Minke Whale mother and her calfJapanese ICR Whale Blood Sport Japanese Men Only
[Source: Sea Shepherd]
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Feb 2008:
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<<(Then Australian) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed to do whatever it takes to end Japan’s whale hunt as the bloody slaughter continued yesterday.
Mr Rudd’s declaration came as Japanese companies scurried to try to minimise a consumer backlash over whaling.
A people-power campaign has begun against the Japanese whalers, spearheaded by The Daily Telegraph, with 100,000 people signing a petition of outrage.
Yesterday Mr Rudd joined the Australian people in demanding Japan cease its so-called “scientific whaling program”.
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Mr Rudd:
“I want to see an end to whaling. I don’t have a magic wand, but the Australian Government will do everything within our power to put pressure on the Japanese whalers to bring this slaughter to an end. Australia and Japan have a strong relationship, but that strength demands that we leave the Japanese in no doubt that Australia will continue to campaign to bring an end to whaling once and for all.”
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Mr Rudd said he had instructed Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to “exert real pressure” on the Japanese to end the program. However, talks this week between Mr Smith and his Japanese counterpart Masahiko Koumoura have been deadlocked. As the Japanese continued to harpoon and slice up minke whales throughout the day, Mr Smith emerged from talks saying the two men had “agreed to disagree“.
[Ed: What is Japanese for ‘up yours‘ ?]
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Consumers have now called for boycotts of all Japanese products, sending some of Japan’s biggest companies into a panic. Hayley Wilson, 21, of Surry Hills said she thought boycotts were the only solution: “Nothing else seems to be working.”
Big name Japanese companies immediately went into overdrive. Electronics giant Sanyo has written to the Japanese Consulate in Sydney voicing its concern about a consumer backlash. Sony Australia called on Australians to reconsider the approach and Mazda also begged Australians not to target its products.>>
Australian PM Kevin Rudd : ‘Whatever. You win’ to a stronger willed Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda.
(Photo: Glen McCurtayne)
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<<Kevin Rudd has “agreed to disagree” with Tokyo on the issue. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has effectively conceded defeat on his plan to stop Japanese whaling, declaring after talks in Tokyo that Australia and Japan have agreed to disagree on the issue..
Ed: ‘Whatever happened to the days way back, when the world was safe
And it seemed worth saving,
We search for leaders on our hands and knees..’
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[Source: Richard Clapton, Song: ‘Best Years of Our Lives’, 1989, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist from Sydney; off his album: ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, on WEA Label 256582, ^http://www.richardclapton.com/?page_id=629 ]
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<<The long-awaited talks between Mr Rudd and his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, concluded yesterday with both leaders saying the Japan-Australia relationship was too important to be disrupted by their disagreement over whaling.
Mr Rudd later insisted that Labor’s policy had not changed from last year, when he demanded that the Howard government take Japan to the International Court and pledged that Labor would do so.
But he made it clear yesterday that Labor now had no plans to take Japan to court and would instead pursue its complaints through normal diplomatic channels and through its campaign to reform the International Whaling Commission.
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Mr Rudd:
“Prime Minister Fukuda and I have agreed that you can have disagreements between friends” (with Mr Fukuda at Rudd’s side, who understands English). “This disagreement should not undermine in any way the strong relations between our two countries … we will be working diplomatically for the period ahead.”
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This means, in effect, that after Labor’s election campaign pledge to haul Japan before the International Court, and after the Government spent $1 million sending a Customs vessel to follow the Japanese whaling fleet last summer to collect video evidence, Australia’s policy on whaling is now back where it started.
Mr Rudd immediately came under attack from anti-whaling groups and the Opposition, which said it was not good enough to “agree to disagree” and called on the Government to announce its long-delayed special envoy on whaling.
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Last summer the Japanese killed 551 minke whales, the most abundant whale species. This was well short of its target of 850 minkes and 100 larger whales.
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Japanese Sport Whale Meat
… blood sport as usual.
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Ecologist and former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has argued that Australia should not oppose the Minke kill, saying it frees up food in the oceans for the larger, endangered whales.
Darkside Ecology: when ecological knowledge is applied to kill wildlife
..selling skills, selective statistics, academic theories and even convincing hand movements..and all.
…meanwhile, Japanese whale blood sport as usual…
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Mr Fukuda was keen to talk about the whaling issue, raising it in private discussions over lunch as well as in formal talks. But the Australian side saw no shift in his stance, and in his public statement he emphasised that diplomacy had triumphed.
“We agreed to engage in further discussion, so that differences on this issue will not underline good bilateral relations,” he said.
The talks took place amid political turmoil in Japan, after Mr Fukuda was censured by the Opposition-controlled Upper House for making people over 75 meet more of their medical costs. But Mr Fukuda took two hours off his domestic troubles for an hour of official talks followed by lunch with Mr Rudd.
Importantly, he gave support to Mr Rudd’s initiative to try to tighten the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by setting up an international commission co-chaired by former foreign minister Gareth Evans and holding an international conference to discuss how the treaty can be made more effective.
In a communique, the two leaders did not mention whaling. But they emphasised the strengths of the bilateral relationship, which has been questioned after the sharp dispute over whaling and after the Rudd Government’s decision to pull out of talks between the US, Japan, India and Australia – which China saw as aimed against it. Instead, the leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral and trilateral defence co-operation.
Responding to Mr Rudd’s retreat on whaling, Greenpeace Australia Pacific chief executive Steve Shallhorn said it was time to move on the appointment of a whaling envoy “because regular diplomatic channels are clearly not working”.
Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the failure to announce the appointment sent a message to Japan that Labor was only interested in the whaling issue for domestic purposes. He also said the Government’s election promise to take Japan to the International Court “was always a fraud“.>>
<<The Rudd Government has reneged on a promise to send an Australian ship to monitor Japan’s annual slaughter of 1000 minke, humpback and fin whales.
The Opposition said an Australian ship must be sent to gather evidence for use in a promised international courts case to stop the whaling.
The annual Japanese whale kill is in full swing despite a promise by the Rudd Government in May 2007 to take Japan to the international courts to stop the slaughter.
Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt wrote to Environment Minister Peter Garrett and demanded he honour the Government’s promises to monitor – and ultimately bring an end – to the whale slaughter.
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Mr Hunt:
“We are now facing the third whaling season since this promise was made and I ask that you agree now to dispatch a non-military observation vessel to the Southern Ocean by January 5, (2010).”
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The Humane Society International (HSI) said Japan’s own figures, revealed in secret documents discovered at the International Whaling Commission meeting being held this week, showed the “true, disgusting nature” of the country’s whale hunting.
“The purpose of this would be both to chronicle the tragic slaughter of these majestic creatures and to act as an intermediary in the case of conflict between the Japanese whaling fleet and non-government organisations.”
A spokesman for Mr Garrett said the Rudd Government had honoured its promise to monitor the cull in 2008 when it spent $1 million sending the customs ship the Oceanic Viking to observe the cull. That mission captured damning pictures of Japanese whalers killing a mother whale and its calf but the evidence was never used to take Japan to court, although it did reduce the Japanese whale cull that year. [Ed: See image at the start of this article.]
Japan’s whalers blamed “relentless interference” from environmentalists and the Australian surveillance ship for the fact they only took 551 minke whales out of a maximum quota of 935 in early 2008.>>
Research has become an internationally interpreted Japanese word for ‘Whale Blood Sport’
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Jan 2010:
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A criminally violent blood sportNo-one wants the whale meat.It is all about Japanese Men Only cultural barbarism
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<<Japan has risked an open breach with the Rudd government by hitting back hard at Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s handling of last week’s whaling confrontation in the Southern Ocean.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials have accused Ms Gillard of aggravating the whaling controversy between Tokyo and Canberra, and called for Australian action to prevent further illegal activities by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
The officials warned a senior Australian diplomat on Friday that Ms Gillard’s statements immediately before and after the collision between Sea Shepherd’s speedboat and a Japanese whaling ship were inflaming public opinion in Japan and making diplomatic resolution of the underlying dispute harder to realise.
This is the toughest public stance a Japanese government has taken towards Australia on Antarctic whaling — or any other issue — in recent times and is also highly unusual in singling out for criticism a senior member of a friendly government.
The move betrays Japanese frustration with the Australians’ political management of the issue, including Kevin Rudd’s repeated threats of international legal action against so-called scientific whaling, while not obviously helping to curb hazardous protest activities, including Sea Shepherd’s efforts to disable whaling ships.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs senior officials told acting japanambassador Allan McKinnon it was “not appropriate” for Ms Gillard to urge Japanese whalers and the activists in equal terms to show restraint, “notwithstanding the Sea Shepherd itself was conducting the unlawful rampage”.
Sea Shepherd accuses the Shonan Maru 2 crew of deliberately running over Ady Gil during a day of confrontation in which the activists’ speedboat ran across the Japanese factory ship’s bow and allegedly tried to entangle its propellers.
Ms Gillard yesterday stood by her call for calm on both sides and for Japanese and Sea Shepherd skippers to ensure crews’ safety as their first duty.
“These are extremely dangerous conditions and it is likely Australia would be called upon to deploy a search and rescue mission if things were to go horribly wrong,” Ms Gillard said. “It is not therefore inappropriate for Australia to call for calm from both sides in these circumstances.”
Japanese officials questioned the jurisdiction of Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority to investigate last week’s collision. Without access to the crew of Shonan Maru 2, any finding by an Australian inquiry into the collision is likely to be meaningless.
The Japanese have agreed to co-operate with a New Zealand investigation (Ady Gil was New Zealand-registered) and they are expected to vigorously contest a piracy complaint lodged in a Dutch court by Sea Shepherd on Friday.
Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said yesterday the group was aiming to secure a charge of attempted murder against the Japanese crew.
“That’s what the crew of the Shonan Maru tried to do, the video makes that clear,” Mr Watson said from the Steve Irwin, which continues to pursue the whaling fleet.
“If I rammed and sank a Japanese vessel in Australian territory, the Australian navy would be on its way down here right now to arrest me.”
Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, in answer to questions from The Australian, have called for the Australian Federal Police to investigate Sea Shepherd’s actions the next time its vessels put into an Australian port.
Japanese officials were already annoyed that the Steve Irwin, which uses Australian ports for its annual Southern Ocean campaigns, was allowed to put into Hobart without question late last month after initiating the first clashes of the season.
They told Mr McKinnon that Ms Gillard’s call for the Institute of Cetacean Research to suspend charter flights monitoring the Sea Shepherd vessels that have been harrying the whaling fleet since mid-December “has already unnecessarily provoked the Japanese public opinion”.
“This has invited the Japanese public (to) call for a strong protest and it might impair both governments’ will to lead the whaling issue to a resolution through diplomatic efforts,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Japan aims to slaughter nearly 1000 minke whales this summer for “scientific research”, as well as 20 rare fin whales and 50 humpbacks. It has urged Canberra to distinguish between official Australian opposition to Antarctic whaling and illegal acts in international waters that put at risk Japanese crewmen and ships.
A culture that has long celebrated brutal killing
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On Wednesday, before news of the collision and in response to a newspaper report about the charter flights, Ms Gillard said: “We do not condone this action by the Japanese government at all and we are certainly urgently seeking legal advice about this conduct.” On Friday, she said: “Ending whaling will happen through diplomacy or legal action; it’s not going to happen on the high seas. And because we are pursuing diplomacy, I am in a position to advise that our embassy in Tokyo has made high-level representations to the Japanese government.”
Ms Gillard said Australia’s diplomats in Tokyo had made clear to the Japanese the government’s strong view that Japanese whaling had to cease: “We are pursuing diplomacy with all of our force. We have made it absolutely clear we are not ruling out taking international legal action.”
At that stage, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials would not confirm Thursday’s discussion with Mr McKinnon but The Australian understands that later on Friday they asked him for another meeting, at which they delivered the toughened message.
Ms Gillard yesterday maintained that the Australian government was “pursuing its anti-whaling position through the appropriate diplomatic and legal channels very strongly”.
“The government also respects the right of those who also oppose whaling to protest, and to do so peacefully,” she said.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said yesterday the government’s handling of whaling was damaging Australia’s relationship with Japan.
She said Mr Rudd should either fulfil his pre-election promise to pursue international legal sanctions against Japan or withdraw the threat.>>
<<Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Japan must stop Southern Ocean whaling by November 2010 or face an international legal challenge.
The diplomatic heat between Australia and Japan appears not to have deterred whalers in the Antarctic cold.
As Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Sydney yesterday, the whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru was steaming through the heart of an Australian Antarctic whale sanctuary, anti-whaling activists aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin claim.
The pursuers took this image of the Nisshin Maru behind a GPS locator that showed its position as 65 degrees 11 minutes south, and 78 degrees 8 minutes east. That is only about 100 nautical miles from Australia’s Davis Station in eastern Antarctica, well inside the 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Sea Shepherd pursuers.
In protected waters … a GPS locator aboard the Steve Irwin shows the Japanese whaler is just 100 nautical miles from Davis Station and well inside the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone.
GPS confirms Japanese whaler illegally trespassing inside the Australia Exclusive Economic ZonePM Kevin Rudd at the time did nothing about it.
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”It’s almost like a slap in the face,” Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said from the Steve Irwin. ”They were skirting the EEZ by about a mile until Friday and then they dove down into it.”
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Mr Rudd has strongly objected to the ”slaughter of whales” in the sanctuary declared throughout the EEZ. Whaling is banned in all Australian waters and the hunt’s illegality in this polar sanctuary was upheld in a 2008 Federal Court case brought by Humane Society International. In response to Mr Rudd’s warning on Friday that whaling must be brought to an end or Australia will go to an international court by November, Mr Okada reiterated Japan’s view that it was legal.
Mr Okada met Mr Rudd at Admiralty House in Kirribilli yesterday. His spokesman, Hidenobu Sobashima, said:
”In light of the importance of Australia-Japan relations … we hope that the two countries will confirm it is imperative to reach a diplomatic solution.”
Mr Okada will meet Foreign Minister Stephen Smith in Perth today before returning to Tokyo.>>
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[Ed: Came to nothing: …how’s your father, tasty food…Whatever. You win!]
<<The former prime minister Kevin Rudd launched legal action against Japan’s whaling program despite opposition from senior ministers and officials who warned it was likely to fail and strengthen the hand of the Japanese.
Leaked United States diplomatic cables also indicate that the decision to take Japan to the International Court of Justice was designed to divert public pressure on Labor over whaling.
The Department of Foreign Affairs warned that the case against Japan’s ”scientific” whaling would ”either fail completely or, at best, set up the Japanese to simply make changes to their program to improve the science”.
And a senior Australian diplomat told the Americans that both the then foreign minister Stephen Smith and the trade minister Simon Crean had made clear their opposition to an international legal challenge.
According to the cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald, officials told US diplomats that even if successful, legal action against Japan would be ”unlikely to stop the whale hunt entirely”.
They added that ”equally importantly, such action would probably take a long time, removing some of the pressure on the government for the next few years”.
The government yesterday attempted to play down earlier revelations that Australia had been prepared to secretly negotiate a compromise to allow continued Japanese whaling.
The acting Attorney-General, Brendan O’Connor, said that the ICJ case demonstrated that the government was not soft on whaling. ”I think that underlines the seriousness of the matter and the fact that this government … opposes whaling and will continue to fight through the courts,” he said.
But the new embassy cables show that the government’s advisers were deeply pessimistic about the prospects of success in any legal action.
In October 2008, as officials were working to develop their case, the US embassy reported to Washington that domestic political considerations were high in Mr Rudd’s thinking. It said he was likely to eventually see legal action ”as the least damaging politically of his limited choices in dealing with public anger over whaling”.
However, the embassy also reported the Foreign Affairs Department’s environmental strategies director, David Dutton, had admitted that his department and the Attorney-General’s Department ”had long shared the view that international legal action against Japan’s whaling program has a limited chance of success”.
Mr Dutton told US diplomats that the Attorney-General’s Department had ”recently done an about face” to argue that the prospects for success at the ICJ were ”high enough to justify taking action”.
Mr Dutton said the Foreign Affairs analysis was that the only basis for effective action was that Japan’s whaling violated the International Whaling Convention because it did not achieve substantive scientific outcomes.
”[Foreign Affairs] continues to believe that such a challenge will either fail completely or, at best, set up the Japanese to simply make changes to their program to improve the science,” the US embassy reported to Washington.
The cables also reveal that the Rudd cabinet was ”very divided” over how to deal with whaling, with the prime minister reported to have been ”increasingly worried that the Japanese will forge ahead despite Australian concerns”.
The embassy reported that Mr Dutton had said that Mr Smith and Mr Crean ”had made clear their opposition to an international legal challenge, but opined that … DFAT and by extension [Mr] Smith had ceased to have much relevance in influencing the PM’s office on this issue”.
When they announced the legal challenge in May last year, Mr Smith and the then environment minister Peter Garrett said the government had ”not taken this decision lightly”.
However, the cables also reveal that domestic politics featured prominently from the start of the government’s consideration of possible legal action against Japan.
Soon after the election of the Labor government, the embassy reported Australian government contacts were saying that referring Japan’s whaling program to the ICJ ”would be unlikely to stop the whale hunt entirely, but could well force modifications that would make it more difficult for the Japanese”.
The embassy’s contacts also suggested that ”equally importantly, such action would probably take a long time, removing some of the pressure on the government for the next few years”. Australia is not required to file its detailed arguments with the court until May and Japan is not obliged to respond until March next year. A hearing may not take place until 2013.
The leaked cables also reveal Japanese confidence that Australia’s legal challenge would fail and vindicate Japan’s position.
In February last year the US embassy reported that the Japanese deputy head of mission in Canberra had observed that the then foreign minister Katsuya Okada had ”made clear his growing annoyance with Australian complaints about whaling”.
”Okada is very confident that Tokyo will win a legal challenge and has suggested internally that it would be good for Japan to show that its whaling program is on firm legal ground,” the embassy reported.
The Greens and the opposition yesterday attacked the proposed Australian government compromise with Japan.
The opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, said Labor had damaged Australia’s case against Japanese whaling.
”It’s absolutely clear that the Australian government was saying one thing publicly and then another thing privately about whaling so as to allow the continued hunting and slaughter of whales, all of the while this was being denied by the government.”
The Greens leader, Bob Brown, also said the proposed compromise was ”very troubling”.
”Hopefully this may help the current government take a stronger line,” he said.
He urged the government to use all available legal and diplomatic means, as well as naval surveillance, to increase the pressure on Japan to end the slaughter of whales.>>
<<The Australian Government condemns Japan’s decision to continue whaling in the Southern Ocean this year under the guise of science. Australia remains resolute in its opposition to all commercial whaling, including Japan’s so-called ‘scientific whaling’.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government was particularly disappointed that this whaling will take place in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary established by the International Whaling Commission.
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Mr Rudd:
“There is widespread concern in the international community at Japan’s whaling program and widespread calls for it to cease. The Government has always been firm in our resolve that if we could not find a diplomatic resolution to our differences over this issue, we would pursue legal action. This is the proper way to settle legal differences between friends.”
