The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll entitled ‘US Republican Katherine Harris – a Presbyterian ‘pro-lifer’ who treats animals like this!‘ and published on CanDoBetter.net 20091129.
Animal Cruelty by US Republican Katherine HarrisThe woman should have a criminal record and be prohibited for life from holding public office
(Photo: AP)
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In rural Wassau in the southern US state of Florida, the Wausau Possum Festival has become an annual summertime folk festival over the past forty years. This event is said to celebrate the role of the opossum in the survival of the populace of Northwest Florida during the depression. Aside from the music, a key feature is the fundraising possum auction for the local Wausau Development Club, which involves holding opossums by their tail. Possum is served up as a main fare.
The Virginia oppossum (Didelphis virginiana Kerr) is the only marsupial native to the south eastern region of North America and extending through Central America.
American Republican politician Katherine Harris of Florida is shown here in August 2006 during her campaigning for the 2006 Florida United States Senate election, holding a possum by the tail and is said to have bid $400 at the so-called ‘possum auction’.
According to the festival’s sick tradition, every election year, national and statewide candidates in Florida must prove they are good country folk by mistreating a possum at the Wausau Possum Festival. “Candidates bid for a possum, taking it out of a holding area by its tail and giving it a shake to terrify the creature into going limp so it won’t claw them. They’re later fed and released into the wild“.
The following advertisement by Pfizer Australia appeared in The Land newspaper on 22nd September 2011 in the ‘Livestock’ section on page 70. It was promoting Pfizer’s pharmaceutical vaccine product Gudair® Vaccine for the control of Ovine Johnes Disease (OJD) infecting Australian sheep.
The ODJ Menace may well be a threat to sheep flocks, but Wolves have got nothing to do with ODJ nor with Australian sheep!
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Wolves have got absolutely nothing to do with Ovine Johne’s Disease.
Wolves don’t even exist in Australia. They are native to continental Europe and Northern America where in fact the Gray Wolf continues to be persecuted and where Pfizer is headquartered, in New York City.
Ovine Johne’s Disease is a serious wasting disease that affects a wide range of animals, including cattle, sheep and goats in Australia. It is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium paratuberculosis) that live mainly in animal intestines but can also survive in the outside environment for several months.
This is the cause of Ovine Johne’s Disease, the bacteria ‘Mycobacterium paratuberculosis’
[Source: ‘Detection of Mycobacterium avium spp. paratuberculosis (Map) in samples of sheep paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease or JD) and human Crohn’s disease (CD) using liquid phase RT-PCR, in situ RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry’, by S. Roccaemail, T. Cubeddu, A.M. Nieddu, S. Pirino, S. Appino, E. Antuofermo, F. Tanda, R. Verin, L.A. Sechi, E. Taccini, A. Leoni published online 20 January 2010, Small Ruminant Research, ^http://www.smallruminantresearch.com/article/S0921-4488%2809%2900292-2/abstract]
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Pfizer’s advertised image above of an angry Gray Wolf is misleading, grossly inappropriate and unethical. It wrongly and unfairly demonises the wolf species as a predatory threat to Australia sheep. Wolves are not a threat to Australia sheep. They do not exist in Australia.
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Wolves have been persecuted since before Medieval times in Europe. The feelings of disdain and condemnation they held toward the wolf came from England and other parts of Europe in the form of fables, fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood), and so-called true stories that sometimes reached mythological proportions. The European hatred of the wolf was the result of much more than fantastical tales of the animal’s criminal nature.
Wolf Prejudice dates back to Little Red Riding Hood A Grimms Brothers fairy tale inculcating the ‘Big Bad Wolf ‘ fear to impressionable children
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During European colonisation of northern Americas, European puritan Pilgrims thought they had a great moral, religious, and economic duty to subdue the wolf, along with taming the ‘wild west’ wilderness, wholesale deforestation of forests and popping off ‘tribal savages’, otherwise known as Native Americans. The Puritans regarded the wilderness itself as a howling beast, a wolf inspired by the Devil.
So having established the wolf as a representative symbol of unkempt nature, evil, criminality, animalistic desires, and even cruelty, it was natural that America’s newcomers felt a strong moral duty to exterminate wolves. Wolfing, trapping, poisoning, denning, shooting has killed off thousands of wolves. In 1905, cattle ranchers in Montana won passage of a law that required the state veterinarian to infect captive wolves with the sarcoptic mange and release them into wild wolf habitat (Williams 1990).
This irrational cultural hatred of wolves has perpetuated unchecked across northern American through three centuries, forcing the Gray Wolf to the brink of extinction, like the Bison.
