, 23 May.
3. Archer, M. Prof. 1993 – in “Expert says national parks will make mammals extinct” by Tania Ewing; The Age, 5-11-1993, p 4. (note that the title is misleading, it should be “national parks are not large enough to prevent by themselves mammal extinctions”).
4. Bartlett, A.A. 1998 – “Reflections on sustainability, Population Growth and the Environment – revisited”; www.iclahr.com/bartlett/reflections.htm
5. Boyden, S. 2004 – “The Biology of Civilization”; Ockham’s Razor, 12 December
6. Brook, L.A., Johnson, Ch.N. and Richie, E.G. 2012 – “Effects of predator control on behaviour of an apex predator and indirect consequences for mesopredator suppression”; Journal of Applied Ecology, 49: 1278-1286
7. Catton, W.R.Jr. 1982 – “Overshoot, the Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change”; University of Illinois Press
8. Christie, M.J. Dr. 1993 – “Aboriginal Science for Ecological Sustainable Future”; Australian Teachers Journal, March, no 68
9. Cocks, D. Dr. 1996/97 – in “Making tracks for the future”; Ecos 90, Summer, p 14
10. Constanza, R. et al 1997 – “The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital”; Nature, vol. 387, 15 May, pp 253 to 260
11. Creighton, A. 2012 – “People mean Growth: Turnbull”; The Australian, 3 November
12. De Blas, A. 2009 – “The Dingo’s role revitalized”; Ecos 147, Feb.-March, 2009, pp12,13;
13. Johnson, Ch. N., Isaac, J. L. and Fisher, D. O. 2007 – “Rarity of top predator triggers continent-wide collapse of mammal prey: dingoes and marsupials in Australia”; Proceedings the Royal Society, B, Biological Science (2007) 274, 341-348;
14. Lowe, I. 2005 – “A Big Fix; radical solutions for Australia’s environmental crisis”; Black Inc
15. Lowe, I. 2012 – “Australia’s population debate”; Ockham’s Razor, 19 August
16. Lowe, I. 2012 – “Bigger or Better – Australia’s Population Debate”; Uni. Of Queensland Press
17. Milburn, C. 1996 – “Native daisy sowing seeds of destruction”; The Age 11 of March
18. O’Neill, A. 2002 – “Living with the Dingo”; Envirobook ;
19. Parker, M.A. 2007 – “Bringing the Dingo Home: Discursive Representation of the Dingo by Aboriginal, Colonial and Contemporary Australians”; PhD Thesis, University of Tasmania
20. Parkhurst, J. 2010 “Vanishing Icon: the Fraser Island Dingo”; Grey Thrush Publishing;
21. Purcell, B. 2010 “Dingo”; CSIRO Publishing;
22. Rose, D.B. 1987 – “Consciousness and Responsibility in an Aboriginal Religion”; Chapter 15 in Edwards, W.H. “Traditional Aboriginal Society, a Reader”; McMillan
23. Rose, D.B. 2000 – “Dingo Makes us Human, Life and Land in an Australian Aboriginal Culture”; Cambridge Uni. Press
24. Rose, D. B. 2011 “Wild Dog Dreaming, Love and Extinction”; University of Virginia Press;
25. Suzuki, D. 2010 – “The Legacy, an Elder’s Vision for our Sustainable Future”; Allen & Unwin
26. Wallach, A. and O’Neill, A. 2008 – “Persistence of Endangered Species: Is the Dingo the Key?” Report for DEH Wildlife Conservation Fund;
27. Yencken, D. & Wilkinson, D. 2000 – “Resetting the Compass: Australia’s Journey Towards Sustainability”; CSRIO Publishing.
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~ Submitted by Stanislaw Pelczynski and Barbara Pelczynska
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“There is something fundamentally wrong with treating the earth as if it were a business in liquidation.”
One of the last honourable environmental organisations fighting to save Tasmania’s Native Forests
Still Wild Still Threatened
^http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/
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‘Mutant Legislation: a thinned out Tasmanian Forests Agreement
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On the evening of 30th April 2013, Tasmania’s Parliament passed the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2012 into law.
The legislation formalises a revised agreement between selective Tasmanian environmental organisations, selective Tasmanian logging business associations, the Tasmanian Parliament and the Australian Government.
The original Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) signed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Tasmania’s Premier Lara Giddings on 7 August 2011 in Launceston. But instead of honouring the letter and spirit of the 2011 agreement to protect 572,000 hectares of Tasmania’s remaining high conservation forests protected, the resultant law has thinned out that protection down to a forest area of just 20% of the 572,000, to just 123,000 hectares.
Supposedly, the legislation proposes 500,000ha of reserves in 18 months’ time, providing the durability of the deal has been established. Weasel words and 76,000 of the 576,000 hectares of old growth sacrificed by those whom we entrusted to protect habitat.
The passing of the Bill was a culmination of a period of closed door negotiations between the selected environmentalists and the selected loggers. Despite compromising 80% of the high conservation forest, the legal outcome sees absolutely no compromise from the loggers. The loggers still stand to be compensated the same $276 million in federal restructure assistance, purported blowing out to $350 million, and that is on top of millions already forked out to exiting loggers.
The environmental signatories of forest betrayal in the deal include The Wilderness Society, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Tasmania. The selected loggers were dominated by a certain Terry Edwards, chief executive of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT) and Glenn Britton, its chairman, both who stand to profit.
Three years ago in 2010, the Signatories to the Tasmanian Forest Statement agreed on protecting the full 572,000 hectares.Ed: Suited up company men, but was any a Real Man?
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“Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat.
Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.”
~ Andrew Carnegie
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The destruction continuesand so the protests will continue. Dumb outcome!
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Two months prior on 4th March 2013, two conservationists were arrested at Tasmania’s Butlers Gorge as they tried to block logger access to three separate logging operations in an area nominated for World Heritage.
<<“Today’s peaceful protest has once again highlighted the ongoing destruction of Butlers Gorge. This area is significant habitat for endangered species and native wildlife. Still Wild Still Threatened have collected video evidence of Tasmanian devils and spot tailed quolls within Butlers Gorge and we are calling on Tony Burke to take action to protect these forests” said Ms Gibson.
“Two dedicated conservationists have today been arrested in order to bring attention to the hypocrisy of the Australian Government, who are allowing this logging to continue despite nominating these forests for World Heritage. (Federal) Minister Burke as a responsibility to protect the habitat of these endangered species and to protect these forests that he has nominated as World Heritage. We are calling on the Minister to enact Section 14 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and bring an end to the destruction of these forests” said Ms Gibson.>>
Ed: Real Tasmanians out there defending disappearing ancient forests – just a committed five on a remote bridge forming the last and only line of defence to prevent logging trucks, corporate loggers, and corrupt Tasmanian police who know the arsonists that set fire to peaceful Camp Flozza and to the forest west.
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<<The evil when loggers control forests is that logging vandalism rapes the timber from the forest ecology. It leaves behind scorched earth and trusting contractors who took out mortgages. When ecological management ascends to its rightful governance of native forests, the forest ecology thrives and permits at its fringes a viable high end cabinet industry.
But the low life corporate thieves and their immoral mercenaries are forced to inflict their hate and greed elsewhere. And then out of spite, Bob’s mercenaries set fire to the forest like a spouse scorned.>>
3rd May: Conservation beliefs sacrificed down the drain
(analysis of the 2013 Forest Deal by Tasmanian author, Richard Flanagan)
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<<So Julia Gillard has declared that she wants the parties who started the so-called Tasmanian forest peace process “to do everything they can to use their abilities to silence those who haven’t gone with the mainstream consensus”.
To silence.
I lived with the silence of Tasmania for too many years. And now the leaders of The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania, the ACF and the Tasmanian Greens have signed up to a deal that seeks to achieve what even Gunns failed in doing: silencing the rage Tasmanians felt with the destruction of their land and the corruption of public life that for a time became its necessary corollary. It is perhaps the greatest own goal in Australian political history.
For these environmentalists have managed to negotiate a deal that extraordinarily manages to resuscitate at vast public subsidy (reportedly $350 million) the worst aspects of a dead forest industry employing less than a thousand people; lock in social conflict for another decade; empower in Forestry Tasmania a rogue government agency that sees itself as the real power on the island and which works to undermine governments; and delivered the island to political stagnation by ensuring forestry remains the island’s defining political issue.
If this wasn’t grotesque enough the Federal Government’s National Audit Office’s report into the mishandling and misspending of some of the early rounds of this money by Tasmanian government instrumentalities can give the Australian taxpayer every confidence that much of the rest of the $350 million will be misspent, misdirected and misused. Taxpayers can also be assured that if past government bail-outs of the Tasmanian forest industry are any guide, a not insignificant sum of their money will end up funding political groups and campaigns seeking to promote the self-serving interests of a Soviet style industry by entrenching division and stymying political debate and economic change in Tasmania. Some millions of dollars allocated for ‘communications’ will no doubt communicate very well just one message about Tasmania’s logging industry.
And all this in return for what?
The only environmental outcome that is locked in was one already in place: the 123,000 hectares of World Heritage Area secured by Bob Brown and Christine Milne in negotiations with Tony Burke in February. And this in the face of initial opposition from NGO negotiators who worried it might damage their forest deal process. Nick McKim’s claim that there was “legislated protection from logging for over 500,000 hectares”, is misleading. There is a moratorium on logging in those high conservation value forests that could fall over at any time, and almost certainly will.
Astonishingly, in a day that will become historic in their own annals, the environmentalists’ leaders have managed to split their own movement in a way that will take many years for it to recover from. The greatest sadness is that it locks Tasmania into a conflict it should have ended.
Beyond that there is only what State Greens leader Nick McKim and Environment Tasmania head Phill Pullinger have called ‘pathways’ to future environmental outcomes.
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Pathways? What is a pathway? Is it a forest? Is it a job?
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Well, no, it’s nothing really, just a confusion of two words, management babble disguising the truth that everything else is but a promise that may or may not happen later.
The formal protection of areas as reserves and national parks will not begin until October 2014, and then only if conservationists meet conditions that realistically will never be met.
Of the many disturbing aspects of the deal, perhaps the most grotesque is the already infamous ‘durability’ clause, under which conservation leaders sitting on a special council with loggers are expected to police and silence conservationists who protest. If they fail to silence their own, the deal is seen to have failed its durability criteria and new reserves promised in the deal do not go ahead and return to the loggers. But of course people will protest and they will be right to protest. The only thing the deal guarantees is the conservation movement at war with itself. Some deal. Some durability. The conservationists’ leaders may as well have self-immolated at the foot of Parliament House.
The second condition is that the forestry industry achieve Forestry Stewardship Council accreditation for its logging — something the industry spat on when conservationists urged it several years ago. Given its abysmal record and third world practices along with inevitable community opposition, this seems as likely as Julia Gillard winning The Voice. But the condition locks in those conservation groups that are signatories to the deal to campaigning for the industry’s logging practices, no matter how dreadful they are, in order to keep alive the promise of saving the forests.