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Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the decision to commence proceedings in May 2010 was not taken lightly.
“Australia believes Japan’s whaling is contrary to international law and should stop,” said Mr McClelland. “That is why Australia is taking our case in the International Court of Justice to bring to an end Southern Ocean whaling permanently.”
Environment Minister Tony Burke said the decision to take legal action demonstrated the strength of Australia’s commitment.
“The Australian Government remains opposed to all commercial whaling, including so-called ‘scientific whaling,” Mr Burke said. “We will keep working to achieve a permanent end to all commercial whaling.”>>
<<Japan’s whaling authorities are suing militant environmentalists Sea Shepherd for ‘harassing’ whale hunters.
It is the first time that Japan has attempted legal action abroad against anti-whaling campaigners, who have sometimes used extreme methods against ships involved in the hunt, carried out under rules that allow research whaling.
“Today, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha and the Institute of Cetacean Research along with research vessels’ masters filed a lawsuit against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and Paul Watson,” they said in a statement. “The Institute of Cetacean Research and Kyodo Senpaku are seeking a court order in the US District Court in Seattle, Washington that prevents SSCS and its founder Paul Watson from engaging in activities at sea that could cause injuries to the crews and damage to the vessels.”
Kyodo Senpaku owns ships, while the cetacean institute operates the whaling programme under the authority of the Japanese government.
Sea Shepherd, based in Washington state in the US, regularly sends vessels to harass the whalers. In previous years it has thrown stink bombs onto the decks of the Japanese fleet, while vessels from both sides have repeatedly clashed.
The Japanese statement said the whaling programme was “greatly contributing to the advancement of scientific knowledge of whale resources in the Antarctic”.
Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 International Whaling Commission agreement. “Lethal research” is allowed, but other nations and environmental groups like Sea Shepherd condemn it as disguised commercial whaling.
Tokyo says the whale hunts are needed to substantiate its view that there is a robust whale population in the world. However, it makes no secret of the fact that whale meat from this research ends up on dinner tables and in restaurants.
The statement condemned Sea Shepherd’s actions as “life-threatening”.
“Sabotage activities against the research fleet by SSCS and Paul Watson have been escalating over several years,” it said. “The activities perpetrated by SSCS and Paul Watson not only put at risk the safety of the research vessels at sea but are also affecting the scientific achievement” of the program, it said.
In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from Sea Shepherd.
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Mr Watson (Sea Shepherd founder):
“We are not down there protesting whaling, we are down there intervening against criminal activities. We defend ourselves from being rammed, hit with water cannons, shot at, have concussion grenades and bamboo spears thrown at us, so yes, we defend ourselves. The United States government and courts have no authority over these ships so I don’t know what they are hoping to achieve.”
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Mr Watson – who travels to Australia each year to lead activists in their efforts against the whale hunt – said that the ships his organisation used were not owned by Sea Shepherd USA, nor were they US-flagged vessels.
The Japanese legal action came after the whaling fleet left port on Tuesday for this season’s annual hunt.
The coast guard has deployed an unspecified number of guards to protect the ships from anti-whaling activists, and the Japanese government has confirmed it will use some of the public funds earmarked for reconstruction after the massive March earthquake and tsunami to boost security for the hunt.
Three ships from the Sea Shepherd fleet are due to set sail over the coming days to once again confront the Japanese whalers, the organisation said. The Steve Irwin and the MV Brigitte Bardot will leave from Albany in Western Australia and the MV Bob Barker will depart from Hobart.>>
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MV Brigitte Bardot – whale defender Named after the famous French actress, who remains most supportive of Sea Shepherd’s cause to stop whaling
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“Being outraged by the fact that he’s been put in prison, I offer to take his place because I am his accomplice,” Bardot, 77, said in a statement. “I have always supported Paul Watson, my brother in arms,” said the retired French actress who had a Sea Shepherd trimaran named after her in 2011.
<<Japan’s whaling fleet has left its home port for another turbulent season in the Southern Ocean, this year courtesy of extra money from the nation’s earthquake recovery fund.
Three vessels have set sail from the port of Ishinomaki, in western Japan, with a mission to catch 900 whales over the next three months.
The Japanese fleet will have beefed-up security this year after its last season was cut short by the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group.
The fleet did not get anywhere near its target last season and Sea Shepherd is hoping for a repeat performance.
But there is anger in Japan and elsewhere this year about the source of new funds for the trip.
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The Japan Fisheries Agency says the trip’s use of $28 million from the earthquake recovery fund is legitimate, because it is taken from the government’s own quake recovery fund.
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Once again, the male dominated Japanese Government turns its back on its own
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Greenpeace Japan executive director Junichi Sato says it is a massive stretch to link whaling to the earthquake.
“It’s not related to the recovery at all,” he said. “It is used to cover the debts of the Whaling Programme because the Whaling Programme itself has been suffering from big financial problems.”>>
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[Source: Japanese whalers get $28m in earthquake cash’, 20120131, by Adam Harvey, AM Programme, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-07/japan-whaling-fleet-embarks/3716546]
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Jan 2013:
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Former Greens leader Bob Brown says fear of a diplomatic fallout is preventing Australia from standing up to Japan on whaling.
Dr Brown, who is now a member of the Sea Shepherd board, also stood behind Sea Shepherd skipper Paul Watson, who jumped bail in July in Germany while being detained over an incident off the coast of Costa Rica in 2002.
The former senator says he wants the Australian Government to seek an international court injunction to stop Japan’s annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean.
“They’re worried. They want a free-trade agreement, they’re worried that this is going to, in some way or other, annoy politicians in Tokyo,” he said.
“There’s a lot of Australians who are annoyed that the Australian Government, and indeed the Opposition when it was in government, haven’t stood up to the Japanese. And it’s time they did.”
Dr Brown said he has nothing but praise for Watson.
Interpol has issued an arrest alert for Watson, who is wanted in Costa Rica over charges relating to a confrontation over shark finning.
Watson has since said he is back on board an activist vessel and ready to confront whalers.
“I’ve admired Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd for 30 years,” Dr Brown said.
“They have done a fantastic job. It’s been non-violent, they have never harmed anybody in that process.”
The former senator also wants the Government to ensure the safety of the Sea Shepherd’s four ships and crew.
“This time they (the Japanese) have armed coastguard people – this is men with guns on their ships coming into the demilitarised zone in Antarctica – while our Government and governments elsewhere sit on their hands and allow this international law-breaking,” he said.
“It’s Sea Shepherd that’s upholding the law here.”
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Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Crewin search of Japanese Whale Killing ShipsVoluntarily undertaking the job of the Australian Government.
<<Anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd say they have made their first contact with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean this season.
The group says its vessel the MV Brigitte Bardot intercepted harpoon ship the Yushin Maru 3 yesterday.
In a statement, Brigitte Bardot captain Jean Yves Terlain said the position of the whaling boat indicates it has not yet killed any of the mammals.
“The Yushin Maru 3 was on a westerly course, indicating that the fleet has been in bad weather for the past several days,” he said.
“The latitude at which they were found was rather far north and given that the large concentrations of whales are found further south, closer to the Antarctic Continent where there are high concentrations of krill, this would indicate that they have not yet begun whaling.”
Sea Shepherd says this year’s mission is its largest to date, involving four ships and more than 120 crew.
Mission chief and former Greens leader Bob Brown say it is also shaping up to be the most successful.
“We’re one day short of the end of January, the prime killing month for these whaling fleets, and they haven’t yet been able to kill a whale,” he said. “Sea Shepherd is very, very happy.”>>
<<Japan has begun injecting new tax-payer-funded subsidies into its whaling program in a bid to keep the fleet afloat, the ABC has learned.
It is believed the “profitable fisheries program” is helping to keep the so-called scientific research program’s ongoing debts at bay and to help refit the whaling fleet’s flagship.
With the Japanese fleet now entering Antarctic waters, the annual whale wars are again expected to flare any day.
Militant Sea Shepherd activists have been able to all but scupper the fleet’s catch over the past few years.
This, plus lower demand for whale meat, means the government has been forced to prop up the whaling program.
Some of the money has come from funds set aside for the rebuilding of communities shattered by the 2011 tsunami.
And now it appears more cash has come from the new taxpayer-funded subsidy.
“This subsidy is supposed to help fishermen in financial trouble,” investigative journalist Junko Sakuma said.
“Now it’s propping up the unprofitable whaling fleet, and if they keep running a loss, they won’t even have to pay it back.”
Documents seen by the ABC suggest the subsidy has already been used to partly refit the whaling fleet’s mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, with a smoking room and internet connections.
Patrick Ramage is the whale program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Tomorrow he will release a report into just how the Japanese whaling industry is propped up financially.
“The most important finding of this new report is really three things: first, that whaling is an economic loser in the 21st century, second, that the Japanese people have lost their appetite for whale meat, and third that whale watching rather than whale killing is the economically beneficial whale industry for the 21st century,” he said.
Even the strongest supporters of whaling in Japan are pessimistic about the future of the hunt, especially with the government forced to pump in more subsidies into the fleet to keep it afloat.
Masayuki Komatsu is a former Japanese delegate to the International Whaling Commission and one of the architects of the country’s scientific research program.
He warns that the injection of this new subsidy is a sign that program is in big trouble.
“It’s not sustainable, right. How long can you get such money from the government? Everybody likes money, particularly other people’s money,” he said.>>
<<The Federal Government has ordered a Japanese whaling vessel to get out of Australia’s exclusive economic zone.
The Shonan Maru Number 2 – a Customs vessel which travels with the whaling fleet – entered the zone off Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean yesterday afternoon.
Environment Minister Tony Burke said he had made it clear to Japan that vessels associated with the whaling program “are not welcome in in Australia’s exclusive economic zone or territorial sea”.
“Our embassy in Tokyo has conveyed these sentiments directly to the Japanese government,” Mr Burke said in a statement.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown, now the mission leader of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group, says he believes the vessel has armed Japanese personnel aboard.
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Mr Brown:
“It is accompanying the whaling ships into the killing fields off Antarctica. When the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker made contact with the factory ship, this ship tailed Bob Barker and has been doing so for a couple of days. The Bob Barker has lost the [factory ship] Nisshin Maru but that was after it was hunted out of the whaling area and this Customs vessel, this government vessel, has kept with the Bob Barker through to Macquarie Island and into Australia’s economic zone waters.”
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Mr Brown says the Shonan Maru stopped this morning just outside Australia’s territorial waters. He says there may be legal arguments about who has control over exclusive economic zones.
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Mr Brown:
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“Tokyo has ignored the call from the Federal Government for this part of the whaling fleet not to enter our exclusive economic zone. It’s stayed outside the direct territorial waters but it has not obliged that request and protest from Australia that it should not enter our exclusive economic zone. That is a matter of some affront to Australia and one that I’ve no doubt the Federal Government will be looking to deal with during today.” >>
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[Source: Japanese whalers ordered out of Australian waters’, 20130201, by Samantha Donovan and staff, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-01/government-orders-japanese-whalers-out/4495166]
[The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll and published on CanDoBetter.net, 20100116, ^http://candobetter.net/node/1778, entitled ‘Ban whaling vessels from using our ports’].Japanese Whale Blood Sport…at it again, trespassing and poaching in Australian waters!
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One would assume that an organisation entitled the ‘Australia Strategic Policy Institute‘ would be a government body or a body at least having Australia’s strategic interests at heart.
But its director, Dr Anthony Bergin, with a title one would assume would be capable of research, has written an article for Fairfax media supporting Japan’s strategic interests.
Bergin’s article: ‘Ban Protest Vessels from using our Ports‘ dated 16th January 2010 in The Age newspaper sides with the Japanese whalers and calls on the Australian Government to support Japan in denying protesters access to Australian ports.
Perhaps Dr Bergin should take up residency in Taiji and become an employee of their Institute of Cetacean Research.
If Dr Bergin were respectful of the democratic rights to protest we have in Australia and recognised the Japanese incursion in Australia’s whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, and respected the existence rights of whales, then perhaps his article for Fairfax would have instead read like this…
The Australian Government has been far too even-handed in its statements about the reckless actions of the Japanese whalers trespassing in the Southern Ocean in breach of commercial whaling prohibitions.
By not condemning this annual intrusion by Japanese ships undertaking commercial whaling, Australia is in effect acquiescing in illegal poaching of whales, while Sea Shepherd does Australia’s naval monitoring of illegitimate Japanese whale poachers. Harassment will not change Japan’s position on whaling. And not condemning these Japans actions is counterproductive for Australia trying to secure its protection of endangered whales with the International Whaling Commission.
Whale Watching: A Minke Whale is harpooned by the Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru 2 in Australia’s Southern Ocean
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Australia could legitimately take Japan to court and hold Japan in breach of the Antarctic Treaty at the next meeting of the commission in Morocco in June 2010. Australia could legitimately and formally demand Japan to cease its whaling actions immediately.
Given the public interest in these matters, the Australian Government has sensibly asked the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to examine the recent events in the Southern Ocean. Yet it is hard to see how, on any reading of the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, that the ramming of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the ‘Ady Gil‘, by the Japanese whaling vessel, could argue his actions were in compliance with it.
On January 6, 2010, the New Zealand flagged tri hull wave piercer, Ady Gill, was stationary in the water at the time of the ramming and no action was taken by the Japanese whaling vessel to avoid a collision. In fact the ship’s master the Japanese whaling ship, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2‘deliberately turned away from its course toward starboard to deliberately ram and sink the Ady Gil.
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Japanese Attack Formation – caught on video by Sea Shepherd’s MV Bob Barker On 6th January 2010, in Australia’s Southern Ocean, the traspassing ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ deliberately rams the stationary Ady Gil Australia lets the ship’s master and company Kyodo Senpaku Kaishaoff ‘Scott’ free!
(click image to enlarge)
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“The crew of the Ady Gil claimed that, at the last moment, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ turned to starboard, changing its heading to 30 degT6 and colliding with the port sponson and then smashing off a 3 metre section of the bow of the Ady Gil.”
At the time the Shōnan Maru 2 was believed to be under command of Master Toshiyuki Miura, an employee of Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha.
Piracy and criminality at sea deserve more than a token ‘fact finding report‘ that concludes nothing:
<<On the basis of the available evidence, AMSA has been unable to determine whether either vessel took any action intended to cause a collision. In the absence of face-to-face interviews with all the parties involved, the value of the publicly posted video footage was limited. The lack of confirmation of the validity of the source of this footage and therefore its limited evidentiary value prevented definitive conclusions being drawn.”>>
It’s called a diplomatic whitewash. Australia and New Zealand didn’t even receive an apology from the Japanese Government.
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To demonstrate that Australia does not support the activities of the Japanese whalers, the Australian Government should ban the entry of its vessels into Australian ports.
In deciding whether to grant consent to vessels to enter its ports, a state is free to impose conditions as it wishes – access to a port of a state is a privilege, not a right.
Australia banned port access to Japanese fishing vessels in 1998 when Japan would not agree on a total allowable catch for Southern Bluefin Tuna in the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The port access ban was lifted in mid-2001. Why? It is an offence under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for a whaling vessel to call at an Australian port unless the master has written permission from the environment minister to bring it into the port.
If the Federal Government is serious about ending whaling and shifting the Japanese Government’s position – one that has hardened in response – it should directly monitor all whaling activities in the Southern Ocean, follow through on its promise to take legal action against Japan, ban all whaling vessels from Australian ports and ban all use of aircraft from Australian airports for use by Japanese whalers.
Dr Anthony Bergin needs to continue his research and then get back to us with what he has learnt.
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To Japanese Whale Sportsmen, it’s just big game fishingIt’s the thrill of the harpooning!The whale meat doesn’t matter The ‘research’ label is to keep Greenies distracted in courts
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Comment by Anonymous 20100117:
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<<We urgently need leadership.
How is it that whaling authorities, or ‘spies’, were allowed to hire Australian planes to spy on anti-whaling protest ships!
Where are our border controls, our security forces? Australia is a sovereign nation, one to be proud of and patriotic towards. However, we have leaders cowering to Japan’s superior powers, and all their rhetoric about “legal options” and “diplomatic pressure” are just forms of procrastination, a smoke-screen for the public.
It is becoming clear that some agreement has been made between Japan and Australia to prevent any “interference” to their whale slaughter.
Head of the Australian whaling envoy, Sandy Holloway, is set to receive up to $200,000 for 100 days work. Costs could escalate to one million dollars as bureaucrats travel the globe in a futile effort to stop Japan killing whales.
Mr Holloway’s ‘formal representations’ to Japan, on a $1,800 a day retainer, were designed to fail and are really an expensive smokescreen to fool the Australian public.
Such was the ambiguity of diplomatic pressure that Japan even asked Australia for help against the “eco-terrorists” upholding the laws in the Antarctic!
Public money is being wasted. Australia’s Antarctic Territory, a $300 million whale-watching industry, domestic and international laws and Treaties are being abandoned in an effort to secure economic agreements with Japan.
Our government’s “anti-whaling” stance, despite pre-election pledges, is a charade. It is time we see some leadership from our Federal government and have Japan’s illegal whaling fleet permanently removed from the Antarctic. We urgently need leadership at this time, but clearly we won’t be getting it from our present government!>>
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Comment by Peter Bright (20100117):
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The Prime Minister has to overview the whole picture in the national interest, long term as well as short term. Although a Green, I believe that he and his government are being unfairly criticised and insultingly abused with insufficient cause.
A better understanding of any problem may sometimes be gleaned by putting oneself in the position of one’s despised target and considering matters from his point of view.
To protect the welfare of this nation Mr Rudd has to very carefully consider the reciprocal benefits of trade between Australia and Japan, as well as a whole lot of other factors and subterranean international innuendos the likes of which we could only guess at. Mr Rudd surely realises this, and so do his advisors.
In Mr Rudd’s position, with his huge and numerous responsibilities, I would not expect to last even a minute. Personally, I’m grateful he’s there.
Because of trade matters, and in the interests of keeping the peace, I suspect that the Japanese whalers down south could ram half the Australian navy without provoking Mr Rudd into showing retaliatory muscle.
Of course if I was the commander of an Australian naval ship that had just been rammed down there, I would, um, deal with the problem there and then.
It’s likely that my response would be something less than one fully loaded with diplomatic tact and courtesy.
[Ed: Like seizing and impounding the Japanese vessels, arresting the crews, and summoning the Japanese ambassador to the Australian Prime Minister’s office.]
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If Australia’s Prime Minister sides with Japan against Australia, what right does Rudd have to represent Australia as Prime Minister.
Rudd already sides with China and speaks fluent Chinese. Does he have similar allegiances to Japan?
Australia must escort Japanese vessels (which have a home territory 5000 or more kilometres north) out of Australian waters. Rudd has become a treacherous Prime Minister, favouring the rights of foreign powers over Australian sovereign rights. In doing so, Rudd has breached the Australian Constitution and must be sacked immediately.