The ultimate effect of these predator control campaigns virtually extirpated of the wolf in the United States. In May 1943, the last wolf killed in Yellowstone fell to the rifle of a local cattleman (Loomis 1995). By 1945, the only wolves left in the Western United States were stragglers (Lopez 1978) were all but gone. Except for a small population in northern Minnesota and a few on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, wolves no longer existed in the lower forty-eight states (Lopez 1978).
Gray wolves once roamed the United States from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wolves were intensively killed in staggering numbers, eradicating them from almost all of the lower-48 by the 1930s. Today, wolves have mounted a comeback, but their recovery is far from certain. Congress, for example, recently kicked wolves in Idaho and Montana off the endangered species list, which opens the door for hundreds of wolves to be killed.
Alaska’s brutal ‘Predator Control Plan’
serving hunters at Nature’s expense – the Grey Wolf is native to Alaska.
The plan has already been in effect for three years, during which time aerial gunners have slain 564 wolves,
all of whom have faced horrors beyond the pale of traditional hunting methods.
[Source: In Defense of Animals, USA’, Read More: ^http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/wildlife/alaskan_wolf.html]
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Pfizer’s wolf persecuting advertisement incites a public hate message against wolves. It is symptomatic of a Baby Boomer attitude of domination over Nature inherited from ancestral ignorance and perpetuated in childhood by being read ‘Little Red Riding Hood‘ as children. Even in this fairy tale, the wolf was used a a metaphor for evil men. May this Grimms Brothers book be banned for children!
Pfizer management, its advertiser and the owners of The Land newspaper should withdraw the advertisement and make a public apology for denigrating wildlife and perpetuating a primitive fear against Wolves. Pfizer claims that it:
“incorporates protection of the environment, health and safety (EHS) into how we run our business. Environment, Health and Safety policy commitments set our direction and align with our company mission. Our policy is brought to life through strategic and operational decisions made daily by thousands of colleagues, guided by company values and effective management systems.”
Australia’s tradition of the ‘Wood Fire’ is ecologically destructive
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During Australia’s winter months, many in older homes habitually yearn for the warmth and glow of a traditional Wood Fire, and so utilise their open fire places and wood heaters. So habitually, upon the onset of winter people stock up on Firewood. It is a cultural yearning for the nostalgia of the Wood Fire – warm, earthy, dancing flames, flickering, spark spitting, the woodsmoke – we’ve all been there, it is tantalising and it feels right because it is natural – the ancient campfire tradition across humanity. In doing the Wood Fire ritual, we seek to rekindle our connection to Nature.
The warmth and glow of a traditional Open Fire
…but the demand is driving deforestation of Ironbark Forests
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In earlier times when a few hundred of us settled in a given forest region, few forest resources were taken and so the forests replenished and seemed to cope. The forests were naturally resilient.
But as subsequent human hoards have invaded the land, and have bred and sprawled across the countryside in the hundreds of thousands, we have deforested entire forests in the process. These forests haven’t coped with the devastation. No forest could cope.
Australia’s native forests have been hacked, logged, burned and bulldozed into agrarian pasture to the horizon. Australia’s original blanket vegetation cover has been reduced to sad islands barely able to support wildlife habitat and in many cases causing extinctions – locally, regionally and nationally. All one needs do is a Google Earth search to appreciate the devastation on the natural landscape.
A legacy of forestry
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Humanity’s sheer numbers and the encouraged consumption rate of Australians risk exacerbating the deforestation. Contemporary Australia is simply extending and perpetuating the old colonial exploitive mindset and a lifestyle reminiscent of 19th Century invading colonists.
The cultural heritage of the Wood Fire is necessarily contributing to this deforestation, particularly to Australia’s native Box-Ironbark Forests.
For Australians to continue to yearn for the glow, warmth and woodsmoke of the traditional Wood Fire now that we number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and so the aggregate consumption of timber for firewood has simply become unsustainable. Our native forests have become too small and disparate to sustain wildlife breeding.
The few shrinking native forests that our forebears and their frenzied clearing have left us, simply are disappearing. Australia’s remnant native forests continue to be destroyed by us just to serve this selfish cultural yearning for earthy nostalgia of the Wood Fire. The same applies to all woodheaters.
A classic wood fire in an old style open fireplace
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The Australian Wood Fire cultural imperative through winter has become a driver of forest extinctions. There have become too many of us wanting tonnes of the forest to burn in our open fires and wood heaters, and too few forests left.
Australia’s firewood demand is driving deforestation. There is estimated to be around 800,000 wood heaters and 700,000 open fire places in Australia (ANZECC, 2001). There combined use is unsustainable and has got to stop! We need to question this inherited and habitual Open Fire/Woodheater culture and the devastating impact it is causing to our native forests.