Compounding these perversities there is the simple matter of power. By October 2014, all observers expect Liberal governments to be in power in both Tasmania and federally. In Tasmania the Liberal Party has been explicit that it will tear up the agreement. What then of the moratorium? Well it ends with those areas being once more logged using taxpayer subsidies.
Many fear that both governments will endorse and subsidise a grotesque new forest industry that logs native forest to fuel forest furnaces—so called bio-mass electricity generators — that could by government fiat be defined as a renewable energy source.
Such then is the pathway chosen.
It is possible for good people for the best of reasons to sometimes do the worst of things. If the integrity of the leaders of the environmental NGOs and the Tasmanian Greens Party should not be questioned, their judgement certainly can. Full credit though must go to Terry Edwards of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, Evan Rolley running the dubious state-subsidised Malay-owned Ta Ann, and Bob Gordon and Bob Annells at Forestry Tasmania. From a position of almost complete defeat they have returned the forestry industry to its pre–eminent position in Tasmanian public life and persuaded the environment movement to destroy itself. With bluster, flattery, bullying, and dogged persistence they have achieved the near impossible.
But if you care about the environment in Australia you will henceforth have to ask whether The Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation any longer serve your interests. Will they in the future question and campaign against corporate power or will they side with it as they have in Tasmania, recently trooping off to Japan to promote the Malay forest veneer company Ta Ann’s products? Will they stand up to governments or will they be seduced by their attentions, believing the flattering lie that their way is the way of environmental politics in the future?
While nationally the Greens Party under Christine Milne has been resolute in defending the environment and Tasmania’s forests, Tasmanian environmentalists would be right to ask if the Tasmanian parliamentary Greens (other than Kim Booth who showed courage in voting against the bill and his party) any longer particularly represent their interest or aspirations. At the forthcoming state election there would be many reasons for environmentalists to not vote Green and very few to support them. In their determination to achieve respectability, they seem to have become simply the third aspect of a conservative Tasmanian polity with no ideas or vision for the future. Could it be, that for Nick McKim, the decision to support the package proves his Meg Lees moment? [Ed: In 1999, Democrats leader Meg Lees sided with then PM John Howard to enable his GST law to be passed, broadly viewed as a decision of betrayal that instigated the eventual downfall of the Democrats].
Julia Gillard’s celebration of the peace deal and her call for silencing came on May Day, the day that celebrates all those who went against the ‘mainstream consensus’ that workers shouldn’t be paid a living wage, that workers shouldn’t be treated with respect and dignity. Democracy is about many things, but silence and silencing are the death of democracy.
The forest peace deal was born in ignominy, with Gunns seeking to set up a native-forest-for-pulp-mill swap, a fact denied by environmental leaders at the time but acknowledged by Premier Lara Giddings in parliament. It continued in secrecy and was oiled with evasions, and concludes as a tragedy for Tasmania. Somehow, the conservationist leaders—instead of using the commercial death of the logging industry, changing social values, and new ideas of a renascent Tasmania to help build a different, better and united society — have condemned us all to endlessly repeat the sadness of recent decades.
I am writing this for all the people who for the last thirty years have stood up again and again against the Tasmanian ‘mainstream concensus’— who stood up for the land they loved and for an idea of a better Tasmania. They have watched, ever more distraught, as their battle has culminated in the last three years of secret deal making that has sold their sacrifices and beliefs down the drain.
At the end the only certainty and hope I have is this: I never signed up to the forest deal, not then and certainly not now. I don’t give a damn for durability clauses and special councils of loggers and conservation police. And I didn’t agree to be silenced, not by Paul Lennon, not by Gunns, and I won’t be now by The Wilderness Society and the ACF.
And in all this, I know I am very far from alone.>>
1st May: Forest advocates have become the greenwash industry brigade
(analysis of the 2013 Forest Deal by honourable Tasmanian Environmentalists)
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Honourable environmental organisations in Tasmania have vowed to up the ante on forest protests after the passing of the 2013 Tasmanian Forests Law.
Groups on the outside of the tent for the peace talks, including Still Wild Still Threatened and The Huon Valley Environment Centre, said this morning they would continue to campaign against the state’s forestry industry.
“We are absolutely committed to continue to protest and take action for these forests,” Still Wild Still Threatened spokeswoman Miranda Gibson said. “These forests, while they are continuing to fall, the community will stand up and … communicate to the markets about what is happening in Tasmania.”
Ms Gibson, who recently ended a marathon tree-sit in southern Tasmania, and Huon Valley Environment Centre’s spokeswoman Jenny Weber said the TFA provided no guarantees for future reserves.
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“A bill that lacks conservation assurances
and props up a collapsing and unviable destructive native forestry industry.”
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The legislation underpinning the deal, which passed the Tasmanian Parliament yesterday, proposes 500,000ha of reserves in 18 months’ time, providing the durability of the deal has been established.
Ms Weber said environmental organisations not associated with the ‘Agreement’ could deliver better outcomes than the environmental signatories.
“The legislation yesterday saw a very large void come in the environment movement,” she said. “We have seen environment groups vacate the space as forest advocates and move into becoming the greenwash industry brigade.”
The bill passed in Tasmania’s House of Assembly yesterday is primarily yet another industry lifeline and has betrayed the environment.
Grass-roots environment organisations have been left stunned that a bill that lacks conservation assurances and props up a collapsing and unviable destructive native forestry industry has passed with support of some Greens parliamentarians.
Still Wild Still Threatened and Huon Valley Environment Centre have renewed their commitment to forest protection advocacy in all forms.
Huon Valley Environment Centre’s spokesperson Jenny Weber stated, “Today we are far from assurances of protection for Tasmania’s wild forests. The passing of this legislation, that is very pro-industry with merely a conservation veneer, does not deliver any upfront forest reserves.
Logging will continue inside the proposed reserves, as there are areas of forest that were excised from the proposed reserves to meet the logging schedule.
“This legislation fails the wild forests, and we will be there to provide scrutiny of a forestry industry that has not made any commitment to changing environmentally destructive practices,” Jenny Weber said.
Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Miranda Gibson stated:
“In response to the Forest Bill passed by the House of Assembly yesterday, the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened have vowed to continue to campaign for Tasmania’s forests. The legislation entrenches and props up the unviable native forest industry and ongoing logging of high conservation value forests, while making the attainment of new reserves virtually impossible. Conservation outcomes have been undeniably sidelined. Those groups and members of the Tasmanian State Greens who have supported this bill have aligned themselves with the collapsing forestry industry at the expense of our forests.”
“We are alarmed by the threat to curtail freedom of speech and the rights of protest out of yesterday’s legislation, which attempts to blackmail the community into silence by holding forests at ransom. These are undemocratic tactics to silence the voice of the community and benefit the forestry industry. The new clause provides the opportunity for either House of Government to determine what constitutes a failure of durability, including substantial active protests or substantial market disruption, and once that determination is made, reserves do not proceed.”
“When one wades through all the spin being propagated by parliamentarians and signatories to the TFA, forestry in Tasmania is at the point where it continues to drain public resources and destroy irreplaceable ecosystems. It has tarnished Tasmania’s brand by not recognising the value of unique native forests and by maintaining unsustainable resourcemanagement practices coupled with a wasteful and irresponsible on-the-ground approach. If that wasn’t enough, they have created a green-wash industry for Hamid Sepawi’s Ta Ann and those connected with Sarawak timber mafias and human rights violators. What is clear out of this process is that Ta Ann has received ongoing parliamentary support in Tasmania and now a green-wash tick from some environment groups. We will continue to oppose the ongoing operations of this company in Tasmania and Sarawak.”
“As The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Australian Conservation Foundation are now committed to forsaking the role of forest advocacy and have become the green-mouthpiece for a forestry industry, who yesterday claimed they got everything they wanted out of the of the TFA process and consistently refuses to make necessary changes to their out-dated, destructive and reprehensible practices, our organisations will redouble our efforts to campaign for the protection of intact natural ecosystems.”
“The native forest industry is not economically viable when left to stand on it’s own two feet. Yet, the House of Assembly has just passed a bill that will continue to prop up this out-dated and unviable industry with tax payer funds whilst disregarding community concerns and scientific recommendations for forest protection.”
“It is delusional to believe that this bill will deliver adequate forest protection. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of verified high conservation value forests are being held to ransom, with protection subject not only to durability measures at the whim of both houses of Tasmania’s parliament, but also dependent on FSC certification. Under this bill high conservation value forests will continue to fall and human rights violations tacitly accepted. As long as they do, we will continue stand up for those ecosystems, forests, communities and cultures that are threatened.”
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[Source: Miranda Gibson spokesperson for Still Wild Still Threatened, and Jenny Weber spokesperson for Huon Valley Environment Centre, ^http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/current-news/media-release-1.05.13-long-haul-tasmanian-forest-protection-delivered-if-ever…]
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“We are absolutely committed to continue to protest and take action for these forests.”
~ Still Wild Still Threatened spokeswoman Miranda Gibson.
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1st May: Let’s not pretend agreements come from a small number of people who hold up a sign.
(Australia’s Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke)
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<<‘Let’s not pretend that you’re ever going to get an agreement that will stop there from being a group of… you know… a small number of people who hold up a sign.
But let’s also not forget that in this group you’ve got the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society and Environment Tasmania as the ‘umbrella group’ and you’ve got all of those groups on side with the Agreement, it means you cannot get an effective market campaign that wll damage the Australian market any more. And that… is a massive shift. And when you take out all the peak groups and have all of them on-side with the Agreement, that makes a massive difference to markets for Tasmania.
You’ll get the odd skirmish from small minor… minor groups and things like that. Yeah and I don’t want to set a silly threshold. What we have seen from the last thirty years – ends tonight. And that is something to celebrate.”
[Ed: Populist utilitarian politicking that foresakes deontological ethics is cowardly. It serves the preservation of one’s vested interests, leaving behind a sullied reputation in the minds of ordinary people. Burke has shown himself to be but a smiling eco-assassin, perhaps eyeing his polly pension before September.
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Burke is clearly ignorant of the magic of Margaret Mead who famously said:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
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..and who also famously said..
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“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.”]
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1st May: It is the carcass of that Agreement..people picking over the scraps, deciding what can be salvaged or not
(Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne)
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<<What started out as a process to exit native forest logging has turned into a process to entrench native forest logging, to have ET, TWS and ACF promote FSC certification for native forest logging and also to subsidise that native forest logging with tax-payer dollars… and there are no secure conservation outcomes except the World Heritage extensions and I do congratulate everyone involved in that, including the federal Minister [Tony Burke] and I look forward to the world Heritage nomination going through in June [2013]. But that is the only secure outcome everything else has been pushed onto the never-never… beyond the federal and the next State election.
So this so called ‘conservation gain’ is a moratorium that can’t be translated into permanent reserves until after October 2014 and then only if FSC certification for Tasmanian native forest logging goes through, if in the eyes of the Legislative Council the community has been silenced and there have been no markets campaign… and then also, only if the Minister decides to make a reserve order. And if he or she doesn’t, then the whole thing falls over. The Moratorium lapses and the legislation lapses and the sawlog quota is restored to 300,000 cubic meters.