1. Australian Antarctic Territory breached
2. Whale Protection Act, 1980 breached ‘Part I – Preliminary 6. Application of Act
(1) This Act extends to every external Territory and, except so far as the contrary intention appears, to acts, omissions, matters and things outside Australia, whether or not in a foreign country.
(2) Subject to subsection (3):
(a) to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to any waters or place beyond the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone, that provision applies only in relation to Australian citizens domiciled in Australia, Australian aircraft and Australian vessels and the members of the crew (including persons in charge) of Australian aircraft and Australian vessels; and
(b) to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to Australia or any waters other than waters referred to in paragraph (a), that provision applies in relation to all persons, aircraft and vessels, including foreign persons, foreign aircraft and foreign vessels.
(3) This Act has effect subject to the obligations of Australia under international law, including obligations under any agreement between Australia and another country or countries.
Part II – Preservation, conservation and protection of whales
9. Killing, taking etc. of whales prohibited
(1) A person shall not:
(a) in waters to which this Act applies, kill, injure, take or interfere with any whale; or
(b) treat any whale that has been killed or taken in contravention of this Act or has been unlawfully imported. ‘
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Japanese whalers keep poaching whales in Australian territorial waters contravention of Australia’s Whales Protection Act. Kevin Rudd, as Australia’s Prime Minister is dutifully bound to protect Australia’s sovereignty and enforce Australian legislation. But he is not.
3. Prime Minister’s failure to enforce Australian territorial legislation constitutes a breach of the Australian Constitution The COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 122 ‘ Government of territories’ states:
“The Parliament may make laws for the government of any territory surrendered by any State to and accepted by the Commonwealth, or of any territory placed by the Queen under the authority of and accepted by the Commonwealth, or otherwise acquired by the Commonwealth, and may allow the representation of such territory in either House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit.”
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Under the COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 120 ‘Custody of offenders against laws of the Commonwealth’
‘Every State shall make provision for the detention in its prisons of persons accused or convicted of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth, and for the punishment of persons convicted of such offences, and the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to give effect to this provision.’
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Australia’s federal parliament has enacted the above legislation. The Japanese whalers have breached those laws, yet our Prime Minister fails to enforce these laws. But Rudd lets them go unpunished.
Indeed, Rudd is so appeasing of the Japanese as to be in allegiance with Japanese interests to the detriment of Australia’s interests. Under Section 44 of the Constitution sets out restrictions on who can be a candidate for Federal parliament.
It reads:“
‘Section 44 (i). Any person who..is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power…shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.’
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So Australia’s Prime Minister Rudd needs to work out whether he is siding with Japan or Australia.
If Rudd recognises Australian Antarctic Territorial Waters, then he needs to uphold and enforce Australia law.
If he sides with the Japanese, he is in breach of Section 44 and must be sacked from the House of Representatives forthwith. Q.E.D.
I also refer to a pertinent well researched letter by Mr Graham J. Clarke (President of Whales in Danger) dated 6th January 2003 to Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp. I also point out that since the Prime Minister has confirmed he will challenge Japan legally on this issue, indicates that the Australian Government considers Japanese whalers have breached the law and have a case to answer.
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Comment from Vivienne (20100306):
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<<What a disgrace our Federal leaders are! Instead of arresting the criminal whale killers, they actually act on their behalf and use our AFP to “investigate” Sea Shepherd.
What about Peter Buthane held captive? The cowards we have in government are grovelling to Japan to ensure safe trading relationships and “friendship”, and protected whales are just ignored.
Japan’s bogus “research” is a cover to return to commercial whaling, and due to our government’s incompetence and ignorance, Japan is winning the wars against whales.
This is a totally contemptible action by our Federal government, using the taxpayer-funded AFP contrary to our Australian interests. They have surrendered Antarctic security, and the blood of magnificent and gentle whales are heading towards becoming just another red meat!.”
..Trade with Japan is a different topic. Our economic relationship with Japan should not depend on their being allowed to audaciously break International and domestic laws and treaties. According the the Federal Court, 2008, we would be quite within our rights to stop Japan’s illegal whaling. Whether they are arrested and impounded should not depend on the economic power of the law-breaking nation. Setting a precedent that allows powerful nations to break the laws in our economic zones is dangerous and unfair.
Kevin Rudd is morally obliged to complete his pre-election promises and force Japan to respect our sovereignty. Anything else maligns us to being nothing but cowardly.
“Protected” whales are not political or economic pawns to be traded or betrayed so cruelly.>>
Dunalley Wharf, Tasmania ~ idyllic serenityNow with far greater meaning
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On that blistering hot Friday 4th January 2013…this same wharf became a life saving critical refuge. Desperately trapped residents fled their homes from a raging inferno bearing down upon them and clung below the wharf for dear life, immersed in the cool salt water.
Dunalley’s Wharf became a final refuge for people of Dunalley to survive what would otherwise have been certain death by bushfire. It’s unassuming but vital human value is now etched in local memory, which must now already be legend.
Such horrific memories are destined to endure local lifetimes.
What let the firestorm descend upon Dunalley was negligently and morally wrong. It was stoppable on the 3rd and the escalated firestorm should never have come to this.
No-one deserves this, ever!
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Dunalley Wharf, a special place.
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Dunalley: a bushfire-vulnerable community
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The small rural fishing village of Dunalley is situated along on a sheltered coastline in south eastern Tasmania adjacent to established grazing country and immediately surrounded by hilly bushland.
Tourists drive through Dunalley from Hobart enroute down to the popular Tasman Peninsula where historic Port Arthur is situated. A smaller coastal village of Boomer Bay lies 1km to the north of Dunalley.
Zooming in, Dunalley is positioned on a narrow 700 metre wide isthmus of land between Dunalley Bay and Blackman Bay that connects the main island of Tasmania to the Tasman Peninsula – ‘East Bay Neck‘.
The Denison Canal cuts this isthmus and the town in two providing a boating shortcut transit between the two bays (like a micro version of the Panama Canal) . The Arthur Highway crosses over the canal at the Denison Canal Bridge.
“..Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
~ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Dunalley is surrounded by water on both sides
(Denison Canal not shown)
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Dunalley has for over a century been a sawmilling and fishing town, but over recent decades has seen growth as retirees and holiday makers buy up and extend the population to just under 400 with new housing development communities like adjacent Primrose Sands sprouting up.
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QUESTION 1:
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What contribution and culpability have (1) housing planning approvals by local Sorell Council and (2) Sorell Council enforcement and compliance monitoring of Australian building standards in bushfire prone areas, played in susceptibilty of properties in Dunalley and Boomer Bay to bushfire damage? What role and approval if any has the Tasmanian Fire Service had in these housing planning approvals?
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Like so many rural communities across Tasmania and indeed south eastern Australia, the rural lifestyle appeal of coastal villages like Dunalley is the traditional timbered cottage amenity and the rustic bushland setting. Dunally also has the sheltered bays to complement its appeal.
Dunalley Wharf and Fish Market looking north from Dunalley Bay, with steep Township Hill in the background (long before the 2013 bushfire).
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However, the geographic restrictions of Dunalley being:
Surrounded by coastal waterways
Close proximity to bushland (a substantial ‘urban bushland interface‘)
Dunalley’s juxtaposition downwind of the prevailing north-west wind from extensive bushland vegetation
..all combined make Dunalley an inherently bushfire vulnerable community. In the event of a bushfire, normal expected evacuation by road would be restricted.
Indeed, evacuation from the dependengt Forestier Peninsula and sub-dependent Tasman Peninsula had to be both effected by sea, since the logistically vital Denison Canal bridge became impassable due to the bushfire emergency.
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QUESTION 2:
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What bushfire risk assessment, community education, community bushfire preparation and bushfire evacuation procedures had the Tasmanian Fire Service provided to the communities of Dunalley and Boomer Bay in the years, months, days ahead of the January 2013 bushfire?
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QUESTION 3:
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Did most residents of Dunalley and Boomer Bay consider their individual properties and their communities in general particularly vulnerable to bushfire? If so, what bushfire mitigation measures had been previously discussed and actually implemented. If not, why not?
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Following Victoria’s tragic Black Saturday bushfires of 7th February 2009, in addition to the subsequent Royal Commission, a study by a team of scientists from Australia and America examined 500 of the homes that were affected by the bushfires.
The study sought to learn from effects of land management on house loss to identify how houses could be better protected in future bushfires. The study compared the impacts of bushfire preparation measures like prescribed burning, grazing, logging of native forests, and the clearing if immediate bush on the survivability of houses in a bushfire.
The key result was that getting rid of vegetation ( trees and shrubs) within 40m of a house was by the most effective property preparation measure. Whereas measures such as logging native forests and prescribed burning had minimal impact on reducing house loss. The results of the study were published a year ago on 19th January 2012 in the online scientific journal ‘PLoS ONE‘.
Professor David Bowman, an expert in forest ecology and bushfire management at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, says this research is useful because it confirms scientifically what we already know.
“It’s really important that we get more effective at mitigating the effects of bushfires,” says Philip. “It does open up some pretty intense political issues,” he says. “You’ve got to ask the question: why are people living in these areas if these disasters are only going to keep happening? Why do peri-urban communities exist?”
Population growth in bushland areas and more frequent bushfire weather predicted with climate change are expected to create major challenges for protecting homes in the future.
What if any vegetation clearing buffer was conducted by the TFS immediately between Dunalley and the bushland recently and when was this done?
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QUESTION 5:
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What if any vegetation clearing buffer was conducted by property occupiers of Dunalley immediately around their properties recently and when was this done?
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QUESTION 6 :
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What if any bushfire preparation was conducted by property occupiers of Dunalley immediately around their properties recently and when was this done?
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Another Odd Hot Summer
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Historically, Tasmania’s southern latitude, and the fact that it is surrounded by sea, has generally meant that summer temperatures across Tasmania have been fairly mild in comparision to the increasingly scorching heatwaves that have beset mainland states over recent decades.
But Tasmania, on occasions does get summer heatwaves into the high 30s Celsius and hotter, notably on record during the summers of:
1895-96
1907-08
1939-40
1945-46
1967-77
1976-77
2008-09
2012-13 (just gone)
And so it was that at the start of summer on November 30, 2012, the Australian Government’s Bureau of Meterology forecast another unseasonally very hot summer for Tasmania and a media report ran thus:
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<<Today marks the beginning of the bushfire danger season in Tasmania — with temperatures forecast to soar. The mercury is tipped to go over 30C in the South today, prompting the Tasmania Fire Service to declare the season’s first total fire ban.
Hobart is forecast to reach 32C, while Campania and Richmond can expect 33C. Yesterday was also a hot one, with Hobart recording a maximum of 30C – 11 degrees above the November average.
The state’s top temperatures yesterday were recorded in Ouse, 32.6C, and Strahan, 32.5C.
TFS chief officer Mike Brown urged everyone living in and around bushland to review their bushfire plans. He said today’s fire ban was in response to the high temperatures and dry conditions.
“The vegetation across the state has dried out measurably despite recent scattered light rain.. today’s high temperatures meant fires could “develop in size very quickly and be difficult to control”. “There are a number of fires across the state that have been difficult to control and extinguish,” Mr Brown said.
Last night fire crews were at six vegetation fires across the state, the largest burning out of control around Poatina Rd, Central Plateau.
Southern Water has also introduced water restrictions today in response to the dangerous conditions. People should avoid all non-essential water use to leave enough for fire fighting.
Weather bureau senior forecaster Malcolm Downing said it was the first “very high danger” rating for the fire season. Mr Downing said there had been little rain over the past two weeks, which had significantly dried out vegetation. He said tomorrow should be cooler, with temperatures forecast to be in the low 20s.
Today’s total fire ban means that no fires can be started out of doors in the southern region, which includes the municipalities of Brighton, Central Highlands, Clarence, Derwent Valley, Glamorgan/Spring Bay, Glenorchy, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kingborough, Sorell, Southern Midlands and Tasman.
The ban started at midnight last night and remains in place until midnight tonight. Mr Brown said today’s fire ban also meant people could not use cutting, welding or other similar equipment in the open.
“Although the use of agricultural machinery, for the purpose of harvesting crops or slashing grass, is not included in this ban operators are requested to take particular care when using this type of machinery,” he said. Fires should be reported by dialling 000.
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Total Fire Ban Rules
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No fires may be lit or be allowed to remain alight in the open air until midnight tonight.
Tools and equipment that use a naked flame or generate sparks must not be used in the open air.
Barbecues that use wood, charcoal or solid fuel banned.
Gas and electric barbecues are permitted if the barbecue is a fixed permanent structure.>>
The following day, December 1, media reports alerted Tasmanians to several active bushfires across the state, and significantly one in Forcett.
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<<The Tasmanian Fire Service says the threat from fires across the state has reduced, but has urged residents to continue monitoring conditions.
Containment lines have been set around the fires at Glen Huon, Bruny Island, Forcett and Geeveston. The largest blaze was located at Poatina on the Central Plateau.
The 6,000 hectare Poatina Fire is burning in bushland located near high transmission powerlines, that connect the state’s north and south.
Tasmania Fire Service spokesman Andrew McGuiness told ABC News the fire will probably destroy caravans at Jonah Bay tonight, saying “it’s a big fire and it’s likely to get significantly bigger before they can put containment lines into control it.”
Another fire at Glenlusk, north of Hobart, also continues to challenge firefighters as they try to bring it under control.
Milder temperatures have helped firefighters gain the upper hand today, however windy conditions prevailed. People who aren’t residents are urged to stay away from the fire zones, while communities near the fires are urged to be alert for any changes in the fire conditions. They should also continue looking at the Tasmanian Fire Service website for the latest updates.>>
The ‘Precedent Excuse‘ that this latest bushfire could be ‘the worst ever‘, or ‘the worst in 100 years‘, or in 200 years – simply doesn’t wash.
It’s like telling the low lying folk of Queensland’s Lockyer Valley in 2011 that they had experienced the worst in a hundred year flood event; only two years later in January 2013 to experience the worst in a hundred year flood, again.
The risk of ‘Force Majeur‘ is not a factor of time, but of fickle Nature – basically a factor of luck.
Such is a convenient myth perpetuated by the accountable Tasmanian Government to try to shun its planning responsibility that Dunalley’s bushfire disaster was somehow unforseeable, and to try to excuse its emergency response failure that the disaster and its impact were somehow unavoidable.
Pull the other one, its got bells on it. These days, both floods and bushfires in Australia are a consequence of both Nature, and the actions and inactions of Man.
Government bureaucrats and politicians may think the people are silly, like believing the old saying that ‘lightning never strikes the same place twice‘. The factors that cause lightning to strike once don’t disappear between storms or even within the same storm.
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QUESTION 7:
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Since Tasmania’s infamous 1967 fires when the Tasmanian Government forewent any plausible excuse it may have had of ‘bushfire innocence’, what subsequent measures and investment have been taken by the Tasmanian Govermment in (1) bushfire emergency planning and (2) bushfire emergency response – to mitigate the spread and impact of wildfire? Given that the Dunalley Bushfire Disaster occurred have these measure and investment been adequate in meeting community expectations of government responsibility in 2013?
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QUESTION 8:
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What specific extra-ordinary bushfire fighting resourcing and strategies did the Tasmanian Fire Service seek and have implemented once it became aware of the forecast extreme bushfire weather conditions, and given that multiple uncontrolled bushfires, including the 6,000ha Poatina Fire, were demonstrating the extreme nature of the fire behaviour and already commanding TFS fire-fighting resources?
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Dec 2012 Two Air Tractor 802 Fire Bombers secured
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Air Tractor 802 fixed wing dedicated water bomber
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Just two weeks ahead of the Forcett Fire, the Tasmanian Government’s corporatised forestry department, Forestry Tasmania, announced that it has secured two dedicated waterbombing aircraft from Victoria to be based at Hobart Airport (Cambridge).
Significantly, Forestry Tasmania holds the State’s monopoly delegated management responsibility for Tasmania’s native forest reserves, in which it exploits for commercial timber logging.
Two large native forest reserves were ultimately impacted by the Forcett Fire – one south of the Arthur Highway in the Sorell local government area that includes ‘Big Blue Hill‘ which appears to have no identifiable name, and the other on the Forestier Peninsula – ‘Yellow Bluff Creek Forest Reserve‘.
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What does ‘managed’ mean?
[Photo by Editor, 20110926, free in public domain]
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<<Forestry Tasmania unveiled its latest weapon in the fight against forest fires at Cambridge Airport earlier this month. The two Air Tractor 802 fixed wing fire bombers were brought to Hobart from Ballarat (regional Victoria) for a week and were immediately put into action, fighting a bushfire at Musselroe Bay in the far North-East (Tasmania).
A private airstrip nearby enabled them to fill up with a mixture of water and foam from temporary inflatable tanks and be over the fire in minutes.
With a capacity of more than 3000 litres and taking just four minutes to fill up, the two Air Tractors, valued at $1.5 million each, dumped 40,000 litres in an hour and more than 150,000 litres on the Musselroe Bay bushfire.
Forestry Tasmania hired the planes and pilots from Field Air with the help of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre. Forestry Tasmania fire management head Tony Blanks said it was the first time the Fire Tractors had operated “in earnest” in Tasmania, where helicopters were more commonly used.”
Problem was that although one Air Tractor was vitally needed to fight the Forcett Fire, the second aircraft was previously returned back to Victoria at a time when dozens of fires were burning across Tasmania and with forecast extreme bushfire weather.
Madness. Why?
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QUESTION 9:
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In the wake of the Dunalley Bushfire Disaster what subsequent measures and investment is the Tasmanian Govermment to implement in (1) bushfire emergency planning and (2) bushfire emergency response to mitigate the spread and impact of future wildfire across the State?
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Preparation for an Extreme Forest Fire Danger Index?
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So by early December 2012 unusually extreme bushfire weather conditions were forecast for Tasmania. But this was what Tasmania had experienced previously, albeit occassionally, but not as unique as some sensationalists in the media would have us believe.
Significantly, from a bushfire management operational perspective, numerous bushfires were already active and occupying the Tasmanian Fire Service and its related agencies, the Parks and Wildlife Service and Forestry Tasmania, reducing resource capacity to respond to new and escalating bushfire emergencies.
Was the Tasmanian Fire Service by 3rd January already overwhelmed?
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QUESTION 10:
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Why did the Tasmanian Fire Service, well aware of the looming extreme forecast bushfire weather, not request special additional resources, such as from Victoria, including prudent preparatory delivery of the dedicated and proven effective waterbombing heli-tanker, then parked and idle in a hangar at Essendon Airport Melbourne?
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‘Elvis’, the celebrated Erickson Heli-tanker, with specialist bushfire-fighting pilot
A converted Sikorsky S-64E Skycrane, with a special “sea snorkel” and water tank
It is manufactured in Oregon, USA, dedicated to waterbombing bushfires and based at Essendon Airport Melbourne since December 2001.
Australia’s mainland states now have invested in at least four of them for standby bushfire application.
^http://www.ericksonaircrane.com/full_story/fullstory_firefighting.html
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Yet Tasmanian fire authorities defended their choice of aircraft to fight the state’s catastrophic south-east bushfire, while a much bigger helicopter stood idle on the mainland.