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“One of the hidden environmental issues affecting Australia’s woodlands, the collection of firewood, is starting to be revealed. CSIRO has prepared a report, Impact and Use of Firewood in Australia, pointing out alarming environmental problems. For example, up to 6 million tonnes of fuelwood is consumed in Australia each year – double the amount of annual exports of eucalypt woodchips!”
Firewood taken from a native forest for personal use is one thing. The scale and severity of adverse impact upon forest ecology will vary according to the amount taken and the ecological sensitivity of the place it is taken from. Few domestic takers of firewood will be qualified ecologists and so will have no or little comprehension or respect for such impacts.
A private firewood stack
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According to the CSIRO, up to 5.5 million tonnes of timber is harvested annually for Australian domestic firewood use. When industrial firewood use is included, the total amount rises 20% to between 6-7 million tonnes. This weight is roughly double the amount of eucalypt currently exported annually from Australia as woodchips. About half of all domestic firewood is collected by the consumer and 84% of domestic firewood is collected on private property. [CSIRO, 2000]
Across Australia, access to State Forests is unfettered and the collecting of firewood for personal (domestic) consumption is an uncontrolled free-for-all, little improved from the exploitative mindset of Australia’s early and more ignorant colonists.
Australian colonial ‘progress’
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Deforestation by firewood taking is perhaps not as broadscale and well known as the Conservation Movement’s exposure of state-sanctioned Industrial Logging by the likes of Australian state government departments:
‘VicForests‘ (Victoria)
‘Forests NSW‘ (New South Wales)
‘Forestry SA‘ (South Australia)
‘Forestry Tasmania‘ (Tasmania)
‘Forests and Wood‘ (Queensland)
‘Forests Products Commission‘ (West Australia)
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Or is it?
It is Australia’s Commercial Firewood Industry that contributes to the demise of Australia’s remnant native forests by its ‘death by a thousand cuts‘. Commercial Firewood entails the direct taking of wood from Australia’s native forests for commercial sale and profit. It is of a scale far greater than domestic forewood collecting, but where are the statistics kept and publicised by the Australian Government?
Just as demand for firewood drive supply, the artificial low economic cost of firewood encourages demand volume. Since firewood is sold a low cost, it competes favourably with jalternatiuve sources of fuel, such as gas and electricity, for domestic heating. Commercial firewood suppliers also deliberately appeal to the Wood Fire cultural image to encourage their firewood sales. Suppliers and consusmers thus feed off each other at low cost and high volumes, and so more native forests lose out.
A commercial firewood stack
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The low or no cost availability of timber from State Forests Native timber means that the industry operates on an industrial scale taking vast quantities of timber, particularly from the preferred hardwood Box-Ironbark Forests and the like. The Commerical Firewood Industry is encouraged by the Australian Government and by all state governments, which ignore the practice as if Australia’s natuve forests are unlimited, as if it had no adverse ecological impact upon the forest ecologies, as if it didn’t matter, as if there were no tomorrow.
Commercial Firewood Production
Norwegian Hakki-Pilke industrial machinery enables an industrial scale operation
[Source: Mascus Australia, ^http://www.mascus.com.au/]
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Across Australia, each state government issues cheap permits for collecting firewood from State Forests.
This reflects:
A cultural disregard for the values of Australia’s disappearing forest ecologies up to Prime Ministerial and Cabinet level
The inadequacies of State laws to protect forest ecology
An antiquainted colonist mindset persisting throughout the dominating Liberal and Labor parties.
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The ecological impacts and the plethora of ecological advice and warnings about the destructive impacts of logging on forest ecology are being ignored. Australia’s Commercial Firewood Industry fuels demand for cheap firewood and in the process exacerbates Australia’s deforestation.
Australia’s Firewood Industry is unsustainable and has got to be nationally controlled. We need to challenge this exploitative industry and correct ignorant government policies. We need to find alternatives to the Wood Fire to stem the devastation of Australia’s remaining native forests and to help prevent more wildlife extinctions.
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‘Forest Eco-theft’ involves the immoral taking of timber from a native forest, especially in large industrial quantities, for commercial gain and incurring no or little economic cost to the taker. The intended or actual use of the timber is irrelevent, but may include logs, firewood, craft timber, or woodchips. The greater the timber volume taken, the greater impact upon a forest and so the more serious the Eco-theft.
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‘Eco-theft’ is only different to criminal theft because of the colonist exploitative mindset of current governments rejecting native forest having ecological value worthy of protection under the Crimes Act.
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An industrial scale Hakki-Pilke firewood processor from Norway
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Forest Eco-theft in an environment of dwindling forest habitat has become a key threatening process. At the current rate of Forest Eco-theft, Australia’s native forests fueling our pleasure for earthy glows and hearth warmth, will be gone.