And these conservation groups adjudicate through this ‘Special Council’ which is dominated by the forest industry; to adjudicate on the behaviour of whether or not the community has been silenced adequately for the Legislative Council.
The problem is the Legislative Council destroyed the Tasmanian Forest Agreement; they completely destroyed the legislation and the integrity of the deal and all that the Tasmanian House of Assembly is now doing is picking over a dead carcass, actually.
The integrity of the whole agreement is gone. It went horribly wrong when Lara Giddings decides to allow her leader of the Government in the Legislative Council to support these appalling amendments and essential means the whole thing lost any momentum in terms of protection.
And I fear that the same thing is going to happen… always… millions of federal dollars pour into the logging industry, as Tony Mulder has said that he wants; get the federal dollars, get the industry to rebuild and take a knife to the conservation outcomes and this what is exactly going to happen.
The Giddings Government ought to have upheld the Agreement; that was what everybody said that they would do. And the Government should have taken on the Legislative Council, sent the Bill back unamended – the sense of taking out the Legislative Council amendments – sent it back and said this is the Agreement that has the support of the State and federal governments, now pass it. And it basically would have been a serious taking on of the Legislative Council. Instead of that, the Giddings Government backed away and the ENGOs have allowed them to do so… as have the logging NGOs, and left the House of Assembly picking over the scraps of what has been an Agreement that was hard fought. So that’s what I mean when
I say the Agreement is over. The Tasmanian Forest Agreement is now null and void … the environment groups throughout the State never signed on to the kinds of compromises that have now been agreed by the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly.
They didn’t ever agree to that; I certainly didn’t ever agree to the idea that you should hold the reservation of a forest area ransom to a decision by a Special Council as to whether or not they think that the community has behaved well enough and been quiet and hasn’t gone and protested. And if that is the case then they hold to ransom granting a reserve.
You cannot silence a community in that way… you just simply cannot take away people’s freedom of speech and right to protest and to stand up for what they believe in … and that is a shocking precedent which would undermine forest campaign communities right around the country… if that was to be upheld. … This trumped up little police force (the Special Council) that will write its report to the Legislative Council to make a judgement as to whether they will ever reserve an area will be found to be illegal.
The Tasmanian Greens were put in an appalling position because the TFA was destroyed in the Legislative Council and Lara Giddings allowed it to be so. She should have stood up and agreed to the integrity of that Agreement being maintained. She didn’t… and the ENGOS didn’t. The Environmental NGOs hand-balled a particularly disgraceful situation to the Tasmanian House of Assembly and the Tasmanian Greens had to do what was the best in the circumstances.
What you got is basically the carcass of that Agreement and people picking over the scraps and deciding what can be salvaged or not. And I have a different view about that than the Tasmanian Greens…. But I also have a national responsibility. And so when I look at this, I can’t possibly allow a national precedent whereby you have these silencing provisions. I can’t have a situation where you say to a third-party body like the Forest Stewardship Council globally that unless they give Forestry Tasmania FSC certification then areas won’t be reserved.
And I certainly can’t have a situation where in the future reservation depends on whether a Minister decides to bother putting up a reserve order… and if they don’t it all falls over.
If there is a Liberal Government it’s inevitable that these areas will never be reserved. And it has always been my view is that the only reservation we are going to see is the World Heritage nomination which will go through in June ahead of the federal election.
I really welcome the World Heritage extension; it’s something that I was fighting for back in 1989 with Bob Brown and Peg Putt and others and it’s fantastic that at last what was held up by Michael Field and David Llewellyn and others then will now go into World Heritage. And all this talk about ‘great forest conservation outcomes’ is, I think, just talk.
Certainly everyone is going to say what they agreed to was the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and that is not what has been legislated. So, I think people will feel free to be out there campaigning for their forest areas because they are not going to stay silent waiting for after October 2014 to see what the Legislative Council or a future Tasmanian Government might do then.>>
30th April: It is not in letter or in spirit anything like what was agreed
(Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne)
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<<In Tasmania after many years and deliberations it is now clear that the Tasmanian Forest Agreement 2012 is dead. It died in the Upper House when the Legislative Council in Tasmania took a chainsaw to this agreement and destroyed its integrity.
There is no other way of looking at what has happened.
Even the signatories acknowledge that what is now before the Parliament is not in letter or in spirit anything like what was agreed. Tony Mulder who moved one of the devastating amendments in the Upper House has subsequently said that his intention was to take the Federal money, watch the deal fall over and take a sword to the environment outcomes. And that’s precisely what the Legislative Council has done. So make no mistake, the Legislative Council destroyed this Tasmanian Forest Agreement in which so many people had put their hopes, their faith, hours of work, years of deliberation and it’s over. What is now going to happen in the Tasmanian House of Assembly is a raking over of the ashes, trying to find in the devastation something to salvage.
Well the one good thing that has been salvaged already regardless of what they do over there the World Heritage nomination. The Federal Government has nominated those fantastic high conservation value forests on the eastern boundary of the World Heritage area to be World Heritage and that will go before the World Heritage meeting in June this year and that is going to be something for us all to celebrate, after some more than 20 years of deliberation.
But frankly as the leader of the Australian Greens there is no way that I am prepared to see pulled out of the rubble that’s come before the House of Assembly the absolute desperation salvage. There’s no way that there are some fundamental principles that can be countenanced. So the first one is the Legislative Council has put off into the never-never the reserves which were supposed to be immediately protected. The second tranche has been put off until October 2014 beyond the next federal and state election. It is on the never-never and it is particularly on the never-never because it doesn’t even require that the legislation be repealed for the whole deal to fall over and for the 300,000 cubic metre sawlog quota to be restored, all it takes is for a minister to do nothing. Not to act in the specified timeframe revokes the entire piece of legislation.
But equally as the leader of the Australian Greens there is no way I can countenance the idea that the community’s freedom of speech will be curtailed – the freedom to protest, the freedom of speech to be curtailed. There is absolutely no way that you can say to the Tasmanian community if you have a protest, if you speak out about the rubble and the mess that’s been created then the Legislative Council through the special council that’s been set up can determine that reserves will not be gazetted. That just simply is unacceptable in a democracy.
You cannot see the community’s freedom of speech curtailed in that way. Equally it is a nonsense to say that a minister must take the advice of an unelected special council, especially one that has, it’s just an appointed special council, it’s going to be stacked with the logging industry, but a minister has responsibilities and a minister must be subject to judicial review through the courts and they simply don’t have the power to say to a minister that you must take the advice of an unelected appointed council. And it is this unelected appointed council which will be the jury as to whether the Tasmanian community has behaved appropriately or not.
What sort of nonsense is that?
It is also ridiculous to put in a provision that says that according to the ‘Special Council‘ or anyone else areas that have been protected if any indeed beyond the first tranche ever get protected can be logged for special timbers and that all the residues, that is woodchips associated with that, can then be generated. So you are putting in jeopardy anything that has been protected will be vulnerable.
The other big problem with it is the idea that you can say that an area that has been assessed as worthy of protection as a reserve will not be reserved unless a third party, the Forest Stewardship Council, is blackmailed into saying that Forestry Tasmania can get certification. This is an international organisation, the Forest Stewardship Council, the Legislative Council is bringing Tasmania into disrepute globally.
If Forestry Tasmania want Forest Stewardship Council certification then they have to change their practices to earn it. The Legislative Council cannot blackmail the FSC into giving certification or else the conservation movement and people who care can’t have reserves that are scientifically determined and valid as reserves. These are things which we simply cannot accept and in fact it’s an absurdity. Anyone looking at this would say this is absurd.
And there is no way as leader of the Australian Greens that I could see allowing a precedent of this kind to be set to suggest that other states around the country might think it was a good idea to set up such anti-democratic processes and attempts at blackmail as the Legislative Council have done. So as of now if this legislation passes in the House of Assembly then clearly this in my view the Tasmanian Forest agreement is over, finished, done, dusted and we are now going to see a convoluted scrambling around in the ashes trying to salvage something and the only durable thing that will be salvaged is the World Heritage nomination.
But even then I wouldn’t put it past the Legislative Council to try and scuttle that in the month or so before the World Heritage committee actually meets to discuss it.
JOURNALIST: The signatories and the State Greens are supporting it though, doesn’t that put you of at odds with your state counterparts?
CHRISTINE MILNE: No it doesn’t.
My Tasmanian counterparts will determine whatever they do in terms of the salvage operation but I can tell you that you that across the Australian Greens and the Tasmanian Greens we are all agreed that the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is dead. It was killed in the Upper House and the signatories also acknowledged it is dead in terms of the spirit and the letter of what was agreed.
Let’s go back through the process – there was a process, the signatories agreed, the Parliament translated that into legislation which went before the Parliament.
It was unamended in the Lower House in terms of those principles but the Legislative Council destroyed it. So we’re all agreed, the deal is dead, there are differences of opinion that may emerge. I have heard what the signatories have had to say and frankly putting your faith in Forestry Tasmania is an extraordinary turn of events and I say that because Forestry Tasmania has already breached the spirit of the deal just as the Federal Government was buying out forest contractors, Forestry Tasmania was extending the contracts that they have to take up the difference. So taxpayers’ money was going out the backdoor to pay out contractors and Forestry Tasmania was extending the contracts.
So what Forestry Tasmania has to say they stand on their record and they have not been restructured. But that’s up to the signatories, they can do as they like, the agreement is dead.
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But isn’t that something better than nothing?
No. The fact is these reserves will never be delivered, they are on the never-never.
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JOURNALIST: Will this deal achieve peace?
CHRISTINE MILNE: No, the forest peace deal is over.
The original deal was what was designed to try and bring about a lasting end to the debate on forests in Tasmania. But the Legislative Council destroyed it. They are the ones who have ripped up the peace agreement, the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and they are the ones who have laid it to waste, and left now a legacy of what will just be a scrambling around in the ashes to try and salvage something.
JOURNALIST: But isn’t that something better than nothing?
CHRISTINE MILNE: The issue here is when you are scrambling around in the ashes trying to salvage something it comes to the issue of principle.
The fact is these reserves will never be delivered, they are on the never-never until after 2014, October 2014, beyond a state and federal election. But equally as I said it can be overturned at any time by a minister just deciding not to proceed with those reserve orders.
JOURNALIST: So saying that you think it’s completely dead, how strongly do you like to see it rejected in the Lower House?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well it doesn’t matter what they do in the Lower House because it’s just going to set up a convoluted process that people are going to fight over indefinitely.
It has already died so whatever they do in the House of Assembly now unless it went back to the Upper House unamended and they took on the Upper House and maintained the original agreement, if that happened well then let’s talk about that. But it’s clear from the signatories’ statement this morning that they are prepared to abandon their original deal and just work in the ashes.