As the fires still burnt through the Tasman Peninsula on Sunday night, authorities warned that they held fears for a handful of people unaccounted for after the main fire passed.
The Tasmanian Fire Service’s chief officer, Mike Brown, said it had been an option to use the heavy-lift Erickson Air-crane against the blaze that devastated Dunalley and nearby coastal hamlets on Friday.
Under national aerial fire-fighting arrangements, five of the Air-cranes are positioned on the mainland, each of them able to suck up nine tonnes of water in 40 seconds, and fly at 200 km/h.
The aircraft, such as Victoria’s ”Elvis” and ”Gypsy”, have become part of bushfire folklore.
The Victorian CFA confirmed that in Melbourne on Friday, a day when the south-east fires were already burning in Tasmania in what were officially described as catastrophic conditions, one Air-crane went unused in its Essendon hangar.
Mr Brown said the Air-Cranes, which were heavily funded by the Commonwealth, still required a contribution from Tasmania.
”So we’ve got to have here what’s available in terms of being able to support as well,” he said.
”The support we can provide to the medium helicopters gives us, we think, the best outcome.”
A spokeswoman for the federal Attorney-General’s Department said moving the Air-crane also depended on moving refuelling capability.
Due to the nature of the aircraft, this was slower than moving smaller helicopters such as the Bell 212, she said.
More than 100 structures, many of them homes, have been lost in small communities, mainly around the Tasman Peninsula, but also near Bicheno on the east coast.
Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said searchers had scoured the burnt-out homes in the worst-hit towns of Dunalley, Boomer Bay and Bream Creek without finding any bodies, but the community still needed to brace for possible deaths.>>
<<As a result of the ongoing fire situation across the state, Tasmania Fire Service has welcomed and accepted offers of firefighting assistance from interstate authorities.
This will be in the form of personnel and will give some Firefighters and Incident Management Teams (IMT) the chance to have a break, as well as boosting firefighting numbers where needed.
TFS Chief Officer, Mike Brown
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TFS Chief Officer Mike Brown said:
“Tasmanian Firefighters have had a long record of providing assistance interstate and internationally over the years and our peoples skills and capabilities are highly regarded. I have been contacted by many of my counterparts from Western Australia through to New Zealand and many jurisdictions in between with messages of encouragement and offers for assistance.
Yesterday I spoke with the NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner and the Victorian Fire Commissioner and arranged for Firefighters and Fire Specialists to provide some much needed relief for our people. I’m very grateful that they have been able to respond so quickly”.
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The following are confirmed interstate deployment numbers coming to Tasmania:
7 x Rapid impact assessment officers from NSW Rural Fire Service (6 arrived yesterday, 1 today)
4 x liaison officers arrive today
17 x IMT personnel from Country Fire Authority Victoria, Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria, & MFB arrive Sunday for Hobart
4 xIMT personnel arrive Sunday for Launceston
7 x Air operations arrive Sunday for Hobart
33 x Strike team firefighters arrive Sunday for Hobart (using TFS vehicles)
All personnel are due to return home on Friday.
“The potential for further requests for assistance will be considered later this week” TFS Chief Officer Mike Brown added.
[Ed: Better late than never, but tell that to the folk of Dunalley, Boomer Bay, Connelly’s Marsh and Copping!]
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Erikson Aircrane deployed to the Forcett Fire on 3rd January? If only!
Sorry, this machine was deployed in Dawson in Gippsand, Victoria this month.
Same landscape, different State.
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Erikson Aircrane deployed to the Forcett Fire on 3rd January? If only!
Sorry, this machine was deployed in Alpine Fire near Harrietville in Victoria this month.
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When bushfire weather conditions become extreme – tinder dry bush and long grass, low humidity, temperature in the high 30 degree Celsius or hotter and strong winds – then the bushfire risk is exponentially heightened.
Bushfire risk is measured by the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI), which was developed in the 1960s by CSIRO scientist A.G. McArthur to measure the degree of danger of fire in Australian forests.
This Forest Fire Danger Index combines a record of:
Vegetation Dryness (based upon rainfall and evaporation)
Windspeed
Temperature
Humidity
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A fire danger rating of between 12 and 25 on the index is considered a “high” degree of danger, while a day having a danger rating of over 50 is considered an “Severe” fire danger rating. Above this level in 2010 a distinction was made between Forest and Grassland fuels.
For Forest fuels, an FDI over 75 is categorised as “Extreme” and over 100 as “Catastrophic”. In Victoria, the alternate rating name adopted for Catastrophic is “Code Red”.
For Grassland fuels the threshold FDI values for the Extreme and Catastrophic Ratings was increased to 100 and 150 respectively. However,in Western Australia, which currently only uses the Grassland FDI, the values of 75 and 100 were being used as thresholds during 2012.
Fire Danger Ratings (from 0 to 100+) ‘Catastropic’ is a new category introduced across Australia since the Victorian ‘Black Saturday’ tragedy of February 2009
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McArthur used the conditions of the Black Friday fires of 1939 as his example of a 100 rating. The FFDI on Black Saturday, 7 February 2009, reached more than 200.
However, grassfires present a higher risk than forests under the same bushfire weather conditions, simply because grass is more flammable than timber.
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National Framework for (bushfire) Scaled Advice and Warnings
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In Victoria, in the months following the devastating Black Saturday bushfire disaster of February 2009, in which 173 people perished under catastrophic bushfire conditions ( a FFDI of over 200), new fire danger ratings were formulated based upon this fire danger index.
The ‘Low’ rating was merged with ‘Moderate’ and a new ‘Catastrophic’ rating was introdiuced over and above what had long been the top rating of ‘Extreme’.
The new Catastrophic (Code Red) rating involves a fire danger index above 100. Under these types of weather conditions fires will be unpredictable, uncontrollable and fast moving. The fires in Victoria on 7th February 2009 provide an example of the types of fires that may be experienced under a ‘Catastrophic’ rating.
Standard advice to communities under these conditions will be that leaving is the safest option for survival.
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Australia’s National Fire Danger Ratingssince Sep 2009
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Australia’s new ‘National Framework for Scaled Advice and Warnings‘ were agreed and adopted by all Australian States and Territories at the Australian Emergency Management Committee meeting on 3rd and 4th September 2009. One would presume that this included Tasmania.
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The national framework includes:
The new Fire Danger Ratings (see above coloured table)
The vague bushfire management slogan ‘Stay or Go’ replaced by similarly vague slogan: ‘Prepare, Act, Survive‘. *
An agreed format for scaled warnings.
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Other agreed bushfire management emergency protocols also include:
Forecast fire danger advice will be issued throughout the media and will be aligned to the new fire danger ratings (which is based on the fire danger index)
Key messages have been designed to clearly communicate what is likely to occur if and when a fire starts for each of the fire danger ratings. Messages will include specific actions for the community to take during this outlook period.
The CFA Chief Officer will have responsibility for issuing warnings to the community during fires; delegated to local Incident Controllers with a backup in the State Duty Officer in the iECC.
Information units will have operational guidelines and the technological capability in place to enable them to quickly issue accurate warnings. Approval will occur at local incident level by the IC or deputy IC.
Where an ICC has not yet been established, warnings can be issued on behalf of the IC by information units in the RECC or iECC.
Warnings will be disseminated throughout a variety of media, for example websites, local radio and VBIL simultaneously via a single entry tool known as One Source One Message (OSOM). This will ensure that warnings are provided to all sources at the same time, will appear in the same format and contain the same language.
The iECC (or SECC) Information Unit will play a monitoring and auditing role in relation to community warnings, as well as a pro-active role when a warning hasn’t been issued or released.
All areas will have access to OSOM* (warning system). It can be issued at a very local level (for example at a regional office before an ICC has been set up) or in the iECC which will be manned throughout high fire danger rating or fire danger indicator days
In accordance with Royal Commission recommendations, there will be two warning categories, and three levels of information:
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‘ADVICE‘: This will advise you that a fire has started but there is no immediate danger, and includes general information to keep you up to date with developments.
‘WATCH AND ACT‘: This is a heightened level of threat. Conditions are changing and you need to start taking action now to protect you and your family.
‘EMERGENCY‘: This will indicate that people in specific locations are in danger and need to take action immediately to protect life, as they will be impacted by fire.
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* NB. The One Source One Message (OSOM) tool is a system with a single, multi-agency web-based portal to publish real time messages using standard incident management templates.
A clearer, unambiguous bushfire response slogan to replace ‘Prepare, Act, Survive‘ could be:
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‘No Bushfire Defence Certificate?
Self-evacuate now to your nearest registered Emergency Evacation Centre!‘
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It is high time that under bushfire rated conditions that are ‘Severe’ or ‘Extreme’ and when a wildfire is within a given risk range, that governments legally compel all residents situated in high bushfire-prone areas to compulsorily self-evacuate to a registered Evacation Centre unless they hold a current Bushfire Defence Certificate.
Such a certificate would at a minimum require:
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(1) Meeting minimum standards of building construction in compliance with the Australian Standard for construction of buildings in bushfire prone areas (AS 3959-2009)
(2) Preparation of property bushfire defence inspected and certificied by a bushfire delegated authority for the current season
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Under bushfire rated conditions that are ‘Catastrophic’ and when a wildfire is within a larger given range, ALL bushfire-prone residents, ought to be legally compelled to compulsorily self-evacuate to a registered Evacation Centre, irrespective of whether they hold a current Bushfire Defence Certificate or not.
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No Fire Danger Index used by TFS in the Forcett Fire
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Although, this bushfire danger rating system was officially in place across Tasmania since late 2009, the Tasmanian Fire Service chose not to include fire danger indices on its website or via the Tasmanian media. Why not?
The following remains the format of the TFS public notice of active bushfires; in this case the ‘Forcett Fire’:
FORCETT FIRE:
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<<Alert Level: [Going] Advice
Type: VEGETATION FIRE
Last Updated: 13-Jan-2013 8:18 AM
First Reported: 03-Jan-2013 2:13 PM
Location: Inala Road, FORCETT
Status: Going
Agency: Tasmania Fire Service
Incident Number: 201651
Size: 24,040 Ha
Details: Bushfire Advice Message FORCETT FIRE 201651 Current from:13/01/2013 08:12 AM until: 13/01/2013 11:00 AM or further notice There is a large bushfire at between Forcett and the Tasman Peninsula . The fire danger rating in this area is forecast to be high for today. Fire under these conditions can be difficult to control . There is no immediate threat to communities. This bus …
More Info | Current Incident List>>
How effectively then, does the above bushfire information by the TFS assist potentially impacted people to be appropriately informed about the fire risk category of danger, the spatial fire threat (where it currenty is, which direction the fire front(s) is/are currenty headed, how fast it is moving, forecast changes), the timing of the threat to various ‘at-risk’ people? How effectively does the above bushfire information assist these people to appropriately prepare to either defend their properties or else to self-evacuate? Where are the registered evacuation centres for people?
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QUESTION 12:
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In Tasmania, does the Tasmanian Fire Service measure, use and publish a specific forecast and actual Fire Danger Index based upon weather information received from the Bureau of Meteorology? Does the TFS use the Forest and/or Grassland index? Why were such indicators not provided on the TFS website or via the Tasmanian media in relation to the current 2012-13 summer season ahead of and during the recent bushfire emergencies across the State? Is the publicised TFS bushfire emergency information adequate?
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3 Jan 2013: Forcett Fire Reported
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It is not officially publicly reported how the Forcett Fire was first detected by the responsible bushfire fighting authority, the Tasmanian Fire Service on the 3rd January 2013, except that the Tasmanian Fire Service website states consistently in successive daily updates that the “First Reported time was “03-Jan-2013 2:13 PM” at Location “Inala Road, FORCETT“.
After the disaster impacting Dunalley, Boomer Bay, Copping and other communities, on Tuesday 8th January, as the result of detailed investigations jointly conducted between Tasmania Police and the Tasmania Fire Service, the cause of the fire commonly referred to as the Forcett Fire had been officially determined.
<<The cause has been determined as of an accidental nature with the fire emanating from an old fire in a burnt out tree stump at Forcett. This fire has smouldered through the root system and ignited in the weather conditions of Thursday 3 January.
Detectives and Fire Scene Examiners from the Tasmania Fire Service have interviewed all available witnesses and people with information thereby assisting in their determination on the fire.>>
But this ‘determined cause’ was the consequence of a prior fire that has not been publicly reported. The reason for the relatively prompt cause being determined and officially declared by the Tasmanian Police was to legally trigger insurance claim processing to the insured victims, which is understandable.
However, the original cause of the “old fire in a burnt out tree stump at Forcett” remains publicly undetermined.
The Tasmanian Fire Service website states that the fire ignited near Inala Road, Forcett on 3rd January 2013. Inala Road is situated about 2km east of the rural village of Forcett along the Arthur Highway. It is a one kilometre long gravel No Through Road that connects half a dozen farm properties to the Arthur Highway. See map below.
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Inala Road Forcett Satellite Map, 2011
Click image to enlarge (Inala Road is top right)
[Source: Google Maps]
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Inala Road near the intersection of the Arthur Highway in 2010
Photo looks south, with the hills toward Dunalley on the left.
Inala Road is characterised by farmland interspersed with partially deforested native bushland, and patchy regrowth.
Click image to enlarge.
[Source: Google Maps, March 2010]
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Inala Road is easily accessible by fire trucks, so with a small fire and with low wind conditions, the prospect of suppressing the fire early on the afternoon of Thursday 3rd January would have been greater than at any subsequent time before it impacted Dunalley 24 hours later.
The exact location of the ignition along Inala Road has not been reported by the Tasmanian Fire Service on its website. Like most fore agencies, the Tasmanian Fire Service chooses to delete (censor) operational fire records after a few days.
However, a Forcett Fire Map provided on the ABC News website dated 4th January 2013 was obviously obtained by the ABC from the Tasmanian Fire Service, shown below:
1. The ignition source of the fire was north of the Arthur Highway along Inala Road (top left of above map). This places the TFS confirmed ‘burning stump’ midway along Inala Road, per juxtaposed mapping below.
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Deduced Ignition Location of the Forcett Fire
In the absence of TFS publicly confirming the exact location of the ‘burnt stump’ ignition source,
by deduction from the Forcett Fire Map above, the Inala Road ignition source appears midway along Inala Road, Forcett.
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Inala Road
Where along Inala Road was the burning stump that re-ignited the Forcett Fire?
Ask the TFS.
It is incumbent upon the Tasmanian Fire Service to be transparent about the exact source loation of this fire so that the truth be known.
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2. Consistent with the prevailing north-westerly windwind, the direction of this fire was that it initially headed easterly after re-igniting from the declared ‘burning stump‘ in the afternoon of Thursday 3rd January. Sometime in the evening of the 3rd January the wind reverted to the prevailing direction from the north-west and thereafter continued consistently from this direction through the couyrse of the following two weeks into the Forestier Peninsula.
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Open farmland along Arthur Highway, near the Inala Road intersection looking south east toward Dunalley
Click image to enlarge
[Source: Google Maps, March 2010]
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3. The separate strip of fire burnt south along the Sugarloaf Road would appear to be specifically contained and so likely to be a deliberately lit control line/fire break defensively intended to prevent the main wildfire crossing the road in the event of a wind change to the east. This is conjecture in the absence of TFS public explanation on its website.
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QUESTION 13:
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What was the cause of the “old fire in a burnt out tree stump”. Lightning doesn’t usually light tree stumps; trees on ridges yes. But Inala Road is not on a ridge, so the lightning excuse is a convenient furphy. Was the fire a consequence of a farmer’s ‘pile burn’ or ‘burn off’? Who lit the fire? Was the burn off authorised by the Tasmanian Fire Service? If so why, when it is summer and at a time of high bushfire risk? What investigations are being conducted by the TFS and/or Tasmanian Police into the original cause of the fire?
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Jan 2013: Bushfire Conditions around Dunalley
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Prevailing Wind
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As the crow flies, Hobart Airport is about 12km from the ignition source that purportedly started the Forcett Fire near Inala Road, and Hobart Airport is about 25km from Dunalley.
The following wind rose chart of the Bureau of Meteorology shows that over the past half century, the prevailing wind for Hobart Airport is predominantly from the north-west. This may be generally extrapolated for the surrounding Sorrell local government area, including Forcett and Dunalley.
Significantly, the prevailing wind is a most relevant environmental factor in the Forcett Fire, because of the juxtaposition of Forcett to Dunalley.
The ignition source at Inala Road Forcett was north west of Dunalley, the same as the prevailing wind.
Wind typically increases in the early afternoon as the temperature differential between the hotter land mass and the nearby cooler sea strong maximises. This is referred to as a diurnal wind pattern. On Friday 4th January as temperatures soared, this wind was predictably due to increase and at around 2pm it did. The 15 km/h breeze increased to a recorded peak of 52km/h at 1.57pm.
So the Forcett Fire on 3rd January was predictably and reliably going to burn toward Dunalley. The diurnal wind pattern at the time was nothing extra-ordinary, and therefore would have been predictable.
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Ignition source at Inala Road, Forcett was 17km North West of DunalleyClick image to enlarge
[Source: Google Earth]
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QUESTION 14:
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Given that a light north west prevailing breeze was predictably fanning the Forcett Bushfire toward Dunalley in the afternoon and evening of 3rd January, what firefighting response including backburning was undertaken to prevent the Forcett Bushfire’s spread south east toward Dunalley?
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All Thursday afternoon, through Thursday night and all Friday morning the observed wind was relatively light. The following account is poignant:
“A couple of kilometres just off the Arthur Highway at Fazackerlys Rd, a small group of farm workers, some locals and a police officer watched from a safe distance the fire which had burned slowly all morning in the wooded hillsides to the north. The smoke rose straight up from several large and small outbreaks burning around farmland.”
The Forcett Fire on the afternoon of Thursday 3rd January 2013Burning out of control south of the Arthur Highway heading right (south east)Low winds meant it was not a fast moving firestorm at this stage.
View across Frederick Henry Bay looking north-east, perhaps Bally Park/Carlton settlement in the foreground.
(Photo by Ian Stewart, 20130103, click image to enlarge)
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So, the Forcett Fire on the morning of Friday 4th January was still slowing burning through relatively accessible farmland under light wind conditions. Why wasn’t it extinguished?
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Forcett Bushfire
(Photo by Moemahfoudh, 20130104)
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QUESTION 15:
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Given that the Forcett Fire was still declared uncontained by the Tasmanian Fire Service in the morning of Friday 4th Jaunary, what addition emergency bushfire response measures were implemented by the TFS to prevent the fire impacting Dunalley?
Did the Bureau of Meteorology publicise forecast increased wind speed and the extreme temperature for 4th January on the 3rd January? What Fire Danger Index was forecast by the TFS for 4th January for the ongoing Forcett Fire and was it not clear to the TFS that the risk to Dunalley and Boomer Bay from the Forcett Fire was catastrophic?