Firewood Logging simply destroys forest habitat and contributes to the demise and local extinctions of threatened and endangered wildlife. Australia’s flora and fauna deaths and ultimate extinctions has become infamy – Australia currently has the worst record of mammalian extinctions on the planet, and the Firewood culture is contributing to it.
Many consumers of firewood either actively couldn’t care, or else passively turn an insular blind eye to the adverse ecological impacts of firewood harvesting. Our Australian Government ignores the firewood deforestation problem, avoiding it for party political convenience – immorally, irresponsibly and unrepresentingly.
Just as Poaching Wildlife is immoral, so too is Forest Eco-theft. Both these exploitative practices hark to colonial times and need to be banned.
Firewood Logging of State Forest near Taralga NSW in 2006.
(along the Goulbourn-Oberon Road, just west of the Blue Mountains)
“This is in the habitat of Diuris aequalis. Had a fair result after two visits to this site and three submissions to local Council. Department of Environment and Conservation have imposed rigid conditions on this business.”
[Source: ‘Habitat – Protection or Destruction‘, 2006, by Alan W Stephenson, Conservation Director, Australian Orchid Council Inc.
^http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/article_%20conservation_no3.htm]
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Why choose ‘Ironbark Firewood’ ?
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Why choose Ironbark Firewood ? Why not choose an alternative sources of fuel for home heating? Never thought to question the legitimacy of your fuel?
Here’s the justification by one firewood supplier as to why one should choose Ironbark Firewood:
‘Long Burning. Harder to start but will burn 6 – 8 hours. These timbers are the slowest growing and the hardest of all hardwoods.’
‘Very little ash. Clean out fire only once per season approximately.’
‘Strong Burning. Cannot be put out even if the vent closed, unless water is used.’
A classic Ironbark ‘Open Fire’
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The most common type of firewood commerically sold and promoted in the eastern Australian states is Ironbark Firewood. This is typically sourced from Box-Ironbark Forests (native grassy woodlands).
According to the Firewood Association of Australia (FAA), Ironbark and Box are the preferred firewood in Queensland, while in Victoria, southern NSW and South Australia, River Red Gum is preferred. Jarrah and Wandoo hardwood timbers are preferred in Western Australia, while in Tasmania, Brown Peppermint is considered the best firewood.
Sydney’s Firewood has been linked to ongoing Queensland land clearing, and in Queensland successive backward state governments have an ignoble reputation for land clearing like there’s no tomorrow.
Landclearing in Queensland has become the major supplier of Sydney’s quality firewood. Most of Sydney’s big firewood companies now rely on the Sunshine State for a significant proportion of ironbark and box logs – highly sought-after timbers because of their density. The National Parks Association says firewood from endangered Queensland woodlands is being used in homes across New South Wales.
Back in 2001, the National Parks Association of NSW called on the NSW Government to limit the State’s use of firewood following revelations that most of the wood sold by Sydney’s big firewood companies comes from clearing of Queenslands threatened Ironbark and Box woodlands.
Ironbark Woodland of Central Queensland
[Australia Natural Resource Atlas]
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At the time, Mr Charlie Spiteri, the owner of Betta Burn Firewood, one of the biggest suppliers in Sydney, refused to reveal how much firewood he supplies each year but estimates that the Sydney region, including Katoomba, consumes about 100,000 tonnes.
Commercial Firewood stockpile
(click photo to enlarge)
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Spiteri said about a third of his supply was sourced from Queensland, where the wood is worth between $40 and $50 a cubic metre. By the time the freight reaches Sydney, it is worth up to $125 and is being snapped up. “People are choosing ironbark and box and we have to go where the timber is,” Mr Spiteri said.
Other major sources of hardwoods for Betta Burn include the Pilliga State Forest in north-west NSW and private properties in the Nyngan area.
Executive officer at the National Parks Association (NSW), Mr Andrew Cox, said:
“Firewood collecting is the second largest threat to Australia’s temperate woodlands after land clearing. Now its being linked to landclearing!” “We know little about the impacts of firewood collecting and governments have been slow to take an interest. Most firewood consumers are unaware of where their wood comes from or the huge impact it has on threatened animals, birds and reptiles.”
“The firewood industry is large, but mostly unknown”, said Andrew Cox, NPA Executive Officer. “About 1,500,000 tonnes of firewood are used by New South Wales each year, exceeding the State’s yearly combined production of sawlogs and woodchips.”
“Firewood collecting targets slow-growing ecosystems and some of their most important components. Eucalypt species such as ironbark, box and red gum are the most favoured firewood sources.”
“We need to move away from the need to ‘clean-up’ a forest or woodland and instead look at dead wood as an important ecological component – just as important as the living trees.”
“Its because we’re not properly managing the woodlands that a wave of bird extinctions is underway in central NSW. More than 20 woodland dependent birds are declining from their former range and may become extinct in NSW. “It’s not ecologically sound, it’s not sustainable and there are serious impacts on birds, on animals that depend on the hollows.”