JOURNALIST: Do you regret criticising the legislation before the signatories had even arrived at their decision?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Not at all, in fact it was obvious to anyone who assessed what was going on in the Legislative Council that the Forest Agreement was dead the minute that the leader of the Government in the Upper House backed the Mulder amendment.
The minute that the leader of the Government gave away Lara Giddings’ position that she was prepared to sell out the integrity of the agreement, it was clear what the Government would do. So from that point it was over and I think there should have been a stand taken against the Legislative Council and for the forests and the integrity of the agreement at that time. It didn’t happen and now we are in where we inevitably were going to end up.
JOURNALIST: Do you think environmentalists are naïve for believing the reserves will happen even if they’re not legislated?
CHRISTINE MILNE: It is clear to me that the reserves are on the never-never.
Saying that the reserves in the second tranche won’t be considered until after October 2014, after a federal and state election is absolutely out there in my view, that says they will never be achieved. But equally saying that either House of Parliament can reject it on the basis of a criticism that the community might be speaking out too much or somebody might have had a protest somewhere, jeopardising that freedom of speech and right to protest inevitably this is over.
It is a fantasy to think that those reserves will ever be delivered beyond the first tranche and that is why the only salvageable thing here is the World Heritage nomination and I congratulate the Federal Government for putting that nomination into the meeting in June and I look forward to those forests going onto the World Heritage list.
JOURNALIST: Doesn’t this kind of put you at odds though with the State Greens? They will back the legislation this afternoon so essentially they are backing the environmental signatories yet you are not.
CHRISTINE MILNE: I’m saying that the agreement is dead and I have no doubt that they also believe it is dead.
Everyone who reads this sees quite clearly that the minute the Legislative Council tore up the fundamentals of the agreement and the environmental NGOs have said that this morning.
What is now before the Parliament isn’t the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, it is a remnant, it is the burnt ashes of what went up to the Legislative Council and they’re into a salvage operation. Whatever people get out of a salvage operation they get out of it, but the agreement is dead and that is something which everybody, the ENGOs, the Tasmanian and the Australian Greens all agree on.
JOURNALIST: Given then that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is now horribly short of cash will you be petitioning her, lobbying her to pull some of the money that’s on the table for the TFA as it isn’t going to achieve what it said it was supposed to surely that money could be better spent elsewhere than propping up the logging industry I think you would say.
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well certainly the Australian Greens have argued throughout this process, Bob Brown did before I took over the leadership and then I did subsequently, that the money ought not to be flowing into Tasmania until the conservation outcomes are delivered, that there should be tranches where you get conservation outcomes and money flowing in.
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“The forest contractors’ grants were paid, Forestry Tasmania extended the contracts.”
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What now happens in terms of federal funding with that legislation will happen, that will be part of the ongoing agreement but the fact of the matter is the agreement as such is dead. All of the assumptions that were made about where the forest industry goes the future just aren’t on the table as even Terry Edwards I believe has said this is going to be a long, drawn-out, convoluted process and goodness only knows what happens but clearly we’re in a federal election year and I think the Commonwealth will take whatever action it chooses, they will make those decisions, but it is Lara Giddings who directed no doubt her leader of Government in the Upper House to be part of blowing up the integrity of the deal.
JOURNALIST: You’ve just said that the conflict won’t end, surely it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money if the Federal Government continues to pay out this $300 million and we don’t see peace?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well that’s a decision for the Commonwealth and the Tasmanian Government to make, how the money is spent.
Clearly it was my preference to see Forestry Tasmania restructured. The industry restructured, that money needs to be spent if it is going to flow into regional development, not as Tony Mulder would say take the Commonwealth dollars, rebuild the industry on the back of subsidies, and take a knife to the conservation outcomes, that would be a very bad outcome for Tasmania.
JOURNALIST: But you won’t be asking the Prime Minister to pull the funding at all?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I’ll be talking to the Federal Government about the budget this year, but I’m not entering into the negotiations between what the State and Federal Governments do over funding, I will consider whatever is on the table after the debate in the House of Assembly and whatever else is determined but clearly I have taken the forest exit grants through a Senate Committee process and I will be watching very clearly how every cent is spent.
JOURNALIST: Are you disappointed with people like Phil Pullinger and Vica Bailey for saying that they will continue to back the deal when clearly it doesn’t deliver what environmentalists hoped it would?
CHRISTINE MILNE: The signatories to the agreement will do whatever they think is best and they are entitled to do that, I just don’t agree with outcome that they have reached.
The forest deal was destroyed in the Legislative Council and at that point there should have been a standing up to the Legislative Council. Now there is a salvage strategy at best, a picking over the bones of the dead body and they will do that in good faith, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the investment of time and energy, the aspirations and what was agreed are all gone.
[Ed: Strong words, but delivered in the shadow of Parliamentary enactment. The Greens have abandoned their forest conservation roots in Tasmania for the distraction of a humanist agenda on the thinned out rationale of becoming a multi-issue party to secure a broader membership base. Broad appeasing agendas have tragically thinned focus away from core commitment to conservation].
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30th April: Anyone in any doubt about the importance of this deal to the forest industry need only look to the strong endorsement of companies like Ta Ann, Artec, Neville Smith Forest Products, Bunnings and our own GBE Forestry Tasmania
(statements by Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings and Deputy Premier Bryan Green)
<<..When we set out on this journey nearly three years ago few imagined we could achieve what we have today, Ms Giddings said. This is indeed a historic turning point for Tasmania. It marks the point where we can put aside old hostilities and take control of the future of the forest industry by responding to the needs and wants of global customers.
I want to thank the signatories for recognising this historic opportunity and for having the guts, determination and resilience to see it through. There is no other alternative to the worst downturn Tasmania s forest industry has ever seen. The stark choice was either to adapt to changing global demands or see more jobs lost and the rapid decline of the industry.
Ms Giddings said the legislation passed in the Parliament today delivered protection for 137,000 hectares of forest with high conservation value, including iconic areas like Tyenna, Hastings, Picton and the Upper Florentine. It also paves the way for Forest Stewardship Council certification and funding for sawmill buybacks and more than $100 million in new regional development projects. Anyone in any doubt about the importance of this deal to the forest industry need only look to the strong endorsement of companies like:
Ta Ann
Artec
Neville Smith Forest Products
Bunnings
GBE Forestry Tasmania
That is not to mention the hundreds of workers and small sawmillers represented by the signatories, including the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, the Forest Contractors Association and Timber Communities Australia.
On the other side we have the mainstream environmental groups, the heavyweights that campaigned strongly against the forestry industry for decades, committing to actively supporting the industry, including endorsing FSC Certification.
The Liberal Party has been relegated to the sidelines as the chief cheerleader for the carpers, naysayers and change deniers. They have embarrassingly found themselves on the wrong side of history yet again.
Mr Green said the State Government was totally committed to implementing the Tasmanian Forest Agreement. We will continue to work with the signatories to implement the milestones of the agreement, Mr Green said. The Government is in no doubt Tasmanians want this issue fixed.
Agreement has been reached because of the willingness of people to accept the need to adapt to changing market demands and a global downturn. It has been an extremely difficult time for businesses, forest workers and regional communities. Now, Tasmania s forest sector and communities around the State can look forward to a much more certain future and the opportunity for this important industry to prosper.
Mr Green said the Government had not wavered in its support of signatories to the agreement. The Liberal Party has been intent on wrecking the agreement from the start, ignoring the efforts of the industry, unions and ENGOs to reach a lasting resolution. When strong leadership was needed Mr Hodgman went missing, Mr Green said.
1st May: Tasmania’s Upper House has amended this Bill so savagely that it no longer reflects the agreement struck by the forest signatories
(justification for crossing the Floor, Leader of The Tasmanian Greens, Nick McKim MP )
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Tasmanian House of Assembly Hansard:
<<Mr Speaker, this amended Bill put before us is a dramatically different Bill to that which left this House last year. It is by no means a perfect Bill, in fact, it is manifestly imperfect in a number of its provisions.
And it must be said that many of the amendments made by the Upper House defer, or reduce certainty around, conservation outcomes. And that, Mr Speaker, is no coincidence.
There is no doubt that the Upper House has amended this Bill so savagely that it no longer reflects the agreement struck by the forest signatories, and that this House now needs to consider how best to salvage an outcome from the Legislative Council’s wreckage.
The Signatories’ agreement would have given peace in our forests a chance. But we will now never know how things would have played out if the Signatories’ agreement had been faithfully legislated, because the Upper House has tragically removed that possibility from Tasmania’s future.
But despite the Bill’s imperfections, it still delivers some major conservation gains for Tasmania. It immediately provides legislated protection from logging for over 500,000 hectares of High Conservation Value forests. These iconic forests, these carbon banks, these global treasures, in places like the Styx, the Weld, the Huon, the Florentine, the Tasman Peninsula, Bruny Island, the Blue Tiers, the Western Tiers and the Tarkine will for the first time in their history have legislated protection from logging. Simply by the passing of this Bill.
The Bill also provides pathways to the creation of 504,000 ha of new formal reserves, including new national parks, and to the achievement of full Forest Stewardship Council certification by the Tasmanian timber industry.
It is true that there remains uncertainty around new reserves, and that the uncertainty is greater due to the Legislative Council amendments. But the Bill nevertheless provides an opportunity for these reserves, the chance of an absolutely stunning conservation gain, and the Greens believe Tasmania deserves no less.
And it is true there remains uncertainty around the achievement of full FSC, and that the uncertainty is also greater due to the Legislative Council amendments. But the Bill nevertheless provides the opportunity and a pathway for the achievement of full FSC, and therefore a potentially remarkable transformation in the way the forest industry conducts itself on the ground in Tasmania. And the Greens believe that Tasmania deserves no less.
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“Those amendments (to the Bill) do not in any way constitute a ban on protests or market campaigns.“
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And importantly, the Bill also reduces the legislated sawlog quota from a minimum of 300,000 m3 to a minimum of 137,000 m3. These are significant steps towards the implementation of long held Greens policy.
When deciding how to proceed today, the Tasmanian Greens considered many things.
We considered the bitter conflict that has existed over forestry for many decades in Tasmania. A conflict that has placed lives at risk, put jobs in jeopardy, and held Tasmania back from reaching its full potential.
We considered the massive efforts of the Forest Signatories, bitter enemies who came together and who for nearly three years sought in a constructive way to reach agreement on a way forward.
We considered the commitment of current state and commonwealth governments to being part of a solution instead of part of an ongoing problem
We considered the conservation gains I have referred to.
We also considered the letter written to the Signatories yesterday by the Minister for Resources Mr Bryan Green.
We considered that in his letter, Mr Green agreed, amongst many other commitments to:
Finalise the gazettals of new reserves under the Nature Conservation Act for the World Heritage Area first ‘tranche’ of reserves with the clear intention that this is achieved by the end of this year (2013)
That there is a new Conservation Agreement under the Commonwealth EPBC Act put in force over the entire 504,000 hectares that doesn’t expire until the gazettal of all new reserves under Schedule A subject to transitional scheduling, which is to be signed by both governments, explicitly including Parks and Wildlife Service, and Forestry Tasmania.