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The2pm Diurnal Wind
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…and then the wind came up…at Fazackerlys Rd just after 2pm, all hell broke loose. The fire had taken a run.
As the Forcett Bushfire impacted Dunalley at around 2pm on 4th January, recorded wind gust reached 80km/h, driving the fire south into Dunalley at unstoppable speed.
Bushfires are known to fan their own wind. According to the CSIRO, bushfires can generate their own wind. “Strong convection set up by the heat of the fire creates an in-draw wind that can interact with the prevailing wind. Depending on the direction of the prevailing wind and the location of the fire, this in-draw wind may increase or decrease the strength of the prevailing wind.”
On 4th January 2013, maximum temperature records were broken at eight weather stations across Tasmania. Hobart reached 41.8°C, breaking the previous temperature record by 1°C.
However, as explained above, these extreme temperatures although technically breaking records, were only doing so by marginal degrees on the 3rd January. Tasmania had recorded similar extreme hot summer temperatures on at least seven previously documented occasions. So, despite media sensationalism and the vested interest of the Australian Government’s climate change commission to claim justification for its government-dependent revenue, by no means were the temperatures of January 2013 unprecedented, or ‘off the scale‘.
Yes, it was forecast to be an unusually very hot dry summer for Tasmania, no more no less.
Significantly, Thursday 3rd January 2013 peaked at a very high 34.4 Celsius. The maximum on the following critical day Friday 4th January is not recorded. This is likely due to the Dunalley gauge reader being otherwise pre-occupied escaping from the impacting bushfire.
Anecdotally the mid afternoon temperature spiked at 40.2 Celsius at around 2pm that day, and about a kilometre south-west the Stroud Point weather station registered 54.9 Celsius at a time not disclosed – perhaps between 2:30pm and 3pm that day.
[Source: ‘From spark to raging inferno’, 20130113, by David Killick in The Sunday Tasmanian. See extract below]
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QUESTION 16:
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Given the pre-existing bushfires across the State causing concern, the forecast bushfire conditions, the known prevailing NW wind across the Sorrell Council area (Forcett – Dunalley) what special bushfire emergency response measures did the Tasmanian Fire Service take critically on 3rd January 2013, on being alerted to the Inala Road ignition to prevent the fire spreading? Why was the fire not contained on the 3rd January, while it was in accessible farmland, before it advanced slowly into hilly less accessible timbered State reserves toward Dunalley?
So the following article extract provides the best light on what happened on the Friday, 4th January 2013 at Forcett:
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‘From spark to raging inferno’
by David Killick
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<<IT only takes a spark to start a fire.
At Inala Rd near the south- eastern Tasmanian town of Forcett, that spark is believed to have been struck some time before Christmas.
A landowner was clearing a tree stump the old fashioned way by burning it out. They thought the fire was out, but it smouldered unchecked in the root system for two weeks, before flaring and dooming a town.
The morning of Friday January 4, 2013, was unremarkable in Dunalley.
It was warm and still.
If anything it was perhaps a little quieter than normal.
The heat and the fire risk warning encouraged some people to leave and traffic through the town was light despite the school holidays.
Inside the weather station by the water at Stroud Point, the temperature ticked over the 30C mark just before midday.
At the Dunalley Fish Market in Fulham Rd, tourists and families stopped to eat their lunches.
Along Marion Bay Rd at nearby Copping, many residents seemed to have taken the advice of fire authorities and left.
Local shopkeeper Kate North was concerned, but not overly so.
“If the wind doesn’t come up we should be OK,’’ she said. “The problem will be if it gets into the bush and heads towards Dunalley.’’
A couple of kilometres just off the Arthur Highway at Fazackerlys Rd, a small group of farm workers, some locals and a police officer watched from a safe distance the fire which had burned slowly all morning in the wooded hillsides to the north.
The smoke rose straight up from several large and small outbreaks burning around farmland.
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And then the wind came up
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And then the wind came up. At 1.43pm, give or take a minute either side, a wall of flame suddenly emerged above the treetops, leaping into the air, 20 or 30 metres high.
Burning embers began to rain down. The south-easterly wind had swung west. The gust that fanned the fire hit Dunalley 8km away at 1.57pm at 52km/h. The temperature spiked 5C in six minutes to 40.2C.
There is an unholy trinity that keeps bushfire fighters awake at night. High temperatures, strong winds and low humidity.
Add heavy fuel loads and a source of ignition, and there is no force of man that can stop a bushfire.
The 2009 Victorian fires which killed 173 people have seared the word “catastrophic’’ into the popular lexicon the fire danger beyond “extreme’‘.
These were the conditions that existed in the hills north of Dunalley.
As one man put it, conditions on January 4 were unlike anything Tasmania has seen since 1967.
“I’ve been a firefighter for 35 years. I have never seen a fire so destructive as that was on Friday,” he said.
“On a day like that you cannot fight a fire. It doesn’t matter how much water or how many helicopters you have.’”
AT Fazackerlys Rd just after 2pm, all hell broke loose. The fire had taken a run. All of a sudden four houses and their outbuildings were surrounded by the flames.
The Tasmania Fire Service crews raced from outbreak to outbreak, saving what they could.
Local Todd Hildyard had been on a bulldozer several hundred metres away.
He raced the flames to his back steps and with a hose and the help of his teenage son somehow stopped the home going up.
“We were bloody lucky – she was awful close to getting in here,” Mr Hildyard said.
Another group fought a desperate battle just up the road.
Although a house near the highway was saved, one by one the flames claimed sheds and outbuildings.
The beautiful old hay shed by the highway went up.
Less than a kilometre away at the top of a hill above Copping, John Yaxley was fighting an astonishing battle to save his place surrounded by bush, most of it ablaze.
Somehow he saved his home and a shed with $60,000 worth of wine inside, but his parents’ grand pentagon-shaped hilltop house was lost, as was the caretaker’s home.
Locals watched helpless from the shade outside Kate North’s shop at Copping.
Amid the light grey smoke of burning bush could be seen the terrible dark smoke of people’s homes going up in flames.
One older man watched his home burn.
“I saw it catch fire, I knew where to look and I thought `any moment now’ and it went up. There’s a lot of nice things gone but that is the way of the world. It’s a devil of a thing.”
The fire rolled down the ridgetops to Marshton Lane.
In a hurried roadside conference as the flames raged around, the firefighters knew the task was already too great.
Getting in front of this fire would be an act of suicide.
“Guys, it’s all turned to shit,” said one.
Those there say that just after 3pm the hellfire rolled over the hill behind the golf course like a storm.
A terrifying black, red and purple wall of flames.
Smoke darkened the sky.
Helicopter pilot Ben Brolewicz watched from above.
“It was probably as bad as it gets. With all of the heat that it generated it created a sort of a vortex that picked stuff up and flung it through the air,’’ he said in an interview with the ABC.
Bryan Webster called it a “tsunami of fire”.
With his partner Fiona Hills and her 11-year-old son Darcy Scott, Mr Webster fled to the water’s edge as the fire roared into town.
The family sheltered in the water for two hours with a mob of terrified wallabies for company.
At another jetty, another miraculous escape.
The Holmes family, grandma, grandpa and five grandchildren in their care fled the flames and sought shelter.
A haunting snapshot taken of them sheltering in the water has become the iconic image of these fires worldwide.
The family were calm, but huddled and prayed. Not one was harmed.
Josh Clements’ home was saved. His parents weren’t so lucky. He and his family pushed a boat out into the canal as the front hit and floated in the bay for several hours.
Hundreds of metres from the burning town, the Stroud Point weather station registered 54.9C.
The wind by now was gusting to 80km/h, driving the fire to the south.
The school went up, as did the police station, the bakery and many homes.
But somehow not a single life was lost.
Those who were not in the water were shepherded by police to the local pub to shelter – a move that saved scores of lives.
AS Dunalley burned, the fire spread left and right, from its formerly narrow front.
The eastern edge moved into Boomer Bay – a pretty community of waterfront shacks.
Just after 4pm, Steve Fisher and several dozen other locals watched as the fire approached steadily through knee-high grass.
“We’ll stick with it as long as we can,” he said calmly.
At that moment, just a few hundred metres away to the south, dozens of people were fighting for their homes and their lives.
Simon and Tully Brooks tried to fight the grassfire as it approached.
The father and son attacked with buckets and hoses, but their house went up.
They knew it was hopeless. They grabbed what valuables they could and fled.
Lex Johnson saw his neighbours run for their lives. “I was up at the corner when it circled around the back and through the trees behind our property,” he said.
“And then we saw the people from down the road running to get away from the fire . . . and it was catching up to them.”
Those cut off by the fires fled to the jetty where many were saved by the bravery of a helicopter crew.
The crew of paramedics returned over and over in thick smoke and plucked people from the water including a pregnant woman and five dogs.
On a point just east of Dunalley, not far from the weather station, it was helicopters too that saved the Jenkins family.
Ten members of the family had moved their caravans and cars to the water’s edge as the fire burst over the nearby hills.
As the flames drew close, a helicopter appeared and doused the family again and again until the threat had passed by.
Further north, at Connellys Marsh the battle would rage through the night.
Cut off from all outside help, neighbours banded together to keep each other safe.
A flotilla of small boats ferried away those who wanted to leave and then those who stayed faced the flames.
Martin Thorpe returned to watch the shack his family had cherished for 30 years, razed by the fire.
GRAEME Grundy dragged a neighbour to safety then fought with Mr Thorpe to save his own place – in part thanks to a water pipe that burst at just the right moment, showering the place with the remaining water from his 1000-gallon tank.
When the sun rose, the seaside hamlet was dotted with small clearings filled with smouldering ruins.
Somehow, more homes were saved than lost.
As the survivors contemplated their extraordinary night, the fires delivered one last cruel blow. The last home to be lost at Connellys Marsh went up around 8am.
The Inala Rd fire caused more havoc and destroyed more homes and continues to burn in spots south of Eaglehawk Neck, but most of the damage took place in about three hectic hours.
An inquiry will determine how – against all odds – not a single human life was lost or a serious injury sustained that Friday. Fire chiefs say there has been much planning and many lessons learnt from Black Saturday in Victoria in 2009. After such horrific losses as Victoria’s, people are far more aware of the risk of fire.
And communications have improved since then too. The hundreds of broadcast alerts, website updates and urgent text messages played their part.
And there was some luck. The area was surrounded by water which gave so many a place to run to when it all became too much.
But summer is not over yet. After a long dry spell, huge tracts of the Tasmanian bush are loaded with fuel.
The peak of our fire season is still weeks away. As hard as it is to believe, the worst may not yet have passed.>>
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[Source: ‘From spark to raging inferno’, 20130113, by David Killick, in The Sunday Tasmanian (not published on the Internet), but reproduced in the Tasmanian Times; additional reporting by Zara Dawtrey, Matt Smith, Bruce Mounster, Blair Richards, Linda Smith, and Tim Martain, posted by PB 20130115, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/the-new-normal/show_comments]
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Hindsight Local Reflections
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Most of the bushland that the bushfire burnt through before impacting Dunalley was privately owned.
Locals in the Tasmanian fishing village of Dunalley say the fire which ravaged their community would not have been so ferocious if hazard reduction burns had been carried out before the summer.
A massive fireball bears down on Dunalley on Friday. The Dunalley Primary School in the foreground would be soon destroyed.
[Source: Photo by Michael Goldsmith, Tasmania Fire Service,
^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-10/fireball-2jpg/4459102]
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A total of 126 properties were destroyed or damaged in the Dunalley fire, and a photo (above) given to the ABC yesterday and taken from a fire-fighting helicopter shows a giant fireball bearing down on the town at the height of the inferno.
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The following audio is hindsight feedback from local residents of Dunalley and the immediate surrounding area, about their citizen lay views about what could have been done to prevent Dunalley burning.
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Audio: Listen to Felicity Ogilvie’s report (ABC Radio News, AM Programme, 20130110):
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One resident who still has a home is oyster farmer Justin Gock.
“I believe that if you’ve got people living in areas where there’s substantial forests, there should be significant management plans in place to control situations like this,” he said.
“Because if these areas were back-burned like they used to and the infrastructure was in place, fair chance it might not have happened.”
Tony Disipio, who lost his house in the blaze, is critical about the lack of preventative burns around Dunalley.
“Well 25 years ago they used to burn off regularly around the hills, it was like a winter thing, a winter exercise,” he said.
“And I noticed over the years that there was just less and less of it.”
Homes damaged by bushfire seen from above between Dunalley and Boomer Bay, Tasmania Photo: A total of 126 properties were destroyed or damaged in the Dunalley fire. (AAP
Farmer Sandy Gray has also noticed that preventative burns have been declining in recent times.
“In the old days, they used to go around and just quietly do a few, especially on the northern, north-western sides of the townships like Dunalley. It’s a pity they don’t still do it,” he said.
The State Government and Fire Service are promising to review their policies on controlled burns, but with fire warnings still current for parts of the state, they say they will wait until the current crisis is over.
The Tasmanian Fire Service’s Deputy Chief Officer, Gavin Freeman, says there has been no reduction in preventative burn-offs near Dunalley.
“I don’t believe there has been less done. You can always look back with a bit of hindsight and say yes, we could do more perhaps,” he said.
“But until we get these fires under control and are able to look back and do a proper analysis of where the fires have burnt to and what they burnt through – and bear in mind, under catastrophic conditions – we don’t really know whether that field reduction burning would be a benefit or not.”
The fire service may do some burn-offs, but the responsibility for preparing for a bushfire lies with the land owner.
At Dunalley it appears most of the bushland the fire tore through is privately owned.
The Tasmanian Minister for Emergency Management, David O’Byrne, says public land accounts for 20 per cent of the area affected by the fire.
“Fuel reduction and that sort of management is a joint responsibility between government, in terms of our land and in the parks land, but also in the private land that is around Tasmania,” he said.
“It’s important we have a community conversation around this. Now is not the time for that conversation, we need to get these fires under control.
“Once we can assess the impact of the fuel loads around… we can have a discussion on the basis of fact and reality as opposed to people’s pretty raw emotions at the moment.”
Following years in Iraq and Afghanistan, two Australian ex-Special Forces operators set up the IAPF in Zimbabwe. Their frontline now is global conservation.
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IAPF ?
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International Anti Poaching Foundation (IAPF)
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<<Damien Mander had a military career of nine years, three years of which were spent in Iraq. He has invested his life savings including the sale all investment properties to fund the start up and running costs of the IAPF for the first few years.
In 2010 Damien’s long time best mate, Steven Dean, sold up everything and put the funds into the IAPF – moving to Africa to help with the struggle. Collectively, they have invested the savings of seven years of working in war zones towards conservation. Africa is now their frontline. The IAPF is now funded through public donations, grants and fundraising activities.
They are totally commited using drones, night vision and thermal imaging to get the poachers.>>
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<<The IAPF’s academy in Zimbabwe can only train Zimbabwean or regional nationals for work in IPZs (Intensive Protective Zones) within the country.
However, the IAPF accredited academy in South Africa (across the southern border) run by Eco Ranger, does give participants the opportunity to be trained from the grassroots level. No previous experience is necessary. (Then ambition and service rests with you). Contact JC Strauss at Eco Ranger ^www.ecoranger.co.za for more information on upcoming courses.>>
JC
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In 2005 – 2007, JC trained and developed 350 Wildlife Rangers for Limpopo Parks Board in South Africa and headed the Anti-Poaching teams covering 53 Protected Areas that brought down rhino and elephant poaching to 0% for 3 consecutive years.
Is there something sinister lurking behind South Africa’s legal rhino trade?
<<As the Rhino death toll continues to rise in South Africa, disconcerting information regarding the country’s legal rhino trade continues to emerge.
One of the most well-known (“alleged”) exploiters of legal trade loopholes is Dawie Groenewald of the notorious “Groenewald gang“, who legally purchased a significant number of Rhinos prior to his arrest in September 2010.
Investigators later found a mass grave of 20 de-horned Rhinos on Groenewald’s property.
Groenewald’s heinous activities are part of a deadly scourge – using Rhino trade loopholes to launder rhino horn – and there is no shortage of others like him, who are more than willing to cash in on backward medicinal myths about ‘Rhino horn‘.
Let’s take a look at the scams and schemes.
Public documents obtained from South Africa’s Parliamentary Monitoring Group website indicate that in 2008, a “Mr. J.F Hurne” purchased at least six Rhinos at auction and subsequently delivered them to a “Mr. D. Groenewald”.
(Note: Currency values are hown in South African Rand – currently comparable with the US Dollar)
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More recently, there is unconfirmed information circulating via mass email and social media networks of a 2011 transaction between Dawie Groenewald and a “Mr. John Hume” (a prolific game rancher mentioned in Bloomberg) involving the sale of nine rhinos. Update 07/14: It is now confirmed by IOL that Groenewald “has a contract” to buy nine rhinos. If the deal goes through, three male rhinos will be sent to Groenewald’s Prachtig property and the six female rhinos will be sent to Hume’s ranch.
Hume is (by his own admittance to Bloomberg) an advocate of legalized trade in rhino horn, and connected to professional hunter Peter Thormahlen, who was twice arrested for suspected involvement with Vietnamese “pseudo-hunts.”
Even Peter Thormahlen has been prosecuted for leading hunts feeding the horn trade. In 2006 at the Loskop Dam Nature Game Reserve, he paid a token fine after his Vietnamese hunter casually told an official that he did not know how to shoot.
The second time, in Limpopo province in 2008, Thormahlen was indignant and fought the citation in court with the help of lawyer Tom Dreyer.
(Thormahlen’s second case was dismissed.)
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‘A significant number of Rhinos’
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According to the publicly available document referenced above, which shows a series of rhino transactions from 2007 to 2010, Dawie Groenewald and/or a “Mr. D. Groenewald” seems to have acquired a significant number of rhinos between 2008 and 2010.
Take a look:
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2008
Six rhinos previously referenced:
2009:
Here’s a rather large acquisition worth noting (2009):
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2010:
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Meanwhile, copies of permits granting Dawie Groenewald permission to “hunt or convey” White Rhinos – issued despite his arrest in 2010 – are circulating via email and have now surfaced on various social media networks, such as Facebook ®.
Take a look at the permit copies here. (If you are using Facebook ®, you can easily locate these images.)
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Laundering Rhino Horn with Hunting ‘sick safaris’
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Just days ago, a Thai national named Chumlong Lemtongthai was arrested – along with five Thai “hunters” – in South Africa.
Lemongthai had allegedly arranged rhino hunting expeditions for the purpose of buying the horns from the hunters. He would then ship the horns abroad to be used illegally in traditional Chinese medicine.
However, the identity of the South African trophy hunt operators who aided Lemongthai remains unclear.
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With the right kick-arse arsenal....like this Finnish-engineered Sako TRG42, with an effective range of over 800 metres against poachers.. ‘ our troubles here would be over very quickly’. .Politics is always a case of deals and priorities and enough money is always available.
Vietnam and China’s TCM Rhino Horn Poaching Scheme
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It is highly unlikely that China’s multi-million dollar rhino farming scheme could have developed without South Africa’s willingness to legally export over 100 live Rhinos to China between 2007 and the present.