But no-one knows for sure how much timber salvaged from the bulldozed woodlands of Queensland is making its way south of the border in convoys of semi-trailers. Firewood collection operates in a legal vacuum – especially on private land – and virtually no figures are kept for where wood is sourced or how it is collected.
[Source: ‘Sydney’s Firewood Linked to Queensland Land Clearing‘, by Andrew Cox, Executive Officer, National Parks Association of NSW, 20010428, ^http://dazed.org/npa/press/20010428firewood.htm]
A typical commercial firewood truck – 2 tonne?
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Since then, over a decade ago, what has changed? Anything? Nothing? Has the problem gotten worse?
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83% of the original Box-Ironbark Forests have gone
In Victoria, few forest and woodland ecosystems are as poorly represented in parks and reserves as the distinctive Box-Ironbark ecosystems of northern Victoria.
Since European settlement these forests and woodlands have been extensively cleared and fragmented for agriculture, urban development and gold mining, and cut for a variety of wood products. They once covered three million hectares of northern Victoria, but 83% of the original Box-Ironbark vegetation has now been cleared.
Original distribution of grassy woodlands across New South Wales
(Dominated by Box-Ironbark Forests)
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Not only have the forests and woodlands been mostly cleared, but what is left is highly modified from its original structure and is also very fragmented. These remaining forests and woodlands are mostly on public land and these areas are ecologically important for a rich diversity of flora and fauna, many of which are rare or threatened.
Box-Ironbark forests and woodlands are highly accessible and the visitor is rewarded by a vibrant array of bird species, carpets of wildflowers in Spring, the rich aroma of eucalypt nectar, and many sites of historical and cultural interest. Despite their apparent uniformity, these forests actually have great diversity with around 1 500 species of higher plants and over 250 vertebrate species recorded in the region; many are largely restricted to Box-Ironbark forests and woodlands.
Some 297 Box-Ironbark plant species and 53 animal species are now classified as extinct, threatened or near-threatened. In addition, at least ten plant and animal species are known to have disappeared from the study area since the 1840s, and numerous others have become locally extinct. It is also clear and of great concern that many species, particularly birds, are known to be still declining.
Accordingly, a key feature of Box-Ironbark nature conservation is the promotion of ‘recovery’ for many species, rather than simply maintaining the status quo. Many Australian animals are dependent upon large, old eucalypt trees which contain the hollows required for shelter and breeding. At least six of the threatened Box-Ironbark fauna species are strongly dependent upon these trees. The massive loss of large old trees over the last 150 years is strongly implicated in the decline of these species and perhaps many others. It is therefore recommended that as well as protecting existing large old trees, additional measures be taken to ensure that there will, over time, be more large old trees in the forests.
Ironbark is a preferred firewood in eastern Australia because it burns longer and hotter, so Australia’s native Ironbark forests continue to be logged for firewood.
Ironbark firewood stack, commercially cut and split ready for domestic delivery
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The Australian hardwood timber industry now mainly relies upon plantation timbers and sustainable forestry management practices. Australian Ironbark Flooring retails at a premium price at typically over $80/m2 at 19mm thick. If that square meter of flooring was stacked one metre high to achieve a cubic metre, the calculated retail price for a cubic metre would be (1000m/19mm = 50 layers of flooring roughly, making the retail price for a cubic metre of Ironbark flooring around $80 x 50 = $5600/m3!
Expensive Ironbark Flooring
Sourced from sustainable plantation timber, unaffordable to the Commercial Firewood Industry,
so firewood suppliers take the Ironbark out of State Forests instead.
[Source: Northern Rivers Timber, ^http://www.northernriverstimber.com.au/gallery.php]
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But commercial suppliers of firewood do not own plantation timber, nor do they buy their firewood from plantation timber growers. They certainly do not pay $5,600/m3 for firewood.
Commercial firewood is generally sold at considerable profit at under $160/m3, reducing in price according to volume purchased. Why would an commercial grower of plantation Ironbark hardwood sell the timber for firewood at $160/m3, when as flooring the typical market price is a factor of some 35 times greater at $5600/m3?
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Commercial Firewood taken from native forests means that the $160 selling price is nearly all profit!
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Australia’s commercial firewood instead is simply taken from Australia’s native hardwood forests. It is simply taken from State Forests at no cost to the commercial operator, except for a pultry token permit fee. That is why it is sold so cheaply.
This is why firewood remains a cheap affordable source for domestic household heating. But the cost is artifically economic and excludes the ecological cost.
How is this not Forest Eco-Theft? If the suppliers of Ironbark Firewood had to pay hardwood plantation owners a fair wholesale price for firewood, at such a high price their business model would be unviable. Firewood suppliers only exist because their business model relies upon firewood theft from dwindling State Forests, which continues to go unpoliced and ignored by the Australian Government.