Transfer the day to day management of the identified future reserve land, the 504, 000hectares, from Forestry Tasmania to Parks and Wildlife Service under a formal service agreement as soon as the Act commences.
Supporting the Australian government’s undertaking that it will not approve harvesting of wood, including specialty timbers, within World Heritage nominated or listed areas.
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We also considered the Upper House, and our firm belief that to refuse the amendments made by the Upper House, and therefore send the Bill back to the Legislative Council for further consideration, would result in one of only two possible outcomes: either the Bill would be sent back to us in a form that further erodes the conservation gains, or the Bill would die in the Upper House.
We considered that all of the signatories have asked that this Bill be passed through the lower House unamended today.
We considered the statement made yesterday by Mr Bob Annels, Chair of Forestry Tasmania.
A statement in which Mr Annels committed his organization to full Forest Stewardship Council certification, and in which he ruled out logging under any circumstances in the forests nominated for World Heritage status, allowing for a small number of transitional coupes that will be completed within weeks.
We considered the money available from the Commonwealth, the remaining $100 million to assist in the ongoing transformation of Tasmania’s economy that will be one of this Labor-Green government’s greatest legacies to our state.
We considered the $9m per year extra assistance to manage Tasmania’s world class reserve system that will flow should this Bill pass.
We considered the carbon embedded in the forest ecosystems protected from logging, and our responsibility to play a role in reducing global emissions.
We considered that we now have confirmation that the Commonwealth has given a commitment that carbon from forest ecosystems protected by this legislation will be granted additionality, and therefore will be eligible under the Carbon Farming Initiative to be traded nationally and globally on mandatory carbon markets.
Of course, we also considered those parts of the Bill which do not reflect Greens’ policy, including delays in the creation of formal reserves, the maintenance of a legislated minimum sawlog quota of any amount, the sovereign risk provisions, and the amendments which allow either House of the Parliament to use protest or market interference as an excuse to block new Reserves.
I want to be clear that those amendments, which allow either House of the Parliament to use protest or market disruption as an excuse to try and block new reserves do not in any way constitute a ban on protests or market campaigns as some have claimed.
A final consideration included our responsibility to play a constructive role in Tasmanian politics, and to help guide Tasmania to a more prosperous and united future. We considered the need for a co-operative approach, for people working together to solve Tasmania’s problems rather than lobbing grenades from the trenches. We believe that’s what the vast majority of Tasmanians want. And that’s what the Greens want to be a part of.
The Greens have had to weigh in the balance the provisions of this Bill that we support, and those that in isolation we would not. But due to the wreckers in the Upper House, the Tasmanian Greens believe that the Bill as amended is a ‘take it or leave it’ package. And that is why after long and difficult consideration, the Tasmanian Greens Party Room has decided in accordance with our Party Room rules to vote to accept the amendments from the Upper House and therefore allow this Bill to pass through the Tasmanian Parliament today and become law.>>
<<Tasmania’s Lower House has passed historic legislation designed to end 30 years of conflict over logging in the state’s native forests.
The final deal will bring almost $400 million worth of state and federal funds to Tasmania to restructure the industry and create new reserves. But the compromises made along the way have left the Australian Greens to deem the final result almost worthless.
Tasmania’s Parliament passed the crucial legislation on Tuesday evening, 13 votes to 11.
The Premier, Lara Giddings, told Parliament the deal would be an historic turning point and would secure the industry’s future. “History has shown us that no conflict can go on forever. Every war must come to an end,” she said.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke flew into Hobart to celebrate. “The rest of Australia has not come close to being able to achieve what Tasmania achieves today, and that is a solid conservation outcome with a solid economic future,” he said. History has shown us that no conflict can go on forever. Every war must come to an end.
But the mood in the gallery was far from celebratory, with many disappointed over amendments made by the Upper House two weeks ago that effectively delay the creation of formal reserves.
Greens MP Kim Booth was the only member of the Labor-Greens minority Government to cross the floor and vote against the legislation.
“It does not give protection beyond the World Heritage Area, which I’m very, very pleased has been sent to Paris,” he said. “It does not give permanent protection to any of the other 504,000 hectares that are mentioned as areas that should be reserved.”
The leader of the Australian Greens, Christine Milne, does not support the deal either.
The vote ends more than three years of negotiation between industry and environmental groups to reduce the amount of logging in native forests. The deal aims to halve the state’s timber industry and protect a further half a million hectares of forest. The first 80,000 hectares will be protected immediately. The rest will not be up for formal protection until at least October next year.
Key environmental groups were upset at the changes made by the Tasmanian Upper House and only decided to support the deal at the last minute.
The Wilderness Society’s Vica Bayley says the Upper House amendments shook the confidence of environmental signatories. “The amendments don’t reflect the agreement, but what we have done is to try to restore confidence by alternative measures,” he said. “[They are] things such as transferring the management of future reserves from Forestry Tasmania over to Parks and Wildlife. “Things like a very strong commitment from Forestry Tasmania not to log the future reserves. “It is utterly clear that this is the only pathway forward.”
Some environmentalists have vowed to continue protests against the deal.
Resources Minister Bryan Green now has 30 days to table an order to start the process of reserving the forests. The legislation does not need to go back to the Upper House.
The State Government offered a range of sweeteners to keep the deal alive.
They include:
Forestry Tasmania to immediately pursue Forest Stewardship Council certification and not log existing reserves or agreed future reserve areas
The Tasmanian Government to properly resource departments to deal with agreed new reserves
Federal and State Governments to ban logging in the 500,000 ha of forest earmarked for protection from logging, known as a conservation order
Forestry Tasmania and both governments to try to cut the number of transitional coupes that will need to be harvested
Immediately transfer control of the 500-thousand hectares of land from Forestry Tasmania to the Parks and Wildlife Service
Establish dispute resolution mechanism to deal quickly with any issues that might arise during implementation
Both governments to work together to ensure the boundary for the World Heritage Area extension meets agreed wood supply while maintaining WHA size and values.
<<Trust has been broken and heads must roll just like all the trees that will be logged as a result of this so called deal. Destruction will be the legacy of such a disgraceful act of treason. Arrogance, naivety, stupidity, ego, whatever the driving force was behind this dreadful act, it will haunt us all and reverberate through the environment for years. Forestry must be laughing all the way to the bank and the pub! You are not forgiven!>>
Tasmanian Greens MP Kim Booth
– blind faith in FSC
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30th April (before the Vote): Dr Phill Pullinger gutted by Upper House changes to the bill but ‘rolled up sleeves’ to make agreement work
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<<…Early this morning, the signatories of the Tasmanian Forests Agreement said despite the changes made to the bill by the Upper House, they could still support the bill and urged the Tasmanian Lower House to pass the amended legislation.
Greens MHA Kim Booth will cross the floor to vote against the bill, splitting from his following Tasmanian Greens members who will be voting for the bill.
Despite Mr Booth’s stance, and the state Liberals not supporting the bill, it’s most likely the bill will pass the Lower House and become law.
Dr Phill Pullinger from Environment Tasmania said they were gutted by the changes made to the bill by the Upper House at first, but said they ‘rolled up their sleeves’ and worked with the other signatories and the Tasmanian Government to work out a way to make the changed agreement still work. “They’ll be a lot of work yet to be done to make the promise and hope that has sat behind this agreement in this process actually follow through into reality,” said Dr Pullinger.
Dr Pullinger said although the bill is now different from the one the signatories first agreed to, they can still support it and make it work in a positive way for Tasmania’s native forests. “The legislation will protect all of the half a million hectares that are agreed to be reserved under this agreement from logging, not withstanding a small list of transitional coups, and it does lay out a pathway for those forests to be formally reserved under Tasmania law.”
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Will Hodgman: “Liberals will undo the deal and the legislation”
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Australian Greens leader Christine Milne announced the deal dead before it was even voted on.
“My Tasmanian counterparts will determine whatever they do in terms of the salvage operation, but I can tell you that the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is dead,” she said. “It was killed in the Upper House and the signatories also acknowledge it is dead in terms of the spirit and the letter of what was agreed.”
Ms Milne says environmental groups will be ‘picking over the scraps’ of the agreement to try to salvage something positive from it, but she says this bill is not the agreement and this is not the end to Tasmania’s forest wars.
Some non-signatory environmental groups have said the amended deal will not bring peace to the forests and protests are likely to continue.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke arrived in Hobart earlier today to hold talks with the signatories and Tasmanian government. He said there is no way to ever completely stop protests, but believes the passing of the legislation is an historic moment for Tasmania.
Tasmanian Opposition leader Will Hodgman says should the Liberals win a majority government in the next Tasmanian election, they will undo the deal and the legislation.>>
30th April (before the Vote): Terry Edwards says the amended legislation is closer to what loggers originally wanted
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<<Tasmania’s Lower House is set to pass legislation aimed at ending decades of conflict in the state’s forest.
Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim says his party will approve the bill, which was heavily amended by the Upper House. Mr McKim told Parliament the changes mean that there is a chance that new forest reserves will not be created but peace deal signatories had asked the Lower House to pass the bill unamended.
“But the bill nevertheless provides…the chance of an absolutely stunning and historic conservation gain for Tasmania,” he said.
Greens forestry spokesman Kim Booth has indicated he will cross the floor but the Government will still have the numbers to make the peace deal law.
Earlier this month, the Upper House supported the legislation but made significant amendments. The signatories announced this morning that they would back those amendments.
The Premier, Lara Giddings, told parliament the forest industry will be better off with the peace deal. “Today is indeed a historic day. Today is indeed an important day for the forestry industry and today the Liberal Party show their true colours – they don’t care. We will be able to build a new future for Tasmania, a new future for forestry industry.”
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Peter Gutwein: “Liberals will do everything that we possibly can to unlock every single stick.”
The Opposition’s Peter Gutwein says in Government, says the passing of the bill will not end the long conflict. In government, the Liberals will undo any new reserves. “We will do everything that we possibly can to unlock every single stick,” he said.
Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne says whether or not the deal’s enabling legislation passes State Parliament, it will not resolve conflicts over forest protection. Senator Milne says in her opinion the peace deal is worthless. “What is now before the parliament is not the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, it is a remnant, it is the burnt ashes of what went up to the Legislative Council and they’re now into a salvage operation,” she said.
The Lower House is expected to sit late this evening before finalising debate.
…The Forestry Industries Association’s Terry Edwards says the amended legislation is closer to what loggers originally wanted. But he says the environmental NGO signatories are still getting a very good deal.
“There’s no doubt that the amendments made in the Legislative Council probably went further towards what we had originally bargained for,” he said. “But that said, if the bill couldn’t deliver on the ENGOs’ outcomes, then it wasn’t going to deliver on the outcomes of the agreement as a whole.”
Mr Edwards says it is an historic outcome, but there is still more negotiation ahead. “Vica talks about the opportunities presented being too important to lose and I certainly agree with that. But it’s those opportunities that we, as the signatories, and the two governments need now to seize to see whether or not we can actually do what we’ve promised to do.”