Despite the fact that China and Vietnam had already been implicated as a destination for illegal rhino horn sourced from Southern Africa , at least 18 Rhinos were exported to China from South Africa during a six-month period in 2010.
What is particularly disturbing about these multiple Rhino deals between South Africa and China is that in addition to the escalation in Rhino killings between 2008 and the present, there was no shortage of indicators that should have been noted by the country of export, South Africa.
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The first was in 2007, when the Chinese Government infused Traditional Chinese Medicine quack research with USD $130 million – five times more than the previous year’s budget – to “standardize and modernize” traditional Chinese medicine. How did this not pique the interest of authorities?
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Ed: Chinese Quack ‘Medicine’ competes for immorality with Japanese ‘Scientific Whaling Bullshit’ – how backward and depraved can primitive human superstitions lower themselves to?
Africans should be a wake up to East Asian barbaric persecution of precious African wildlife’
Then in 2008, a Chinese research proposal revealed the location of China’s “rhino farm” and “horn harvesting experiments”, along with intentions to circumvent CITES. For additional information, see:
This matters because there is growing evidence which strongly suggests that widespread abuse of South Africa’s existing legal trade loopholes is fueling and feeding the demand for rhino horn, and camouflaging the illegal rhino horn trade.
The extent to which the illegal rhino horn trade is being aided and augmented by legal trade in South Africa – both in live rhinos and trophy exports – is indeed unsettling, and is certainly deserving of deeper scrutiny.>>
<<The dead elephant, a huge bull, lay on his side, right leg curled as if in wrenching pain. Dirt covered the exposed eye—magic done by poachers to hide the carcass from vultures. The smell of musth and urine, of fresh death, hung over the mound of the corpse. It was a sight I had seen hundreds of times in central Africa. As I passed my hand over his body from trunk to tail, tears poured down my cheeks. I lifted the bull’s ear. Lines of bright red blood bubbled and streamed from his lips, pooling in the dust. His skin was checkered with wrinkles. The base of his trunk was as thick as a man’s torso. Deep fissures ran like rivers through the soles of his feet; in those lines, I could trace every step he had taken during his 30 years of life.
This elephant’s ancestors had survived centuries of raiding by the armies of Arab and African sultans from the north in search of slaves and ivory. He had lived through civil wars and droughts, only to be killed today for a few pounds of ivory to satisfy human vanity in some distant land. There were tender blades of grass in his mouth. He and his friends had been peacefully roaming in the shaded forest, snapping branches filled with sweet gum. Then, the first gunshot exploded. He bolted, too late. Horses overtook him. Again and again, bullets pummeled his body. We counted eight small holes in his head. Bullets had penetrated the thick skin and lodged in muscle, bone, and brain before he fell. We heard 48 shots before we found him.
Souleyman Mando, the commander of our detachment of mounted park rangers, was silent. I sensed a dark need for revenge. The feeling was mutual.
Shrinking Koala Habitat – completely dependent upon the whims of Australians, if we give a toss. Being systematically destroyed by O’Farrell Government Loggers across coastal New South Wales, Australia
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Koala Habitat is being trashed across New South Wales
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<<The dull, grinding roar of logging trucks has become background noise in the hills around Eden, on the New South Wales south coast. Equally familiar is the sight of people photographing the loggers’ loads as they are hauled down to the local woodchip mill and on to ships bound for Japan. The campaigners are looking for signs of tree trunks that have hollows and may have supported native sugar gliders or owls.
About 1,200 kilometres north, in the subtropical rainforest near Casino, botanists and zoologists are poring over maps and Google Earth, tracking breaches of logging conditions – trees cut down inside protection zones, trees felled that supported endangered wildlife or nourished other flora.
The tit-for-tat battle in the forests has led to frustration on all sides, with forestry workers complaining of ”manic hatred” directed at them. Anti-logging activists say the damage to state forests is systematic and routine, as established rules in the NSW Forest Agreements are disregarded.
”It’s not exactly a surprise to us that there are so many breaches because the fox is in charge of the hen house,” says Lisa Stone, a campaigner with South-East Forest Rescue. ”It keeps happening over and over again. You have got areas where they are supposed to be taking out single trees and then you go there and it’s practically clear-felled.”
For each state forest targeted for logging, a plan must be drawn up that leaves some trees untouched, in accordance with the ”environmental protection licences” issued to logging contractors working for the state government agency, Forests NSW.
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What the hell is Government’s Forests NSW doing to Wildlife Habitat?
Forests NSW Greenwash:
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“Forests NSW is committed to ensuring a supply of timber from NSW State forests today and into the future while also protecting other forest values such as biodiversity, clean air and water and public access for recreation. We are committed to running a safe and profitable business for the people of NSW.”
“The NSW (O’Farrell) Government has announced it will make Forests NSW a state owned corporation (SOC). Forests NSW will remain publicly owned and the nature of the business and business relationships will remain largely the same but the governance structures will change to improve the organisation’s commercial performance.
As a state owned corporation under the direction of a skilled commercial board, Forests NSW will be able to focus sharply on its core business of growing and harvesting timber to meet the community’s needs for hardwood and softwood products while still providing recreational opportunities for the people of New South Wales.”
Ed: So to the O’Farrell Government the forests are only about human needs – a babyboomer mindset, just like in the Old Testament. “..And God said unto them be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” [Bible, Old Testament, Book of Genesis 1:28] ..and humans have been self-righteously buggering the planet ever since.
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<<The many-layered oversight system produces a lot of work for the handful of NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water staff, some of whom have found themselves visiting the same logging sites repeatedly.
Forests NSW stressed that a warning letter can refer to separate breaches, which partly explains why the number of warnings issued to Forests NSW is so much lower than the number of times rules get broken.
Nonetheless, department staff have told the Herald that guidelines are often applied indifferently by loggers and some contractors are serial offenders. Forests NSW has also lost staff through voluntary redundancy this year which, some workers argued, affects its ability to police logging contractors.
A spokeswoman for the Environment Department said logging licences contained ”strict provisions to protect the environment, threatened species and its habitat”. Audits of logging operations are carried out every month as part of its compliance program.
”[The department] is concerned about the number of recent alleged breaches being reported in the south-east of NSW and in response is conducting several comprehensive field audits of Forests NSW work in the region. If any of the alleged breaches are found to be substantiated then the [department] will take appropriate action.”
New spice has been added to the deluge of investigations by the recent so-called ”peace deal” in Tasmania, which saw major logging companies, including Gunns, agree to stop logging in old-growth native forests. The deal also included an effective end to large-scale burning of native timber as a source of renewable energy, a process that is now permitted in NSW. The National Association of Forest Industries said it would oppose any effort to transfer the Tasmanian deal to mainland Australia.
A woodchip company, South-East Fibre Exports, is planning to build the state’s first wood-fired electricity plant at Eden, burning ”offcuts”. The company says opposition to its power plant is driven by people with the broader agenda of ending logging in native forests altogether. This seems likely to be true. South-East Fibre Exports blames anti-logging campaigners for setting up a fake website that mocks the company’s proposal, and a campaigner against the power plant, the former fashion designer Prue Acton, found an electronic bugging device in her home earlier this year. No one knows who is responsible for planting the bug, and there is no suggestion it is linked to the logging dispute. Police are investigating.
The NSW Primary Industries Minister, Steve Whan, said he had faith in the forestry companies and Forests NSW. ”Allegations of ‘systematic damage’ are overstated,” says Whan. ”The majority of the alleged breaches in question are minor in nature – with little to no impact on the environment.”
Former NSW Labor Minister for Minerals and Forest Resources, Steve Whan,who also had Primary Industries, Emergency Services and Rural Affairs – i.e. politically imposed conflicts of interests. .
In southern NSW, the forestry organisation is regularly scrutinised and was operating within the rules.
”Forests NSW southern region has received no penalty notices and not one case has been brought to prosecution for at least the past three years. ‘As a local member in the area as well as the Minister for Forest Resources, I personally welcome the intense environmental scrutiny that forestry operations in the area are subjected to. It is very important that any logging operations in the region comply with all the environmental conditions in place.”
Documents maintained by Forests NSW staff show there were 13 breaches recorded in south-eastern NSW last year.The breaches include cases of ”lack of care taken by operator”, ”operator did not see marking tape” and ”poor rigour in completing surveys”. Some could be explained by mishaps such as a vehicle slipping on a steep hillside into a protected area. In one case a logging contractor cut down trees in an area marked as ”old growth forest” because a global positioning system device had run out of batteries.
Of the 13 recorded incidents, eight resulted in verbal warnings to forestry contractors and one, in which the estimate of damage made by environment department staff differed from Forests NSW’s, resulted in a warning letter. Environmental damage was in every case assessed to be ”nil” and no remedial action was taken.
In part, the mistakes could be put down to forestry workers working to tight deadlines in rugged terrain.
But anti-logging activists are not prepared to be that charitable. The parallels with the situation in northern NSW are remarkable. In the state forests around Casino and Tenterfield, a group called North-East Forest Alliance has identified damage to stands of trees inhabited by koalas, stuttering frogs, sooty owls, powerful owls, golden-tipped bats and yellow-bellied gliders. The same types of breaches are evident, with contractors failing to follow guidelines about properly marking up vulnerable trees. Trees up to two metres wide at the base were cut down inside an area of rainforest described as a ”special protection zone”.
Five sets of allegations, covering dozens of alleged individual breaches in separate forests, were sent to the Environment Department early this year. Staff undertook a joint investigation with the forestry agency, and Forests NSW said a ”compliance response team” had been established.
South-East Forest Rescue recently surveyed state forests at Mogo, near Batemans Bay, and found recent logging in areas that were supposed to have been preserved, including an Aboriginal cultural site and conservation areas. In a report sent to the government, it alleges that many hectares of forest that should have been off-limits to loggers had been cleared.
The group has also walked through south coast state forests Tantawangalo, Yambulla, Glenbog and Dampier, collecting photographs of logging sites. Earlier surveys of the various regions by the Environment Department show habitat supporting sooty owls, yellow-bellied gliders, square-tailed kites, giant burrowing frogs, bent wing bats, tiger quolls, glossy black cockatoos and powerful owls may have been damaged.
The group’s surveys have been passed on to the Environment Department. The department said its own studies in the area are expected to run until mid-November. Stone says the group wanted Whan to visit the logging locations they had surveyed.>>
<<Critical habitat supporting the so-called Strzelecki “super-koala” and endangered powerful owls is to be bulldozed as part of a controversial road-widening project in South Gippsland.
Several hundred trees, many home to koalas and with hollows suitable for nesting owls and other wildlife, will be lost, despite consultants warning the Latrobe City Council that the damp forest habitat is virtually irreplaceable in a region largely cleared of native vegetation.
The local member for Morwell, Brendan Jenkins, is appealing to Environment Minister John Thwaites for an 11th-hour reprieve after local conservationists lost their case in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Latrobe Council wants to widen Budgeree Road so that logging trucks servicing plantations can pass each other. Trucks now travel one way down the road and return via another route. Budgeree Road is also a tourist drive to Tarra Bulga National Park.
The tribunal initially raised strong objections to the project, near Boolarra, in the face of evidence that the council took little account of the vegetation affected, that traffic volumes did not justify the scale of the works, and that a redesign could save most trees. Then, in a surprise turnaround, it approved the project last month with minor amendments.
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‘Strzelecki koalas are a genetically superior group that may hold the key to the species’ long-term survival in Victoria.
All other koalas in the state are descended from a handful of individuals transferred to French Island more than a century ago, a few years before koalas were hunted to near-extinction on the mainland.’
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Ed: This is a ecological cry of impending Koala regional extinction and a representative indictment of Australia’s deliberate and evil extermination of its wildlife.
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The French Island colony was used to repopulate the state, but inbreeding is now becoming apparent. The Strzelecki koalas, however, appear to be a remnant of the original and genetically diverse mainland population.
The roadside forest is rare in its own right, being of “very high conservation significance”. This category has legislative protection under the Native Vegetation Management framework, and can be cleared only under exceptional circumstances.
The loss of hollow-bearing trees is also listed as a threat under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. Consultants from Biosis Research told Latrobe Council it would be difficult to find other damp forest areas that could offset the loss of roadside remnants.
Susie Zent, from Friends of the Gippsland Bush, said VCAT had set conditions for the roadworks based on a mistaken classification by the Department of Sustainability and Environment as to the vegetation’s significance. She said the VCAT decision could be set aside if the department admitted to an error of judgement and requested amendments to its permit conditions.
Latrobe’s chief executive officer, Paul Buckley, said he expected VicRoads to sign off the final plans within three or four weeks. He said the additional width was needed to improve safety.
A spokesman for Mr Thwaites said the department was waiting for final details from the council, particularly in relation to offset measures. “Offset measures are required to ensure there is no overall loss of areas that have ecological significance,” he said.>>
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Strzelecki Koala Endangered
(South Gippsland Victorian, Australia)
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<<Of major concern due to the logging and clearing activities of both Hancock Timber Resource Group and PaperlinX is the long term survival of populations of the Strzelecki and South Gippsland Koalas whose entire habitat is now owned by these companies.
An investigation carried out by Dr Bronwyn Houlden, School of Biological Science, University of New South Wales, 20th March 1997 and 6th April 1998 confirmed that the genetic pool of these koalas has not been compromised. Dr Houlden indicates that on a national basis koalas generally are not considered to be threatened. She advises that this assessment has unfortunately led to an extremely simplistic view of conservation of biodiversity in the species.
Through extensive analysis by herself and her collaborators she has revealed that the species is composed of highly differentiated populations with low levels of gene flow between populations throughout their range. The Strzelecki Koala population constitutes a separate management unit and is significant in terms of management of biodiversity on a regional and state basis. Dr Houlden found that the Strzelecki Ranges had the highest level of genetic variation, of any Victorian population she has analysed. This is important, given the low levels of genetic variability found in many populations in Victoria, which have been involved in the translocation program.>>
The Critical Habitat Truth behind Hancock Timber Resource Group
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Foreign-owned and controlled Hancock Timber Resource Group, claims publicly that its Victorian timber plantation operation, Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP) is committed to…
“environmental responsibility is underpinned by the company’s environmental policy and management system, forest stewardship program, best management practices, which include internal and external performance measures, and active community consultation program, working with groups such as Landcare, field naturalists and Waterwatch.”
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Hancock Victorian Plantations claims…
“HVP sets its own high standards, its operations are monitored by local shires, water catchment management authorities, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and the Victorian Department of Environment and Sustainability. The company is also subject to regular audits to maintain its Australian Forestry Standards (AFS) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifications.”Around 70 per cent of HVP’s total landholdings are sustainably-managed plantations, growing largely on land that was previously cleared for farming. The company maintains the remaining 30 per cent of its holdings for plantation protection, conservation and other community values.In the Strzelecki Ranges, HVP has set aside almost half of its land from timber production, managing this native forest for conservation.”
Editor: It all sounds wonderful coming from this United States industrial logger. But since when has anyone trusted US corporations? Read the snapshot log below.
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Road hit female koala with broken jaw. Had to be euthanised after 6 weeks. Urgent research is required to determine breeding populations, location and numbers. Logging seriously impacts on long term populations of this animal.
[Source: Hancock Watch, ^http://hancockwatch.nfshost.com/docs/koala.htm#content_top]
South Gippsland, Victoria (October 2002) – systematically being destroyed for corporate profit by United States multi-national ‘Hancock Timber Resourse Group’:
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Jeerlang West Road Strzelecki Ranges
Locals outraged by removal of native vegetation – Koala Feed Trees. Koala corridor destroyed. Koalas are now not sited in this area. 8 Koalas have died in this area in the last 12 months.
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Strzelecki Ranges (Jeeralangs)
Eucalypts globulus – Bluegum (4ssp.) Southern Blue Gum – subspecies globulus. Restricted on the mainland to South Gippsland and Otways. Road works resulted in logging of older trees. Prime koala habitat destroyed by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. A recent change in management will hopefully result in the end of this type of practice.
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Strzelecki Ranges (Jeeralangs)
Prime koala habitat destroyed without permit application by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. Destruction of the rare Globulus globulus.
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93-41 Creswick plantations
Creek crossing over Anderson’s Gully which feeds into Creswick Creek. Tullaroop Water Catchment. Drinking water for Maryborough, Carisbrook, Talbot, Adelaide Lead, Alma, Havelock, Majorca and Betley. Sediment enters waterways mainly via creek crossings and roads.
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93-41 Petticoat Plantation
Tributary of Anderson’s Gully in the headwaters of the Murray Darling Catchment (Loddon River). Logging machinery driven straight through creekline.
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93-41 Petticoat Creek
Closeup of machinery entering tributary of Anderson’s Gully in the Tullaroop Water Catchment. Note build up of sediment which will wash into gully after rain. Note also buildup of stagnant water.
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93-41. Petticoat Plantation
Tullaroop Proclaimed Water Catchment. Machinery access into Anderson’s Gully tributary.
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Morwell River East Branch/Strzelecki Ranges
Creek crossing with sediment washing into waterway. Note also Slender Tree Fern an FFG listed species. Australia’s first FSC Assessment team in the Strzelecki Ranges. Discussing roading/landslide issues in the Jeerlangs.
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Traralgon Creek in the Latrobe River catchment (Strzelecki Ranges)
Recent pine logging with limited bufferzone in a pine plantation by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. As part of the Friends of the Gippsland Bush/Australian Paper Agreement of 1997, 50 m buffers of native vegetation will be established along Traralgon Creek after pine logging. There were also problems with a creek crossing at this location, which can be seen eroding into the creek in this photo.
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Tributary of Jeeralang Creek with cool temperate rainforest (Strzelecki Ranges)
A Myrtle Beech tree is in the centre of the gully. The person in the photo is holding a twig with Myrtle Beech leaves taken from the base of a tree in the gully. According to the 1997 8 Point Agreement 50m buffers along Jeeralang Creek will be replanted with indigenous species. This area should not have been logged at all. Cool Temperate Rainforest needs much greater buffer for its long term protection and survival.
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Jeeralang West Road
(Non-plantation) Blackwood and Austral Mulberry cut down along roadside easement which is Crown Land. Logged by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock.
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Billy’s Creek Catchment/Strzelecki Ranges
Twenty metre buffer should be reinstated at this site as in accordance with Billy’s Creek Water Supply Catchment, Plan no 1870. (Ideally the entire slope should be retired from timber production due to its steepness).
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Billy’s Creek catchment/Strzelecki Ranges
20m buffers should be reinstated in this plantation area.
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Jumbuk Road/ Strzelecki Ranges
Logging of roadside buffers/easements. Wildlife corridors destroyed at this site as well as the head of a gully feeding into Billy’s Creek.
What is the long term impact on water yield from pine plantations in this catchment?