Industrial Firewood Industry
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Where do YOU get your FIREWOOD from?
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Where do you get your firewood from?
Is it legal or eco-stolen?
Is it accredited?
What is Australia’s Firewood Industry doing to protect Australia’s long exploited and dwindling Ironbark Forests from firewood theft by firewood suppliers?
What is the Australian Government doing to prevent firewood theft from State Forests?
What is the Australian Government doing to monitor and control Australia’s firewood industry?
Who in the Australian Government monitors the integrity and ecological protection of State Forests across New South Wales and indeed across Australia?
Where is the ongoing review and analysis into the ecological health of Box-Ironbark Forests (Grassy Woodlands) across New South Wales and Victoria?
Why are the statistics on firewood theft from State Forests not collected and publicised?
Who polices and penalises deforestation of State Forests?
How many people are caught and fined/gaoled for deforestation of State Forests
Isn’t it illegal to steal firewood from State Forests – living trees or deadwood?
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At the time of publication of this article, the New South Wales Government’s official website on Environment and specifically on Threatened Species reads:
“There has been a serious system failure on the threatened species website (www.threatenedspecies.nsw.gov.au) and it is no longer available”
Pile of Ironbark Firewood cut and split ready for domestic delivery
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In the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, the local newspaper advertises numerous suppliers of firewood, particularly at the onset of winter, and particularly promoting Ironbark Firewood as the premium product as follows:
Firewood suppliers advertising in the Blue Mountains Gazette, 20120516
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But from where do these firewood suppliers source their firewood?
Not one of the above advertisements provides any proud statement about sourcing their wood ecologically responsibly, nor about being ecologically accredited. The default presumption thus is that none of these suppliers is environmentally responsible, nor accredited. So don’t buy from any of them!
Is the advertised firewood sourced illegally from Australia’s disappearing Box-Ironbark Forests, and so exacerbating the deforestation problem? How do we know it isn’t?
How simple is it for any common thief to buy a chainsaw, drive out to a patch of State Forest in a ute or in a truck or with a trailer in tow, then chainsaw several trees in a Box-Ironbark Forest, paying nothing for them, then flog the wood for personal profit? Too easy! Anyone can buy a chainsaw from a local garden tool supplier, even a kid. There are no chainsaw laws in Australia. It is treated like buying secateurs. Bunnings sells cheap chainsaws brand-new for just $200!
So armed with a trailer and chainsaw, a common thief has a lucrative business, one ignored by the Australian Government. With firewood retailing from $160/cubic metre, it is a nice little earner. This exploitative immoral trade in Ironbark Forest ecology is negligently condoned by the Australian Government and state governments.
A native tree cut for firewood (Blackheath Fire Brigade, Rural Fire Service, Blue Mountains, November 2011)
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‘Forest Eco-theft’ wiping out Ironbark Habitat
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Logs have life inside
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‘Collecting firewood is one of humankind’s oldest activities. Australians enjoy the beauty and warmth of a wood fire, and in many regional areas wood fires are the only practical source of heating.
Dead trees, often with hollows, make popular firewood as they are seasoned and burn well. But firewood collection comes at a cost to the environment, the consequences of which may not be entirely understood for years. Many firewood users are unaware of the ecological price of collecting dead trees and fallen logs. Often they mistakenly think they are just keeping the forest or farm tidy.
Firewood harvesting has an effect on our native woodlands, and a variety of threatened species. Dead standing and fallen timber provides crucial habitat for numerous species of animals and birds. It is now recognised that the removal of this wood for firewood is contributing to a significant loss of wildlife, particularly in the woodlands of south-eastern Australia. It is not just native animals that benefit from old wood left lying on the ground. This debris is valuable shelter for stock too. How many times have you found a newborn calf or lamb against an old log safe from the weather?
Habitat Tree of critical value to wildlife…destroyed by Forestry NSW
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Not only does standing and fallen dead wood provide important habitat for animals and birds, it also plays an essential role in maintaining forest and woodland nutrient cycles. Scientists from the CSIRO believe that dead wood is at least as important as living trees, fallen leaves and soil for the maintenance oif ecological processes sustaining biodiversity.’
[Source: ‘Are you burning their homes to warm yours?‘, a brochure questioning the dependency on firewood), by The National Heritage Trust. The Natural Heritage Trust (the Trust) was set up by the Australian Government under the Natural Heritage Trust Act 1997 to help restore and conserve Australia’s environment and natural resources. The Trust had three overarching objectives: (1) Biodiversity Conservation, (2) Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, and (3) Community Capacity Building and Institutional Change. The Natural Heritage Trust ceased on 30 June 2008. It has been replaced by Caring for our Country, but taking supplanting a natural heritage conservation philosophy with a more anthropocentric utilitarian ‘resource management’ philosopy, ^http://www.nrm.gov.au/]
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Cleaning up some messy dead timber – through whose eyes? Nature is naturally ‘messy’
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The Regent Honeyeater has become a ‘flagship species’ for conservation issues in the box-ironbark forest region of Victoria and New South Wales.