Mr Edwards says the Legislative Council has served voters well with its amendments to the deal. “To me they did a thorough job, to the best of their ability, inside the knowledge base they had. They applied a very strict public interest test over an agreement that was negotiated by people that do not have a public interest test. It’s our job now to work out how we implement that.”
Yesterday, environmental fringe groups labelled the bill ‘mutant’ legislation and warned they will not stop protesting if it becomes law.>>
April 29: ‘Picton River Resolution April 2013’ – End logging in these forests!
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Picton River
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<<An activist workshop facilitated by Alice Hungerford, with members of the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened, gathered in the Picton Valley and discussed the Tasmanian forest campaign. This resolution calling for the forest agreement to be rejected was prepared by the workshop participants.
While many conservation-minded people once held hope that the forest negotiation process may lead to forest protection outcomes, these hopes have been diminished by the ongoing conservation compromises made and more recently due to the current amendments made by Tasmania’s Legislative Council.
The amendments that have been made to this agreement by the Legislative Council render the deal void of any real conservation gain, yet prop up the dying native forest industry. These amendments are totally unacceptable.
One amendment is that forest proposed for protection in the first stage are only those areas that are in the World Heritage nomination currently before the IUCN. Leaving out large areas of high conservation value forest in:
These forests will not be reserved unless the native forest industry in Tasmania receives Forest Stewardship Certification (FSC). Protection will be delayed until at least October 2014, however it will be dependent on this certification.
This is an amendment laced with problems; the forestry industry is not committed to changing the current regime of clear-felling, creating huge quantities of wood that is referred to as‘residues’ by the industry, continued logging on steep slopes, old growth destruction and continuing regeneration burns. If these are the logging practices that are to be granted FSC status, then this would be a severe sabotage of the FSC process and bring into question the credibility of certification. Worse still it entrenches Tasmania into ongoing destruction of native ecosystems at a critical time of climate change.
This amendment shows the clear direction of this deal – to support the ongoing native forests industry. This is a far cry from the original purpose of the negotiations, which promised a transition out of native forests in Tasmania.
We cannot accept a deal which seeks to prop up native forest destruction, clear felling and a return to wood-chipping. We cannot accept a deal that does not deliver the protection of verified high conservation value forests upfront. We cannot accept a deal which will further weaken Tasmania’s forest practice standards and which has the potential to jeopardise the integrity of FSC.
First and foremost Tasmania needs secure protection of high conservation value forests, an end to logging in these forests. Secondly the forestry industry has to prioritise restructure; bring an immediate end to out-dated practises that are ecologically damaging.
The large-scale volume-driven nature of the forestry industry must be restructured to support high-value labour-intensive use of every possible part of every tree harvested. And a rapid transition into plantations is required.
A further amendment has provided for World Heritage value forests in the Great Western Tiers to be excluded from upfront protection, despite being a part of the nominated area currently before the IUCN. Protection of these forests appears to be delayed until October 2014 and also dependent on FSC.
It is unacceptable to exclude any areas from protection that have been verified as World Heritage value. And it is unacceptable to continue to log areas within the World Heritage nominated forests or to allow access for logging for speciality timbers in perpetuity.
Another amendment made by the Legislative Council is that any reserve (including in the World Heritage Area) could be logged for special species timber as defined by the Minister of the day, if this is deemed necessary in the future. It is unacceptable for logging to occur inside reserves for speciality timbers, yet meanwhile such timbers have been left in clearfells and burnt in the annual Autumn high-intensity burns for far too long. Ending high intensity burn practises and providing funding for salvaging special species timbers off the coupe floor and storing these timbers in regional wood banks would provide ongoing employment.
Most importantly, the health repercussions for all Tasmanians from burning and poisoning our land, water and air through the current out dated practices must be acknowledged and monitored reparation is required.
The people of Tasmania bear the full social, financial and community costs of the forests destruction, and government prop up of the unsustainable industry.
Who we are: we are mothers, grandmothers, daughters, children, sisters and brothers, teachers, community workers, volunteers. We are people who care. We are strong, and loving and joyous. We are activists. We work for change.
We are committed to caring for our country. We take full responsibility for our words and our actions. We participate in all parts of this community, we call Tasmania home.
We stand for justice, empowerment, safety and ecological sustainability. We recognise the urgent need for people to wake up, to rise up and support broad-scale restorative change.
We are passionate about democracy and expect every member of Parliament to stand up and do the right thing, to put Tasmania and Tasmanians as their very first consideration in making decisions about land and resources.
The process of reaching an Inter-governmental Agreement on Tasmania’s forests has taken almost 3 years and has been fraught with bias. The process has been heavily skewed toward industry gain and conservation loss. We do not support the future of forest protection to be dictated by the special council that is set up by this Tasmanian Forest Agreement, which again is dominated by industry interests, as membership of the council will have three conservationist representatives and eight industry representatives. We call on our elected representatives to shape a future for Tasmania that insists on ecologically sustainability.>>
27th April: The Legislative Council has fired a torpedo into the Tasmanian Forest Agreement
(Former Greens Senator and Founder, Bob Brown)
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<<After the Agreement was struck last year the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, made it clear that she expected it to be implemented without alteration. In perhaps the biggest downpayment in Tasmanian history, the Commonwealth gave $120 million to the collapsed logging industry to make good the Agreement. It promised over $100 million more for regional development on condition that the Agreement was fully implemented, including its promised forest reserves.
However, here in Tasmania, under concerted fire from the Liberals and disgruntled individuals from the logging industry, the Legislative Council has voted to amend the enabling legislation which was passed by the House of Assembly and blown up the Agreement’s environmental outcome.
The Council’s amendments leave the loggers’ interests wholly intact while putting the bulk of the environmentalists’ outcomes on the never-never. The Agreement’s promise of immediate and permanent reserves in return for the hundreds of millions of dollars in industry restructure, retraining and regional development is largely broken.
Gazetting of the majority of the promised national parks would be delayed until, if the polls are right, Liberal governments are voted into both Canberra and Hobart. The Liberals have campaigned against the forest peace agreement all the way down the line. Ignoring the fact that it is industry and environment groups which have spent three years negotiating the Agreement, not Labor or the Greens, Liberal spokesman Peter Gutwein asserted after the Council vote that ” we will unlock every single stick that Labor and the Greens try to lock up”.
Legislative Councillor and Liberal Party member Tony Mulder, who sealed the Council’s amendments, emailed one logging campaigner to reveal his plan was to ‘get some fed dollars’ and then watch the deal fall over. He wrote that he intended to put the reserves ‘to the sword’.
Key to this hostile game plan played out by the Council amendments is sinking the core commitment in the Agreement that “the Signatories support the legally binding protection of an additional 504,012 hectares of native forests’, with 395,199 hectares given legislative protection ‘as soon as feasible’. That is, this year.
Three of the many Council amendments to the legislation highlight their killer effect. Firstly, after interim protection, some 300,000 of those 395,199 hectares of High Conservation Value forests to be reserved ‘as soon as feasible’ have had that reservation put off until at least October 2014. That means the Liberals, if they win the elections, will put the promised reserves ‘to the sword’.
Even if the Liberals stay in opposition, the reserves fail if there are any substantial protests in a state where forest destruction and protests have occurred every year since the 1970s. To make sure, the reserves also fail if Forestry Tasmania, which has been refused green accreditation for years, is not given Forest Stewardship Council certification by the mainland-based authority.
Secondly, of the 123,000 hectares of top order forests, like the Styx, Huon, Weld and Upper Florentine, which were nominated by the federal and state governments for World Heritage status last February, a Council amendment removes 35,000 hectares near Cradle Mountain and in the Great Western Tiers from gaining national park status unless both the nomination succeeds and that green accreditation is granted to Forestry Tasmania.
Another Council amendment to the Agreement is that any reserve, including in the World Heritage Area, could be logged for special species timber, as defined by the minister of the day, if this is deemed necessary in the future.
In a nutshell, the Tasmanian Forest Agreement’s fundamental deal that 395,199 hectares of High Conservation Value forest reserves, ostensibly national parks, should be created in return for the hundreds of millions of dollars of industry and regional restructuring is being torpedoed.
The logging industry employs fewer than 2,000 and that number is falling. Tourism employs more than 15,000 and that number is growing. The Council’s perverse action, if allowed to stand, will mean that the former has its money while the latter is left with neither vital new forest attractions nor the regional development funds it should share in creating Tasmania’s new future.
This puts governments in both Canberra and Hobart to the test. The House of Assembly should return the original legislation to the Council. If the Council insists on its amendments let history, as well as contemporary Tasmanian voters, see it for the wrecker it has become. — Bob Brown.
According to TWS spokesperson, Vica Bayley, “we are still looking at ways we can improve the workability of the Agreement given the Legislative Council’s amendments”. We are not prepared to give up and are exploring all other options. There may be no way other than re-amending the [Tasmanian Forest Agreement] Bill”, Mr Bayley said.
According to Mr Bayley some of the Signatories were working through a number of options including asking the State (minority) Government to further make amendments before putting it back before the Legislative Council.
The Signatories have until this Tuesday morning (30 April) – when State Parliament sits – to devise any amendments. ‘A group of the Signatories’ had met in Melbourne on Tuesday [23 April] and there were on-going telephone hook ups.>>
19th April: Tasmanian Parliament recalled over forestry bill
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<<Tasmania’s Parliament will be recalled later this month to finalise legislation to enact the forest peace deal. The Legislative Council has significantly amended the bill, jeopardising the deal.
It is unclear whether environment groups will accept the changes.
Opposition Leader Will Hodgman postponed question time in a bid to force the Lower House to debate the contentious bill. “Let’s finish this once and for all,” he told parliament. After today, this House doesn’t sit for another five weeks, that’s five more weeks of uncertainty.”
Labor and the Greens denied the debate, the Premier saying she will recall Parliament on April 30th to deal with the matter. Ms Giddings says the Government cannot accept legislative changes which undermine the historic peace agreement. She says the Government and peace deal signatories need more time to work through the changes.
“My hope is that we will find that all of us can be supportive of the legislation, but we don’t know that at this point in time,” she said. “There are discussions that need to be had.”
Greens leader Nick McKim says it is the right thing to do. “The signatories have been clear they would like more time.”
Deputy Premier Bryan Green is also against rushing the debate. “This is the biggest decision that this state has had to face up to in more than three or four decades,” he said.
Signatories meet
The signatories are consulting their supporters and are expected to meet to discuss the Upper House changes later today. The Wilderness Society’s Vica Bayley says it is too early to say if his organisation will accept the changes. “Our members will be concerned, as are we, about these changes,” he said. “This does not reflect the implementation of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement. “It certainly puts a question mark over the delivery of a range of opportunities that that agreement afforded.”