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93-41 Petticoat plantation (Headwaters of the Murray Darling catchment [Loddon River])
Tullaroop Water catchment is currently at 30% of its capacity due to primarily to drought. Hancock logged 223ha of pine in this catchment in 2001/2. Much of the land within the Creswick State Forest has in the past been affected by gold mining activities. Stabilisation of the worst affected areas was achieved with softwood plantations. Will sediment from these mining sites be disturbed by current plantation logging. Tullaroop catchment supplies towns such as Maryborough with drinking water. What is the impact of logging on water quality and quantity in this catchment?
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Korweinguboora Reservoir catchment.
Recently logged by Hancock. Note lack of buffer zones for this wetland feeding into the Reservoir. This reservoir supplies Geelong and other towns with drinking water.
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Korweinguboora catchment (Geelong’s water supply)
How can Hancock guarantee that herbicides and fertilser residues will not enter Geelongs water supply? Note lack of buffers surrounding this drainage line.
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A tributary of Creswick Creek in the Tullaroop Water supply catchment
Note lack of creek buffer zones and ripping of soil into creek banks. Will herbicide residues enter water from this site? What impact will operations at this site have on quality of water for all species including people? Is this sustainable?
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Tributary of Creswick Creek in Tullaroop water supply catchment
Over 200 ha of pine plantations in this catchment were logged in 2001/2. What is the long term effect of fast rotation plantations on water quality and quantity? Pines cut out of creek itself and creek banks at this site.>>
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Bligh Labor Government flogs off Queensland’s forests for $603M to Hancock
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<<The Queensland Labor government has announced the sale of Forestry Plantations Queensland – the first transaction in its controversial asset sales. Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the 99-year licence for the timber plantation business would be sold for $603 million to Hancock Queensland Plantations. The sale price is well in excess of the $500 million that had been anticipated. Mr Fraser said he signed the contract on Tuesday morning.
“By reaching agreement on a price of $603 million, this exceeds original expectations and is great news for Queensland taxpayers,’‘ Mr Fraser told state parliament on Tuesday. “This is the first of the five commercial businesses to be sold, licensed or leased to the private sector, as the government reforms the state balance sheet and builds a stronger Queensland economy.”
He said award staff would have their jobs guaranteed for three years. Mr Fraser said Hancock Queensland Plantations, a company managed by Hancock Timber Resource Group on behalf of institutional investors, had won the right to grow and harvest the trees.
Crown plantation land on which the majority of the business sits will remain in government ownership. The sale includes about 35,000 hectares of freehold land, which is about 10 per cent of the total estate.
Hancock Timber Resource Group manages more than two million hectares of timberlands worth approximately $US8.5 billion ($A9.7 billion) across the United States, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.>>
<<The opposition has accused NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker of allowing the logging of koala habitats on the state’s mid-north coast. Opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley said the minister had received a “scathing” letter from the local councils protesting her decision to allow logging of core koala habitats in the area.
“These councils are traditionally pro-development – but even they are alarmed that Robyn Parker is allowing a national icon to be endangered thanks to her ‘unsound ecological approach’,” Mr Foley said in a statement on Thursday.>>
He said that…
On October 27 Ms Parker said “logging protects koalas”
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Editor: Robyn Parker has not got a clue about her Environment portfolio. She is another teacher-turned-politician and clearly insecure. Last month Parker sacked the head of her department, Lisa Corbyn, and has been through five press secretaries.
The opposition’s environment spokesman Luke Foley: “When will Premier O’Farrell do the decent thing and get a new environment minister?”
<<The NSW Government has allowed 2,000 heactares of koala habitat to be logged at Coffs Harbour in northern NSW, despite a local koala conservation plan endorsed by the local council, a Senate inquiry has heard.
One of Australia’s leading koala researchers, Alistair Melzer, has accused federal environment bureaucrats of doing little to avoid ”an escalating conservation crisis” as koala populations decline.
Dr Melzer, who heads Central Queensland University’s koala research centre, told the Senate environment committee inquiry it appeared that Canberra’s bureaucrats ”do not seem to be sensitive to the real state of the environment”.
The six-month inquiry, into the conservation status and sustainability of Australia’s koalas, is investigating threats to the future survival of the species.
In his submission, former Coffs Harbour City Council deputy mayor Rod McKelvey said the NSW Department of Environment’s private native forestry division granted logging permits which resulted in the loss of 2000ha of ”core koala habitat” protected by the council’s koala conservation plan. Mr McKelvey said the department subsequently argued the plan ”did not fall under” NSW environmental planning policy.
”I do not want to be included in the generation who stood by and did nothing while we systematically destroyed koala habitat, making it almost impossible for them to live here,” he said.
Gunnedah farmer Susan Lyle, who has koalas on her three properties, raised concerns about a mining exploration licence issued for open-cut coal mining in the region.
”Our koalas will be decimated. This mining licence is primarily in isolation and to allow such a development is sheer lunacy … There are many, many other resources that can be used for energy, but there is no replacement for the koala,” she said.
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Federal Forest Enquiry a Sham
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[Source: ‘Federal Forest Inquiry a Sham’, 20111130, North East Forest Alliance, ^http://nefa.org.au/]
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<<Conservation Group, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), is outraged at the bias of the Federal House of Representatives report ‘Inquiry into the future of the Australian Forestry Industry’ and its refusal to consider the timber supply crisis and the over-logging of north-east NSW’s public forests.
NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, said that most of the evidence presented in NEFA’s 111 page submission was ignored by the inquiry on the grounds that it “criticised the industry”. “What they didn’t ignore they misrepresented. This pretend inquiry was a sham” he said.
“The Commonwealth is party to the North East Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) and claims that it satisfies its national and international obligations for the protection of world heritage, national estate and threatened species.
“While national heritage values were meant to be addressed as part of the RFA, they were not, so the Commonwealth gave the NSW Government an extra two years to complete the process. A decade later and there has still been no assessment and the Federal Government does not care.
“Similarly the RFA was meant to provide protection for nationally threatened species. The evidence we presented, such as the illegal trashing of a population of the nationally endangered fern Lindsaea incisa at Doubleduke, that was meant to be protected by a 50m buffer, was ignored because we were being ‘critical’.
“What is most astounding is that the inquiry refused to consider the evidence we presented on the current timber supply crisis due to the over-commitment of wood from north-east NSW’s public forests.
“Ever since new Wood Supply Agreements for timber from public land were given to sawmillers in 2004 Forests NSW have not been able to supply the committed volumes,” Mr Pugh said.
“The NSW Government’s recklessness in issuing these new Wood Supply Agreements has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars to buy back committed volumes and to compensate BORAL for Forests NSW’s failure to supply. As the crisis worsens, taxpayers exposure to multi-million dollar compensation claims grows.
“In vain efforts to meet shortfalls and reduce their payouts Forests NSW have been over-logging plantations, cutting trees before they mature, increasing logging intensities, logging stream buffers, and logging trees and areas required to be retained for threatened species. They are cutting out the future of the industry and causing immense environmental harm in the process.
“It is appalling, that an inquiry dealing with forestry has completely ignored this crisis and recommended that the Commonwealth Government condone and support this grossly unsustainable and irresponsible logging.
“Local Page MP, Janelle Saffin features in the inquiry’s report despite her electorate being one of the worst affected by the timber supply crisis, rampant illegal logging and widespread forest dieback.
“We call upon Janelle to please explain why the Commonwealth continues to ignore the gross over-logging, fails to identify and protect national heritage values, refuses to take action on the illegal logging of the habitat of nationally threatened species and refuses to consider the dieback of tens of thousands of hectares of public forests in her electorate. She needs to tell her constituents what she is going to do about it”” Mr. Pugh said.>>
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South East Forest Rescue cranking it in south-east NSW
<<South East Forest Rescue have taken some crackerjack action this morning, halting forestry operations with a giant tripod and tree sit structure to highlight illegal logging in the Yambulla State Forest, south of Eden. The logging compartment where breaches have been identified by SEFR contains records of nationally listed endangered species such as glossy black cockatoos, smokey mice, southern brown bandicoots, tiger quolls, eastern pygmy possums, bent wing bats, yellow-bellied gliders, gang gang cockatoos and white-footed dunnarts.
“The response from Forests NSW shows the complete lack of regard for the licence conditions that Forests NSW and their contractors must abide by. The licence conditions for threatened species and habitat conservation are not being adhered to, even though the conditions are grossly inadequate” said forest campaigner Lisa Stone.
“We have reported the breaches in this compartment to the Office of Environment and Heritage,” said Ms Stone. “We stated last time that the probability of further breaches in this compartment if harvesting continues is high given that this logging contractor is a repeat offender and that FNSW still is not complying with the licence conditions” said Ms Stone.>>
<<The NSW Liberal government is failing to protect koalas by allowing logging in remaining habitats, the opposition says. Environment spokesman Luke Foley accused Environment Minister Robyn Parker of breaking an election promise to protect koalas after logging went ahead at the Bermagui State Forest on the south coast.
Logging also started last week at Boambee State Forest on the mid north coast, one of the last habitats for the vulnerable species in the area, Mr Foley said.
“For you to fail to respond and fail to intervene is a gross breach of your election policy to protect our national icon,” Mr Foley said at a budget estimates hearing in Sydney today. “Surely the precautionary approach would be for you as Environment Minister to stop the logging of this key koala habitat?”
Ms Parker denied breaking any election commitments, and said the government was working hard to protect koalas.
“When it comes to forestry, we are about getting a balance and protecting our native species. We are working very hard on them,” she said. “We have written to Forests NSW recommending a precautionary approach to managing impacts on koalas in the Boambee State Forest…The agreement that allowed logging to take place had been signed by the previous government, Ms Parker said. “Perhaps you should go back and look at what was going on when your government signed up to that agreement.”>>
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Koala habitat cleared to make way for more houses
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[Source: ‘Koala habitat cleared to make way for more houses’, 20121127 (today), by Nicole Fuge, Sunshine Coast Daily, ^http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/koalas-lose-vital-coast-habitat/1637085/]
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<<More than 100 hectares of koala habitat has been cleared to make way for more houses, another nail in the coffin for one of Australia’s icons.
Work has begun clearing the land behind Aussie World and the Ettamogah Pub for a 334-lot rural residential development.
Despite more than 30% of the 145-hectare site secured for environmental reserve and 12 hectares of revegetation to offset present clearing, Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue volunteer Ray Chambers fears it’s not enough.
Mr Chambers said the area’s koala population was already fragile and the removal of so many trees would have a disastrous affect.
“We do have the odd koala in part of the Palmview area, it’s not a great deal but we know they are there,” he said. “From Forest Glen to the Caloundra turn-off is a koala corridor.”
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Mr Chambers said there were only about 100 koalas left on the Coast, representing 18% of the Queensland population.
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A council spokeswoman said despite approval of the development pre-dating an introduction of state-wide regulatory provisions for koala conservation, the council and Department of Environment and Heritage Protection officers had enforced koala protection measures and vegetation offsets.
Developer guidelines include:
More than 30% of the original site secured in environmental reserve.
Traffic calming, speed bumps, and fauna under and overpasses installed to minimise car strikes.
Building envelopes to be enclosed with dog-proof fencing, leaving the balance of each lot free for fauna movement.
About 12ha of revegetation, including planting koala food trees, to be carried out to offset the clearing.
The spokeswoman said a fauna spotting catcher had also been present during clearing.>>
The new Blue Mountains Cultural Centre opened at 30 Parke Street, Katoomba in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney on Saturday 17th November 2012.
The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre is a very large complex for the town of Katoomba and the sparsely populated region.
It features:
an art gallery
state-of-the-art library
an extensive scenic viewing platform towards the Jamison Valley (and World Heritage wilderness beyond)
seminar room
multi-purpose workshop
coffee shop
gift shop
meeting rooms
an interpretative centre for the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
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It is a “purpose built cultural precinct; a place that simultaneously celebrates our unique sense of place, and allows us to explore what it means to live here, and share those understandings with those who visit our home.”
[Source: ‘Grand Opening – Blue Mountains Cultural Centre’, (special feature), Blue Mountains Gazette, 20121114, p.2]
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The Jamison Valley Wilderness
Contains natural stands of giant old growth Turpentines (Syncarpia glomulifera)
and old growth Mountain Blue Gums (Eucalyptus deanei)
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Planning for the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre commenced way back in 1998 and there was much local community consultation in the planning process including with local Aboriginal people.
The building was commissioned by the local Blue Mountains Council and funded mainly by the New South Wales Government by more than $6 million. The Cultural Centre was designed by architects Hassell & Scott Carver Architects and built by Richard Crookes Constructions.
The Cultural Centre, now built, is positioned on the top (roof) level of a building which has, in the main, been constructed for a new relocated Coles supermarket and shopping arcade.
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre entrance
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While the now operational purposes of the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre promise to have considerable merit, there are two notable drawbacks associated with the recent construction of this building, which should not be forgotten to history.
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1. The Entrance Pergola appears to be of ‘Tasmanian Oak‘
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The timber pergola at the entrance has the distinctive colour and texture of ‘Tasmanian Oak‘, which is a timber industry generic marketing term used to group old growth native hardwood timber from a choice of one of the following three botannical species:
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Eucalyptus regnans
Eucalyptus obliqua
Eucalyptus delegatensis
The distinctive colour and texture of Tasmanian Oak (treated and stained) These large posts and the beams have few knots and clearly have been sourced from the heartwood of very large and old native trees.
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A ‘Tassie Oak’ comparison..
Tasmanian Oak in TasmaniaA new ten inch (wide) ‘Tasmanian Oak’ post inside Oatlands’ restored mill, Tasmania It was probably from local Messmate/Stringybark (Eucalyptus obliqua), treated but not stained (Photo by Editor, September 2009, Photo Free in Public Domain)
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The name ‘Tasmanian Oak‘ was originally used by early European timber workers who believed the eucalypts showed the same strength as English Oak. When sourced from Tasmania, the wood is called Tasmanian Oak. When sourced from Victoria, the wood is called ‘Victorian Ash‘ or ‘Mountain Ash‘.
This uniquely Australian hardwood timber is light-coloured, ranging from straw to light reddish brown. It continues to be used in the building trade for panelling, flooring, furniture, framing, doors, stairs, external structures, joinery, reconstituted board and even as pulp for paper.
As the tallest flowering plant in the world, Eucalyptus regnans grow up to 100 metres tall. Whereas Eucalyptus delegatensis and Eucalyptus obliqua do not reach these heights; instead reaching about 70m with the tallest trees achieving 90 metres, which is no less considerable.
Nevertheless, all these species comprise timber logged from native old growth forests, not plantations. Such forests are rare and fast disappearing due to excessive logging practices – their dependent ecosystems, flora and fauna included.
The Pygmy Possum (Genus Cercartetus)
Once prolific, but now threatened across the Blue Mountains heathland escarpment
due to misguided escarpment Government Arson labelled as ‘Hazard Reduction’
To the Rural Fire Service anything natural is phobically deemed to be a ‘hazard’.
[Source: ^http://www.warra.com/warra/research_projects/research_project_WRA116.html]
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So logging and use of this native old growth timber is unsustainable, despite Australian timber industry certification claims, which are proven dubious.
Tasmanian Oak/Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans)
Its original distribution mainly from Tasmania
To a lesser extent variants come from the high rainfall areas of East Gippsland, Dandenong Ranges to Black Spur Range and the Otway Ranges.
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A likely justification for the use of Tasmanian Oak for the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre’s entrance pergola is that Tasmanian Oak being a strong hardwood timber is load-bearing with few knots. While steel or another composite material could have been used, it is probable that the Tasmanian Oak was inadertently chosen for its aesthetic appeal, ignoring sustainability criteria.
Tasmanian Oak, like many Australian native hardwood timbers, is durable, termite and borer resistant, and fire resistant which makes its suitable for such an external structure, plus it is readily available and so a comparatively affordable building material. The timber has few knots because it is sourced from old growth trees, perhaps aged over one hundred years, and so the trunk is very tall and straight between the tree’s base and the branch canopy.
The Blue Mountains are dominated by Eucalypt forests, which contain flammable natural eucalyptus oil. Although the Cultural Centre is wholly within the township of Katoomba some distance from native forests, compliance with the Building Code of Australia would have mandated the building material options for the pergola, including the requirement that the external structure be of fire resistant material. Since the Cultural Centre is situated within the least risk buffer zone of a designated Bushfire Prone Area, the choice of building material would also have would been mandated under the Australian Standard AS 3959 ‘Construction of Buildings in Bushfire Prone Areas’ and with local council’s Blue Mountains Local Environment Plan 2005 – Regulation 86 : ‘Bush fire constructions standards’.
Under AS 3959, the construction of new buildings, the use of timber as an extrenal building material is permitted in the lower risk levels provided the timber species must comply with minimum crierian for Fire Retardant Treated Timber. The following timber species have been tested and found to meet the required parameters without having to be subjected to fire retardant treatment:
The above hardwoods are all threatened species and are disappearing fast; all Australian bar Merbau which is being depleted from old growth Indonesian rainforests.
The timber used in the Cultural Centre’s timber pergola is arguably of Tasmanian Oak, which is known variously by the common names Mountain Ash, Victorian Ash, Swamp Gum, or Stringy Gum.
It is a species of Eucalyptus native to southeastern Australia, in Tasmania and Victoria. Historically, it has been known to attain heights over 100 metres (330 ft) and is one of the tallest tree species in the world. In native forests, the two species (Mountain Ash & Alpine Ash) that are combined to produce Victorian Ash are known to be two of the world’s largest trees, occasionally growing to over 100m in height.
Yet all these Australian native hardwood timbers are increasingly becoming scarcer as they are logged for such fire-resistant application.
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The Building Standard for Fire Retardant Treated Timber is driving deforestation of Australian Old Growth Forests.
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These old growth timbers are the dominant canaopy species for wet eucalypt forests restricted to cool, deep soiled, mostly mountainous areas to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) altitude with high rainfall of over 1,200 millimetres (47 in) per year. The trees grow very quickly, at more than a metre a year, and can reach 65 metres (213 ft) in 50 years, with an average life-span of 400 years.
Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants, although no living specimens can make that claim.The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 101 metres tall in Tasmania.
Before the discovery of Centurion, the tallest known specimen was Icarus Dream, which was rediscovered in Tasmania in January, 2005 and is 97 metres (318 ft) high. It was first measured by surveyors at 98.8 metres (324 ft) in 1962 but the documentation had been lost. Sixteen living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 90 metres (300 ft).
Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres (435 ft), found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872.
Eucalyptus regnans
(marketed as ‘Tasmanian Oak’)
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The fallen logs continue supporting a rich variety of life for centuries more on the forest floor. These restricted mountain ash forests provide vital yet shrinking habitat for many of Australia’s threatened species of fauna.
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2. Construction created considerable land fill
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It was observed throughout the construction phase of the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, that daily large skips of builders waste from the site were loaded alongside in Parke Street.