Regent Honeyeater (Anthochaera-phrygia)
Nationally listed as ‘Endangered‘.
Listed as endangered in Queensland and New South Wales, while in Victoria it is listed as threatened.
[Source: ^http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Anthochaera-phrygia]
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Australia’s native Regent Honeyeater, was formerly more widely distributed in south-eastern mainland Australia from Rockhampton, Queensland to Adelaide, South Australia, but is now confined to Victoria and New South Wales, and is strongly associated with the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range. Its natural habitat is eucalypt forests and woodlands, including Box-Ironbark Forests.
The Regent Honeyeater has been badly affected by land-clearing, with the clearance of the most fertile stands of nectar-producing trees and the poor health of many remnants, as well as competition for nectar from other honeyeaters, being the major problems. Birds Australia is helping to conserve Regent Honeyeaters as part of its Woodland Birds for Biodiversity project.
‘This report contains the ECC’s recommendations for public land use in the Box-Ironbark area of northern Victoria, extending from Stawell to Wodonga. The recommendations incorporate those for parts of the LCC’s North Central, Murray Valley and adjoining areas.’ (>Read Report, PDF 6.6MB – large file may be slow to load)
‘Tarkine Tasmania: wild, unique, diverse’
(A photographic essay of exploration into this unique wilderness)
Images and text courtesy of Jenny Archer and Jen Evans
Purchase book: ^http://www.tarkineimages.com.au/purchase.html
[$5 from every copy sold will be donated to the Tarkine National Coalition – an organisation committed to protecting the Tarkine]
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The unique Tarkine
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Tasmania’s Tarkine Wilderness is one of the few remaining wild temperate rainforest regions left on the planet!
‘The Tarkine‘ is named after the Tarkiner people who traditionally inhabited the region from 30,000 years ago. It stretches from Tasmania’s wild coastline to the west, the Arthur River to the north, the Pieman River to the south, and the Murchison Highway to the east.
The Tarkine contains remarkable natural and cultural values, including one of the world’s most significant remaining tracts of temperate rainforest. The Tarkine covers an expansive 447,000 hectare (4,470 km2) wilderness region of recognised World Heritage significance up in the North-West corner of Tasmania, containing the largest temperate (Myrtle-Beech) rainforest in Australia.
Tasmania’ Tarkine Wilderness is indeed ‘wild, unique and diverse‘.
Myrtle Beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii)
An evergreen tree native to Victoria and Tasmania, but hardly any now left in Victoria.Typically grow to 30–40 metres (98–130 feet) tall
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The Tarkine is the largest surviving region of Nothofagus Forest left on the planet
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The Tarkine compared internationally
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‘The Tarkine‘ is the same size as internationally well-respected national parks:
New Zealand’s Kahurangi National Park (4,520 km2)
United States’ Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona (4,927 km2)
Indonesia’s Tanjung Puting National Park in southern Borneo (4,150 km2)
Scotland’s Cairngorms National Park (4,528 km2) …per map below:
Scotland has a Tarkine wilderness equivalent – ‘Cairngorms’ .. respected as a National Park
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Rare ancient Caledonian Forest in Cairngorms National Park, Scotland
(the same size as Tasmania’s Tarkine)
The Cairngorms National Park is special because it contains the best arctic-alpine landforms, habitats and species in Britain. This is one of the few places where wild nature is so easy to see and many of the plants and animals living here are at the extreme edges of their geographical ranges.
Compare TheCairngorms with The Tarkine of a similar size. The Tarkine is a relict from the ancient super-continent, Gondwanaland, characterised by highly diverse ecosystems from giant ancient forests to huge sand-dunes, sweeping beaches, rugged mountains and pristine river systems. [Sources: ^http://tarkine.org/, ^http://www.corinna.com.au/Story/Tarkine.aspx]
The Tarkine has more than 400 species of diverse flora, including a range of native orchids and many rare and threatened species. There are more than 250 vertebrate species of fauna, 50 of which are rare, threatened and vulnerable.
These include:
Spotted-tailed Quoll
Tasmanian Devil
Eastern Pygmy Possum
Wedge-tailed Eagle
White-breasted Sea Eagle
Grey Goshawk (white morph)
Giant Freshwater Lobster
Orange-bellied Parrot (on the brink of extinction)
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A now ‘Endangered‘ Tasmanian Devil captured on motion-sensitive camera
Walkers join forces with conservationists through Tasmania’s remote Tarkine rainforest to help bring the Tasmanian Devil back from the brink of extinction.