Environmental groups say they will continue a holding-pattern on international timber market protests while they consider the changes. Environment Tasmania’s Phil Pullinger says the focus is on finding a solution. “We absolutely remain committed to the agreement we made in November, we’re not going to walk away from that,” he said. “We do need some time to analyse what this legislation means with respect to the agreement. “We would not be changing anything in terms of us continuing to be in a holding pattern as far as the market place is concerned.”
Ed: ‘Tazmania’: a perpetuating cultural history of exploitation and embattlement,
simply because of a recurring handful of selfish middle-aged men prepared to bully to get their way.
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Oct 2012: Greens and FIAT push for resolution
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<<The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT) has announced it will rejoin the forest peace talks … for now.
The Tasmanian Greens and FIAT are pushing for the forest peace talks to be wound up soon. FIAT has declared it will return to the talks to end the state’s long-running forest wars.
The chief executive Terry Edwards said the Commonwealth and State governments were losing patience with the process and an agreement to restructure the state’s struggling forest industry had to be reached by the end of the month.
The Greens leader Nick McKim said FIAT’s return to the talks should prompt the other suspended forest groups to return to the peace talks. “I do believe that at some stage we will either need from the signatories an agreement or an agreement that an agreement can’t be reached,” he said. “So look, I would like to see this process concluded, I think most Tasmanians would like to see this process concluded. The good news now is that with FIAT back in, the process can proceed.”
The $276 million dollar, Federally-funded forest peace talks have been running for two years. The Forest Industries Association, which represents large saw millers and veneer processor Ta Ann, had suspended its involvement in the talks over the Government’s plan to overhaul Forestry Tasmania. Members met on Friday to vote on whether to walk out permanently.
The chief executive, Terry Edwards, said it was a tight vote but a last minute letter from the Premier Lara Giddings prompted the group to return to the table. “We feel we’ve got too much invested in that process to date to simply walk away,” he said.
Mr Edwards would not detail what the letter said other than saying it gave assurances the industry would be consulted about the changes to Forestry Tasmania. “She has clearly indicated that the reform will be evidence-based and that’s something we’ve been asking for since the announcement of the reforms of FT. “Our concern to date has been that it will be politically-based, not evidence-based, and that’s a very welcome change of direction by the government.”
Mr Edwards put a new final deadline on the peace talks – the end of the month. He said FIAT would withdraw permanently if a decision was not made by then.
The Premier, Lara Giddings, welcomed the announcement, saying it recognised there was an “urgent need” to restructure the state’s struggling forest industry.>>
<<There was a man outside the Executive Building at the time when Terry Edwards and Phill Pullinger fronted a waiting media pack at 1 pm on the afternoon of Wednesday 15 August, 2012. These two Signatory representatives were there to release the Interim Agreement on Tasmanian Forest Wood Supply and Conservation.
Mr Glenn Britton of Britton Timbers and chairman of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania was also there.
Chief Executive of Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT), Terry Edwards
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On 23 August whilst Terry Edwards, the CEO of FIAT was holidaying in Fiji, Mr Britton was in the media spot-light over an article on correspondence he had with the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Will Hodgman.
Louise Saunders: ‘… you are a saw miller, you’re Chairman of the Association, do you have concerns or reservations (over the IGA process)?
Glenn Britton: Oh, look, it would be fair to say everyone has reservations and ahh… the reason why. That to date the agreement hasn’t been achieved is because of the, ahh… the huge gap that’s still apparent between sufficient forest to supply the, ahh… the, ahh… the appropriate or required level of, ahh… level… or volume of sawlogs and peeler logs and special species timber by… by volume and by quality, and size and age class etc… to sustain a viable industry into the future on the one hand and on the other hand, ahh… having that; allow sufficient, ahh… ahh… forest to, ahh… add to the current one and half million hectares of forest reserves already in Tasmania.
Glenn Britton (FIAT Chairman)
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In April-May 2011 Britton Brothers along with Ta Ann Tasmania wrote a submission that was part of FIAT’s submission to the Legislative Council Inquiry into transitioning out of native forest logging. Their Smithton sawmill processes 30,000 cubic metres of native forest logs employing 75 mill workers and 30 forestry contractors. Their timber products are ‘aimed at the high value appearance-grade markets – furniture, joinery, cabinet making and feature flooring, used in commercial and residential fit outs in Australia an overseas’.
Britton Timbers sawlog resource is supplied by Forestry Tasmania from native forests in north west Tasmania. The company offered an assessment of ‘a transition to plantation processing for Britton Timbers. For them it came down to the recovery of a suitable quantity and grade of timber from plantation sawlogs.
According to Britton Timbers the recovery of sawn timber from a modern sawmill in Tasmania from native sawlog is 35%. They compared that against a 40% recovery with Eucalypus nitens plantation sawlogs.
From their annual wood supply of 30,000 cubic metres, they estimate 10,500 cubic metres of sawn timber from native sawlog and 12,000 cubic meters from plantations. They sell graded sawn timber according to Select, Standard and Utility categories.
When it came down to the sale price, Britton Timbers maintains that their annual turnover would be disadvantaged (Figure 2); $10,290,000 from native forests versus $8,040,000 from plantations.
For Britton Timbers, a transition to a plantation resource is hampered by: (1) a lack of plantation wood supply until 2035, and (2) predominant species currently in the state forest estate – Eucalyptus nitens – is not suitable for producing appearance-grade timber for high-value wood products.
Their suggested transition strategy to plantations needed to include:
(1) A move to plantings of E. globulus
(2) Plantations managed for sawlog production by high-pruning and thinning trees from an early age
(3) Growth to ‘a suitable diameter’ [600 mm in diameter]
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According to Britton Timbers’ May 2011 submission:
“Native forests can be managed for biodiversity, carbon capture and sawlog production either in perpetuity or until we have a plantation resource suitable for processing, but this will take around 25 years. Until such time as the forestry industry has a plantation estate capable of producing the quality of timber required by saw mills and rotary peeled veneer mills, any discussion of a transition is hypothetical.”>>
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[Source: ‘More grist for the mill …’, 20120829, by David Obendorf, Tasmanian Times, citing Britton Timbers 2011 submission to the Legislative Council Inquiry into public native forest transition April-May 2011, accessed August 2011, ^http://www.tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/article/more-grist-for-the-mill-]
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Comments:
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Comment by lmxly (20120829):
<<Britton Brothers received a total of $1,567,308 under the TCFA. in 2004-06, from the Tasmanian Forest Industry Development Program.
The TCFA document “A way Forward for Tasmania’s Forests” states ‘This program will help hardwood mills to adjust to the different types of logs they will need to process as a result of the move away from old-growth clear-felling towards regrowth and plantation timber.
Assistance will be provided for projects that:
Improve sawlog recovery rates and add value to forest resources (particularly regrowth wood and native forest thinnings)
Develop new forest products
Result in more efficient timber use
Assist with adjustment to the changing nature of supply.
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What did Britton Bros actually spend over $1.5million of taxpayer funds on, if not the purposes of the TFIDP?
Has Britton Bros not ” adjusted to the different types of logs they will need to process as a result of the move away from old-growth clear-felling towards regrowth and plantation timber.”? If not why not?
Have they in effect pissed this money up against the wall? Or were they conned by FT that its plantation estate would produce satisfactory sawlogs after 2020 – which is only eight, not twenty five years hence?
To claim that ‘any discussion of a transition is hypothetical’ a demonstration of Britton’s hypocrisy: incompetence at best, since this discussion has been far from hypothetical for the pst five years, and he has received over $1.5m to find a way to make the transition for his operation.>>
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Comment by David Obendorf (20120830):
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<<Terry Edwards will be back from Fiji and no doubt Bob Gordon isn’t far away either. The pow-wow will be on with Ken Jeffreys and Evan Rolley and Glenn Britton. It looks like they will have to take Bryan out somewhere ‘noice’ for tea in Burnie and try to sort him out on a few things.
Maybe they can ask Bryan where the high quality sawlog until the plantations are available will be coming from. Bryan can ask them who’s putting up their hand to take a slice of Julia Gillard’s $15 million of the saw-miller exit money? It ain’t easy being Bryan Green at the minute.
<<…CEO for Ta Ann Tasmania is Evan Rolley – TAT’s wood supply to 2027 is 265,000 cubic meters per annum. That is the checking move from the Industry side – no doubt about it.
Former CEO of TWS, Alec Marr is now the cock of the rock of the moth-balled Triabunna woodchip plant. Dealing with wood residue from forestry activities and sawmills. That is checking move from the ENGO side – no doubt about it.
FT Tasmania has been extremely irresponsible and culpable in its erroneous projections of high quality saw log and peeler logs from eucalypt plantations. They have led their Ministers, Canberra and local sawmillers up the garden path.
The publicly accessible plantation estate is of limited value to sustain the supply and quality required to 2030 and FT has always known this! That makes any deal on the 430,000 to 572,000 ha of HCV native forests looking like a stalemate.
Mr Bayley and Dr Pullinger should realise this fully by now. FT Tasmania – who baulked and blocked and weren’t even a party to the roundtable – had controlled the agenda and led the ENGOs into their forest territory – production forests.
The Liberals 150,000 ha of extra forest reserve looks like the position that FIAT was offering to the ENGOs in their negotiaton scenario in June 2011 (maybe even earlier).
Ta Ann doesn’t look like budging on their wood supply unless they see a very good reason to reduce their access to native forests for peeler billets in Tasmania. Any capitulation from them would come down to money [like the Gunns Ltd/FT pay out of $39 million] and negotiating with Mr Rolley on behalf of the parent Ta Ann company.
Where is Plan B, because Plan A looks like it may be stale-mated?
Month by month, year on year, the native vegetation of the Blue Mountains is steadily disappearing lot by lot, hectare by hectare, for private housing development profit.
A native bushland site along Wellington Road on the bush fringe of Katoomba has been recently sold off for private profit, then bulldozed and trees uprooted ready for housing construction. Like so many such sites, once the house is built, it soon goes on the market for sale and profit.
Typically, it is not owner-occupiers buying up the bush, but property developers for quick sale and profit. Cummulatively, much of fringe Blue Mountains bushland is being flogged for profit. Cheap bush blocks are bought, bushland habitat is destroyed and private profit is made at the expense of cheapened ecology.
And real estate agents are in on the private profit making bandwagon.
On this particular site, grows a threatened species of native flora, Needle Geebung(Persoonia acerosa), which is endemic to this region of the Blue Mountains – that is, outside this region, the species grows naturally nowhere else on the planet. It is a protected species under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (New South Wales).
The Needle Geebung is a plant species within the Proteaceae family of flowering plants. The Needle Geebung is a small, erect to spreading shrub 1 – 2 m tall. Its bright green, pine-like foliage is very distinctive. The small, needle-like leaves are channelled on the upper surface. Flower clusters are produced along leafy shoots, not at the branch tips, as in related species. The yellow tubular flowers are up to 1 cm long and most frequently appear in summer. Fruits are pear-shaped, yellowish-green with brownish-red markings, to 14 mm long and 10 mm in diameter.