These commercial skips were consistently yellow in colour and the same size – about six meters long and two meters wide (12 cubic metre capacity). Typically there were two such skips positioned and loaded with builders’ waste from the construction site each weekday. This was observed over the course of a year up until August 2012. They were loaded by bobcat-style machinery with all types of mixed rubbish – concrete, unwanted insulation, scrap metal, rubble, empty cans, you name it. There was no separation of waste observed for recycling. It would all have been trucked to landfill – possibly to either the nearby Katoomba or Blaxland waste management facilities, or else off-Mountain somewhere.
Commercial skip used to cart away builders’ waste from the construction site
(Approximate scale)
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A conservative estimate of the land fill volume generated from the Cultural Centre construction site, which also included the Coles shopping complex, over the course of the year would be 12 cubic metres x 2 skips x 5 days x 42 weeks (generously allowing for 10 non work weeks out of 52) = over 5,000 cubic metres of land fill!
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Cultural Centre’s Green Credentials
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The above two environmental impacts are far from encouraging for this high profile community-serving 21st Century building, and within a World Heritage Area to boot.
The interpretative concept is one that is meant to inspire locals and visitors alike. So these two impacts are concerning and perhaps need to be clarified in the public literature produced by the Blue Mountains Council which commissioned the Cultural Centre.
The public impression promoted by the Blue Mountains Council is that the Cultural Centre is a eco-friendly building deserving praise.
<<It has free wi-fi and features a range of green initiatives including double-glazed windows, solar panels, rainwater harvesting, and low-energy LED lights in the gallery.>>
[Source: ‘Grand Opening – Blue Mountains Cultural Centre’, (special feature), Blue Mountains Gazette, 20121114, p.3]
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<<The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre has a range of green (building) features that ensure that its impacts on the World Heritage environment is kept to a minimum.
Some of the features include:
A fully insulated roof, double-brick air cavity walls and double-glazed windows assist to insulate the building.
Extensive rainwater collection, harvested by the Centre and the Carrington Hotel and stored onsite, in an underground 50,000 litre tank
On the roof there are 54, 10kW solar panels to reduce the Centre’s reliance on traditional energy sources.
The ‘green roof’ treats a portion of the Cultural Centre’s water run-off (with the aid of a UV disinfection system) that is then used for irrigation and toilet flushing.
The Centre is lit with a combination of efficient, long-life lighting sources and lighting zoning to allow separate switching and dimming of areas adjacent to windows.
The City Art Gallery uses LED lighting technology to significantly reduce power consumption.
The building orientation itself is designed to provide protection to the open courtyard areas from the prevailing westerly winds and exposure to northern sunlight.
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With these initiatives in place, the Cultural Centre aims to reduce water consumption by 5.5 million litres each year and reduce energy usage of 1.8 million kWh/year — enough energy to power 246 homes in the region.>>
A core part of the Blue Mountains Council’s 25 Year Vision for the Blue Mountains region focussed on ‘Looking After the Environment‘:
<<We value our surrounding bushland and the World Heritage National Park.
Recognising that the Blue Mountains natural environment is dynamic and changing, we look after and enjoy the healthy creeks and waterways, diverse flora and fauna and clean air.
Living in harmony with the environment, we care for the ecosystems and habitats that support life in the bush and in our backyards.
We conserve energy and the natural resources we use and reduce environmental impacts by living sustainably.>>
Ed: Such are noble goals however outsourced, but if they are dismissed just as ^’Greenwashing’ :the community message quicky becomes recognised as hollow spin and then any hard earned credibility risks being quickly lost.
<<An outstanding photographic exhibition from Tasmania’s elite landscape photographers, showcasing our beautiful island home.
The artists that feature in this exhibition all have different styles of work and between them manage to capture the raw beauty of Tasmania. With over 45 years experience trekking around in the wild places most people never get the chance to see these, artists will reignite your love of this place and remind you that Tasmania is one of the most beautiful places on earth. There is something for everyone in powerful landscapes to incredibly delicate and intricate macro photographs. Their passionate love for Tasmania and their desire to conserve and protect it for future generations’ shines through in the breathtaking pieces featured in this exhibition. Hailed as being the exhibition of the year, this is not to be missed.>>
Another organised event stomping through Blue Mountains Bushcare
[Photo taken 20120915, published with permission]
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In January 2005, the Blue Mountains Council set up a Blue Mountains East Timor Friendship Committee and a friendship relationship with Timor Leste (East Timor) to work with a community in Timor Leste.
The Blue Mountains Council has partnered with Hato Builico, one of the four Sub-Districts of Ainaro District, south west of the East Timorese capital Dili. The Council developed its ‘Hato Builico Strategic Plan 2008′ to improve the lives of this rural community through funding of a Community Centre Refurbishment, Sustainable Economic Development, Health and Well Being, Capacity Development, Education and Training, Capital Works Infrastructure; and Governance and Partnerships.’
This committee has since decided to stage a fundraising event to raise money for East Timorese communities. The event is called ‘Trek for Timor‘, which seems now scheduled to be held every two years in September. The route traverses bushland between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, about 100km west of Sydney. It passes through the Jamison Valley Wilderness within the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area . There are four separate distances – 5km, 13km, 25km and 45km options to cater for varying levels of fitness of participants.
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The Trek Route
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Section 1 – Charles Darwin Walk through Valley of the Waters to Leura Cascades (13km trek 7am – 4pm)
Section 2 – Leura Cascades to Katoomba Park & Oval (25km trek 6am – 6pm)
Section 3 – Katoomba Oval alkong Narrowneck and through the Jamison Valley to Jamison Creek – “an unsupported checkpoint”
Section 4 – Jamison Creek via Kedumba Pass to Queen Victoria Hospital (45km Trek 6am – 1am)
The registration fee is $30 per person to cover costs and in addition each trekker (in teams of four to six) is asked to raise at least $150 in sponsorship for East Timor.
While a few tourist toilets are situated on parts of the course, participants may relieve themselves between checkpoints “make sure you move well off the track, and carry a trowel to dig a small hole to bury your waste.”
Trek for Timor particpant in September 2012
[Photo taken 20120915, published with permission]
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While the cause seems noble, a key Blue Mountains problem of this event, like the many running that seemed to have cropped up in recent years, is that the Blue Mountains Council has routed the ‘Trek’ through Bushcare restoration sites and through creek beds, and there has been no environment impact assessment or community consultation in allowing for the event.
So while the cause may be noble, the means appears to be ignoble.
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A Bushcare Volunteer’s Concerns about Environmental Damage
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The following correspondence last month is between a concerned Blue Mountains Bushcare volunteer and Trek for Timor. Names have been omitted out of respect for privacy.
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9th Sep (Bushcare Volunteer):
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Dear Trek For Timor,
“As a local resident, environmentalist and Bushcare participant/bushland restorer, I am very concerned that the ‘Trek for Timor’ event will be passing through an environmentally sensitive area. Of great concern is the proposed creek crossing from Peckmans Road to the lower Katoomba Sports Oval. This area is (and has been for many years) a focus of environmental restoration.
I respectfully consider that three hundred and fifty ‘Trek for Timor’ participants crossing here would severely degrade the creek and its surrounds. Other crossings are also degrading the creek further downstream.
I consider the event can still take place but request that it by-pass the area of concern. I suggest it instead take a route that enters the adjacent top sports oval from Cliff Dr.
I look forward to your reply and understanding.”
Regards,
(Bushcare Volunteer)
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9th Sep (Trek for Timor):
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“Good Morning (Bushcare Volunteer),
I have been forwarded your email regarding your concerns raised about Trek for Timor route passing through the section near the lower Katoomba Falls Oval. I am the volunteer in charge of the route for this event and and thank you for letting us know your concerns.
You will of course be aware that any event held in the Blue Mountains area is subject to strict guidelines and requirements from Council.
Unfortunately the event is now only a few days away and it would be very difficult to change the route at such a late stage. There were also additional reasons due to traffic concerns and safety as to why the route was put around through the back of the reserve. Additionally, there are only 150 walkers who are registered to walk through this area, as the other walkers will be either stopping at the 5km or 13km checkpoints.
I would, however, be very interested to meet with you on site sometime this week to see if there is some signage we can use to draw the participants attention to care being taken in that area. Also, although we may be constrained in being able to change the route for this Saturday’s event, the event may be held again in 2014 and we would like to know your concerns so we can ensure that we avoid any environmentally sensitive areas, and have the time to plan any such re-route for that year.
Please let me know if we can meet at the reserve sometime this week (lunch times or prior to 9am would suit me best).
Thanks,
(Trek for Timor)”
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10th Sep (Bushcare Volunteer):
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Hello (Trek for Timor),
“Thanks for your reply of 10 Sept 2012 below to my email of 9 Sept 2012 further below.
I respond as follows:
1. Thank you for your offer but signage will not prevent degradation. I consider that 150 participants will degrade the sensitive creek where proposed to be crossed. The only way to prevent the degradation is to by-pass the area as suggested at point 3 below.
2. The Council has neither informed the local community nor environmental groups of the proposed event. Consequently, there has been no local input.
3. I consider the traffic and safety concerns can be readily addressed given the traffic and safety issues along Oak St should already exist. I note that instead of turning left into Peckmans Rd, the route could easily continue for approximately 200 metres along Oak St. without any further road crossings before entering the top sports oval. The participants could then walk around the perimeter of the top and lower sports ovals to maintain the required distances of the event.
4. Given the small variation, I believe the route can be changed within five days before the event commences this Saturday.
5. Respectfully, the event could be seen as environmentally unsustainable should it proceed as currently planned.
I look forward to your reply and trust the event will now be re-routed.”
Regards,
(Bushcare Volunteer)
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Trek For Timor route over creek restoration site, Katoomba
[Photo taken 20120915, published with permission]
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11th Sep (Trek for Timor):
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Dear (Bushcare Volunteer)
“Our committee has given full consideration to your suggestion and has sought Council’s advice on your request to reroute the trek. Both Council and the Trek for Timor organisers have safety concerns regarding your suggested alternative route, especially the very busy intersection of Kamilaroi Rd, Katoomba Falls Rd & Cliff Drive.
As we are sure you will agree, the safety of the trekkers is paramount.
The Environment Sustainability Officer of Council has also advised us that he considers the trek will have little or no impact on the crossing we will be using.
Having considered your request, taking advice from Council and following our committee discussions we have decided to continue with the course as planned. Our offer of signage advising the trekkers to take care when crossing the creek still stands.
Thank you for raising your concerns with us. Please direct all future correspondence to BMCC’s Environmental Sustainability Section.”
Regards,
T4TBM Organising Committee
(Trek for Timor)
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14 Sep (Bushcare Volunteer):
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Dear (Trek for Timor),
Thank you for your reply of 11 September 2012 below to my email of 10 September 2012 further below.
I respond as follows:
1. I think it is inappropriate for me to only direct my concerns to Blue Mountains City Council especially when the “Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee” has organised the event. I also consider it necessary for me to respond to your replies of 10 and 11 September 2012 to dispel some misconceptions.
2. I wish to remind you that there has been no local input given Blue Mountains City Council has neither informed the local community nor environmental groups of the proposed event. Please provide me with the name of the Council’s “Environment Sustainability Officer” whom you contacted and their correct title, as I am only aware of the manager and administration and education officers carrying this title.
3. Once again, thank you for your offer but signage “advising the trekkers to take care when crossing the creek” will not prevent its degradation. The only way to prevent the degradation is to by-pass the area as suggested at point 6 below and point 3 in my email of 10 September 2012 further below.
4. I consider that environmental qualifications are not needed to understand that 150 “trekkers” crossing a muddy creek will damage it and the riparian vegetation. As such, I consider that any alternative unfounded view could be seen as deceptive and misleading.
5. You state that “Both Council and the Trek for Timor organisers have safety concerns regarding your suggested alternative route, especially the very busy intersection of Kamilaroi Rd, Katoomba Falls Rd & Cliff Drive.” Yet your replies of 10 and 11 September 2012 neither alerted me that the route would be crossing Katoomba Falls Rd during the very busy weekend traffic from the Katoomba Sports Oval towards the Katoomba Falls Kiosk for the 25 km and 45 km events, as is indicated on your web site. I also note that the detour I suggested on 10 September 2012 and at point 6 below passes through this location without any extra road crossings and so does not create any additional safety concerns and thus required additional resources that should already be addressed. Accordingly, I consider that it would be fair for me to say (and anyone reading this email) that all replies (and alleged replies) received by me from those involved in the “Trek for Timor” event to date are unfounded, perhaps misleading and deceptive.
6. I consider that there is ample time to change the route so that the participants can enter Katoomba Sports Oval off Cliff Drive. Traffic marshals and signs could be easily moved from Peckmans Rd to Kamillaroi Rd and Cliff Dr, as well as informing participants of the detour at the start of the event. Unlike the planned route, I note the detour does not require the participants to cross Katoomba Falls Rd.
7. Should the event continue to cross the creek adjacent to Peckmans Rd as planned and any other creeks in this area, it appears to me that the “Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee” does not wish to acknowledge and address the concerns of local residents and environmentalists who have cared many years for this sensitive area.
I look forward to your reply and trust the ‘Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee’ will reconsider re-routing the event.”
Regards,
(Bushcare Volunteer)
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23 Sep (Bushcare Volunteer):
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Dear ‘Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee’,
Further to my email of 14 September 2012, I note the following:
1. The ‘Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee’ did not reply to my email of 14 September 2012 below.
2. The ‘Trek for Timor’ event was not re-routed but instead went ahead on 15 September 2012 and crossed the creek adjacent to Peckmans Road despite ongoing prior concerns, requests, a suggested feasible alternative route and opportunities not to do so.
3. A ‘Trek for Timor’ notice erected next to the entrance of upper Katoomba Falls Sports Oval acknowledged that “there will be a high volume of walkers” participating in the “Trek for Timor” event.
4. Despite the ‘Trek for Timor’ event being advertised as a “walking” event, a number of participants were instead seen running the event, including at the creek crossing. These participants were also strongly encouraged to do so by ‘Trek for Timor’ marshals.
5. As indicated on the ‘Trek for Timor’ web site, the ‘Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee’ (together with Blue Mountains City Council) was prepared to re-route participants up Cliff Drive and onto Birdwood Avenue in the event that Prince Henry Cliff Walk was closed during the event yet did not want to re-route the event along a safer stretch of road to prevent a creek crossing. I note locals consider Cliff Drive and Birdwood Avenue to be very dangerous roads for pedestrian use due to the number of sharp bends, the steep slope, the lack of safe pedestrian access and the speed and size of vehicles that utilise these roads.
Consequently, I consider the ‘Trek for Timor’ event has caused environmental damage to the creek adjacent to Peckmans Road and its riparian vegetation. In addition, I consider that the ‘Trek for Timor Blue Mountains Organising Committee’ disregards local community concerns including the community’s efforts in protecting and restoring environmentally sensitive areas for more than twenty years.
I trust future “Trek for Timor” events will no longer take place in Upper Kedumba River Valley.
Yours faithfully,
(Bushcare Volunteer)
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Eroded creek crossing along Trek For Timor route
[Photo taken 20120915, published with permission]
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Editorial Comments:
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[1] There appears to have been no community consultation process facilitated by either the Blue Mountains Council or Trek for Timor – genuine, fair, transparent or otherwise. Local interested stakeholders such as local Bushcare Groups appeared to have not been consulted in respect to the event itself and the route chosen. Bushcare Volunteer: “there has been no local input given Blue Mountains City Council has neither informed the local community nor environmental groups of the proposed event.“
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[2] No environmental assessment appears to have been conducted by the Blue Mountain Council or by the local New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. Trek For Timor’s claim of there being “strict guidelines and requirements from Council” are not publicly available. What are the “strict guidelines and requirements from Council”, if any?
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[3] The decision by Blue Mountains Council to allow the course route to traverse a sensitive creek watercourse that is under remediation as a Bushcare site is contrary to the ecological restoration and native habitat conservation objectives of Bushcare. The creek site is within 200 metres upstream of Katoomba Falls and the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. There appear to be no control limits on the numbers of participants and their support crews.
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[4] The cumulative impacts of tramping and soiling by the Trek for Timor and other similar running events upon the local natural environment appear to have not been environmentally assessed. Any such assessment outcomes by Council’s Environment Sustainability Officer is not readily available on either the Blue Mountains Council website or on the Trek for Timor website.
Similar running events through the natural bushland of the Blue Mountains that have been approved by Blue Mountains Council in recent years are:
‘Running Wild is keen to provide NSW runners with opportunities to regularly run on trails and where better than in the Blue Mountains National Park. The park covers a huge area and is already known for great races such as the Woodford to Glenbrook, the Six Foot Track and The North Face 100, but there are many other excellent trails out there, just waiting to be run. Our vision is to bring new and exciting trail races to all runners, which is also good for us, as it gives the committee a really good excuse to get out on the trails and run more, to find even better trails to share.”
Northface 100 competitors head off on a similar route through the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
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[5] The current trend of adventure recreation and adventure tourism have not been adequately assessed by the government custodians of the environmentally sensitive and ecologically important vegetation communities in which these activities have been allowed. Adventure Tourism is an ongoing threat to the integrity and health of native habitat.
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Blue Mountains National Park sign at Katoomba along the route
The custodians of the National Park have abandoned their core conservation values for tourism
[Photo by Editor 20120706, licenced under ^Creative Commons]
"We're coming to you from the custodial lands of the Hairygowogulator and Tarantulawollygong, and pay respects to uncle and grandaddy elders past, present and emerging from their burrows. So wise to keep a distance out bush."
Minke Whale mother and her calf
Japanese ICR Whale Blood Sport
Japanese Men Only
[Source: Sea Shepherd]
Australian PM Kevin Rudd : ‘Whatever. You win’
to a stronger willed Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda.
(Photo: Glen McCurtayne)
Japanese Sport Whale Meat
… blood sport as usual.
Darkside Ecology: when ecological knowledge is applied to kill wildlife
..selling skills, selective statistics, academic theories and even convincing hand movements..and all.
…meanwhile, Japanese whale blood sport as usual…
Peace in Our Time
During his trip to Japan, Kevin Rudd emphasised the need for a diplomatic solution to the disagreement
[Source: ‘smith-defends-labors-whaling-strategy’, 20080615, Alan Moir cartoon, Sydney Morning Herald,
^http://www.smh.com.au/news/whale-watch/smith-defends-labors-whaling-strategy/2008/06/15/1213468229545.html]
Research has become an internationally interpreted Japanese word for
‘Whale Blood Sport’
A criminally violent blood sport
No-one wants the whale meat.
It is all about Japanese Men Only cultural barbarism
A culture that has long celebrated brutal killing
GPS confirms Japanese whaler illegally trespassing inside the Australia Exclusive Economic Zone
PM Kevin Rudd at the time did nothing about it.
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Japan uses grenade tipped harpoons
MV Brigitte Bardot – whale defender
Criminal Whaling
Once again, the male dominated Japanese Government turns its back on its own
Click image to play video
Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Crew
in search of Japanese Whale Killing Ships
Voluntarily undertaking the job of the Australian Government.
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With the right kick-arse arsenal..
..like this Finnish-engineered Sako TRG42, with an effective range of over 800 metres against poachers.. ‘ our troubles here would be over very quickly’.