The Needle Geebung occurs in dry sclerophyll forest, scrubby low-woodland and heath on low fertility soils. Plants are likely to be killed by fire and recruitment is solely from seed. This species seems to benefit from the reduced competition and increased light available on disturbance margins including roadsides.
The threatened status of this species was last assessed in September 2012, but as each month passes and more fringe bushland is flogged off for housing development, the existence of the species is further reduced.
In New South Wales, ‘threatened‘ species, populations and ecological communities are those respectivelyconsidered by the New South Wales Scientific Committee to be at risk of extinction in the immediate to medium-term future in New South Wales, and are listed under Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, Schedules 1, 1A and 2.
The Needle Geebung has been recorded only on the central coast and in the Blue Mountains, from Mt Tomah in the north to as far south as Hill Top where it is now believed to be extinct. It is mainly concentrated in the Katoomba, Wentworth Falls and Springwood area of the mid to upper central Blue Mountains. The following map is only indicative of where the species grows naturally, but due to government withdrawal of environmental funding, species surveys are not conducted, let alone implementation of Species Recovery Plans or Threat Abatement Plans.
The damage and killing of this particular plant and others on the site along Wellington Road was reported to the local statutory authority, the Blue Mountains Council on Friday 1st March 2013, following the discovery by local residents of the damage to this protected species. Council’s Customer Service Request reference is #174709.
Despite the previously undisturbed natural bushland on the site and the prolific concentration of Needle Geebung plants, the Council approved housing construction on the site about two weeks prior on 19 February 2013.
Such approval and the subsequent vegetation removal on the site and damage and killing of this species to the would seem to be a direct breach of the Threatened Species Conservatioin Act as it relates to protecting the Needle Geebung from harm. Under Section 91, Clause 1, the Director-General may grant a licence authorising a person to take action likely to result in one or more of the following:
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(a) harm to any animal that is of, or is part of, a threatened species, population or ecological community,
(b) the picking of any plant that is of, or is part of, a threatened species, population or ecological community,
(c) damage to critical habitat,
(d) damage to habitat of a threatened species, population or ecological community.
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Such harm is deemed and offence under the Act and can attract up to 200 penalty units or about $22,000 fine under Section 141E of the Act.
However, since reporting the incident, no action has been taken by Council and no fine imposed. The expression ‘paying lip service‘ comes to mine.
Australia is estimated to be home to more than 500,000 animal and plant species. Many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Australia is faced with unprecedented loss of biodiversity. Over the last two hundred years, more than 100 species of animals and plants have become extinct. More mammals have died out in Australia, than in any other continent.
<<According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List of Threatened Species, Australia now has the highest rate of species extinction of any developed nation. Almost one in five mammal species are facing extinction and there are over 800 plants and animals which are listed as threatened.>>
The main causes of species’ decline include habitat destruction and degradation, impacts of introduced invasive species, pollution and disease. In New South Wales, there are more than 850 animal and plant species at risk of extinction – including the Koala, Humpback Whale and Wollemi Pine. Our ecosystems are also at risk. Only a small proportion of forests, woodlands and grasslands remain. The status of many thousands of species is unknown.
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Under New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, Part 1, Section 3, the objects of the Act are:
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(a) to conserve biological diversity and promote ecologically sustainable development, and
(b) to prevent the extinction and promote the recovery of threatened species, populations and ecological communities, and
(c) to protect the critical habitat of those threatened species, populations and ecological communities that are endangered, and
(d) to eliminate or manage certain processes that threaten the survival or evolutionary development of threatened species, populations and ecological communities, and
(e) to ensure that the impact of any action affecting threatened species, populations and ecological communities is properly assessed, and
(f) to encourage the conservation of threatened species, populations and ecological communities by the adoption of measures involving co-operative management.
But unless diligent monitoring and enforcement supports the legistlation, such protection is effectively ‘paying lip service‘.
Here is the official lip service of the Blue Mountains Council as it relates to protecting Threatened Species in the Blue Mountains.
<<The Blue Mountains Local Government Area contains approximately 10% of the listed threatened species in New South Wales.
The high percentage is a function of the high biodiversity of the area, the large number of endemic species and the ongoing impacts of urban development such as land clearing, urban runoff, sedimentation, habitat disturbance, and weed invasion. Blue Mountains Council is committed to reversing this situation through sensitive urban planning, a strong environmental program, and targeted Environment Levy funded projects and by fostering community involvement in biodiversity conservation through the Bushcare, Landcare, Swampcare and Bush backyards programs.
Blue Mountains City Council employs a Biodiversity Conservation Officer who co-ordinates an integrated threatened species recovery team which focuses on threatened species which are endemic (ie only occurring in the Blue Mountains) or species that have a stronghold in the Blue Mountains including the Blue Mountains Water Skink, the Giant Dragonfly, the Dwarf Mountain Pine, Epacris hamiltonii, Leionema lachnaeoides and Eucalyptus copulans. The Biodiversity Conservation Officer is also responsible for raising awareness of threatened species and endangered ecological communities (EECs) such as Blue Mountains Swamp and Shale Based EECs in the Blue Mountains and fostering community involvement in their recovery.
How many threatened species occur in the Blue Mountains (as at June 2009)?
‘Vulnerable‘: a native species is considered ‘vulnerable’ if a species is likely to become endangered unless the threats to its survival cease to operate.
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‘Endangered‘: a species is considered ‘endangered’ if it is in danger of extinction unless the threats to its survival cease to operate.
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‘Presumed extinct‘: a species that has not been seen for more than 50 years despite thorough searching, is presumed extinct. Native species, populations and communities, which are presumed extinct, endangered or vulnerable in NSW, are all considered ‘threatened’.>>
<<In a recent case in NSW, the Land and Environment Court found the Director of Infrastructure at Port Macquarie Hastings Council guilty of an offence under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (Garrett v Freeman (No 5) [2009]). This is the first time that a senior council employee has been found guilty of an offence conducted while carrying out their normal work. The prosecution also shows that the Authorities are becoming more willing to target individual employees, rather than only their company or organisation.
The prosecution found that the Director had committed an offence under s 118D(1) of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NPW Act). This section of the Act states that it is an offence to cause damage to the habitat of threatened species or endangered populations or endangered ecological communities. The maximum penalty for an offence against Section 118D(1) of the NPW Act is $110,000 or imprisonment for one year, or both. The recent court sitting, in which the penalty was determined, concluded with the Director being fined $57,000, as well as being directed to pay the prosecutor’s costs of $167,500.
As well as prosecuting the Director of Infrastructure, the Council was ordered to pay $45,500 plus $114,00 in prosecutor’s costs for an offence under the NPW Act and $35,000 and prosecutor’s costs of $80,000 for an offence under the Fisheries Management Act 1994 (NSW).
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What lead to the decision?
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The prosecution was made after the Director instructed access roads to be constructed within a wetlands, which was an area identified as having acid sulphate soils. The construction of the roads resulted in the disturbance of the habitats of two threatened species; the Grass Owl (Tyto capensis) and the Eastern Chestnut Mouse (Pseudomys gracilicaudatus).
The construction of the roads was found to be an activity within the meaning of Part 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act), which requires that the environmental impact of an activity be considered prior to the activity being undertaken. The impact of the activity must be considered by the determining authority in approving the activity.
The Director did not obtain any approval for the construction of the access roads, and hence no determining authority was notified to assess the environmental impact of the activity. There was conflicting evidence surrounding whether the Director was aware that threatened species were present at the site, however it was concluded that he ought to have reasonably been aware, as a number of comprehensive studies to which he had access had identified the threatened species. The Director believed that he had conducted a Review of Environmental Factors for the site, which determined that there was no impact to threatened species. However the form of the Review did not constitute an assessment of the project’s impacts as required by the EP&A Act 1979, including the impact on the threatened species of the disturbance and destruction of their habitat.
The construction of the roads was found likely to significantly affect the environment or threatened species within the meaning the EP&A Act 1979. By undertaking the construction without obtaining an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or Species Impact Statement (SIS), council failed to comply with the requirements of the Act.
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Key Factors
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Evidence that lead to prosecution of the defendant included:
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The Director had actual knowledge that the roads were constructed
The Director knew that the wetlands were habitat for the Grass Owl and the Eastern Chestnut Mouse, listed as threatened species
The Director had actual knowledge, imputed knowledge, and/or constructive knowledge that the construction of the roads would damage threatened species habitat, specifically the Grass Owl and the Eastern Chestnut Mouse
The Director failed to prove that he did not have knowledge that the council failed to comply with the EPA Act 1979
The NPW Act requires the defendant to satisfy the Court that the principal offence was committed without his knowledge. The Director was unable to prove this to the satisfaction of the court. The case also found that there was ample evidence that the Council knew that the land was habitat of the two threatened species.
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Lesson
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… the precautionary principle always applies. If you suspect potential environmental impacts, you have a duty to ensure they are considered, whether there is sufficient information available about the impact or not. Ignoring the precautionary principle has been used as evidence for prosecutors in numerous past environmental litigation cases.>>
This is typical bureaucratic greenwashing to which Blue Mountains Council has developed into an artform to avoid its environmental responsibilty and to fob off any resident who dares to take an active interest in environmental protection. Some residents who complain about environmental pollution and damage too often are black listed, and are even cast with a punitive ‘Plan of Management’.
The response has the same nonchalant disinterest and excuse that could well have instead read as follows:
‘Look resident 123456,
Frankly, this is again in our too hard basket and you should really stop contacting us and crawl back under your bush and leave us to do other things like write environmental reports, which we do well.
Yes, we sort of care about threatened species – our glossy brochures, reports, website and symposiums say so, and we believe them, but we don’t have time to get out there and actually check. We don’t have the resources.
Yeah, we have environmental protection by-laws, but we’re busy and anyway people need homes built. If we put too much environmental pressure on them their developers challenge us in the Land and Environment Court and usually win because we have weak laws and shit lawyers who love creaming ratepayers money. And so we don’t have the resources.
Since we can’t prove who killed the Persoonia plants, we put this matter in the category of ‘known unknowns’. We see that no-one else but the developer and his contractors had reason to use the driveway, so we see no reason for fencing out others since only the developer and his contractors would be damaging the Persoonia.
When they have finally cleared the block of all vegetation, and when the developer then thinks it is safe to lodge a development application to build with all plants removed, only then the fencing of the plants would be addressed accordingly.. if we get resource funding.
Signed Yours,
Pompous Arse (acting)
Development Monitoring Team (every second Tuesday of the third month*)
Development, Health & Custoner Services (on a completely separate floor to Council’s City & Community Outcomes Directorate which funnily enough includes environmental protection)
Please consider the Environment before photocopying this printed letter.
..the city within a world heritage national park
Blue Mountains Council (thinking it is a big city)
.
* Subject to staff availability and yes, resources.
Elphinstone Plateau from the north 
The Dwarf Mountain Pine endemic on the planet to wet rocks within the spray of waterfalls of Elphinstone and Wentworth Falls 
One of our local conservationists at Megalong Head on Elphinstone Plateau
Threatened species Elphinstone Boronia (Leionema lachnaeoides)