[Source: ‘Tourists to use cameras to help save Tasmanian Devil’ by Dominic Bates, The Guardian (UK), guardian.co.uk, 20120203, Read More: ^http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/03/tourist-cameras-save-tasmanian-devil]
(Photo courtesy of Tarkine Trails, Feb 2012)
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The Cairngorms are similarly ancient, a glacial landscape formed 40 million years before the last Ice Age. The area also features a rare ancient woodland, the Caledonian Forest, as well as unique alpine semi-tundra moorland habitat.
The moorland provides important habitat to many rare plants, birds including Ospreys, breeding Ptarmigan, Dotterel, Snow Bunting, Golden Eagle, Ring Ouzel, and Red Grouse, with Snowy Owl, Twite, Purple Sandpiper and Lapland Bunting seen on occasion. The Caledonian Forest supports rare birds such as the endangered Capercaillie and endemic Scottish Crossbill (found nowhere else on the planet), the Parrot Crossbill and the Crested Tit.
The Scottish Crossbill..unique to the Cairngorms
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The Cairngorms is also home to:
Red Deer
Roe Deer
Mountain Hare
Pine Marten
Red Squirrel
Wild Cat
Otter
as well as the only herd of Reindeer in the British Isles..
Meanwhile, The Tarkine is home to more than 130 different species of birds during the seasons throughout its variety of habitat types and landscapes. This includes eleven of Tasmania’s twelve endemic birds. The two migratory species that breed only in Tasmania, the ‘Endangered‘ Swift Parrot, and the ‘Critically Endangered‘ Orange-bellied Parrot, forage in the Tarkine.
Orange–bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster)
critically dependent upon The Tarkine
In 2010 it was ranked by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Services as one of the world’s rarest and most endangered species and “on the brink of extinction“
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Orange-bellied Parrot numbers down to about 20 individuals in existence!
Watch ABC News ^Video (February 2012)
The Orange-bellied Parrot breeds in south-west Tasmania and migrates along the west coast (The Tarkine) and forages on coastal plants. Consequently the Tarkine’s coastal vegetation is extremely important habitat. The endangered Swift Parrot breeds predominantly in south-east Tasmania and feeds on the nectar from the Tasmanian Blue Gum, and in the Tarkine, the Swift Parrot forages on these trees during the post-breeding dispersal and migration season.
The Tarkine’s bird species richness is correlated to the Tarkine’s rich habitat diversity; the sea, coastal shores, freshwater wetlands, streams and estuaries, heathland-moorland mosaic of the coastal plains, woodland and open forests, wet eucalypt forests, mixed forest and extensive rainforest.’
The Cairngorms ecological values were recognised and protected as a National Park (NP) by the new Scottish Parliament in 2003. [Read More: ^www.cairngormscampaign.org]
But unlike the Cairngorms NP, Kahurangi NP, Grand Canyon NP and Tanjung Puting NP, just less than 5% of The Tarkine is protected as a National Park. Within the Tarkine region’s 4,470 km2, recognised as bounded by the coast to the west, the Arthur River to the north, the Pieman River to the south, and the Murchison Highway to the east, only Savage River National Park (180km2) , less than 5% of The Tarkine, provides any formal ecological protection.
The ‘Donaldson River Nature Recreational Reserve’, the ‘Meredith Range Recreational Reserve’ and the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area within The Tarkine offer no formal ecological protection and are open to mechanised recreational abuse. See map below. Propaganda by vested interests would have many believe that these reserves offer sufficient ecological protection, but such reserves permit multiple uses – motorised vehicular access including off-road, as well as road making, logging, burning, mining, poaching of wildlife, fishing, farming and tourism development – so effectively offering no ecological protection.
[Read the propaganda in The (Launceston) Examiner newspaper: ‘Mining heritage’, 20110320, ^http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/environment/mining-heritage/2108235.aspx?storypage=0]. The Examiner threatened: “If successful the campaign of the Tarkine National Coalition will perpetrate an injustice on local people leading to negative impacts on both the Tasmanian economy and the quality of life of its people.”
What scaremongering crock! But then who are the readership and who are the sources of advertising revenue of The Examiner?
Savage River National Park is described by the Tasmanian Government’s Parks and Wildlife Service as follows:
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‘Savage River National Park is a wilderness region in the north west of Tasmania. The park protects the largest contiguous area of cool temperate rainforest surviving in Australia and acts as a refuge for a rich primitive flora, undisturbed river catchments, high quality wilderness, old growth forests, geodiversity and natural landscape values.
The western portion of the park includes the most extensive basalt plateaux in Tasmania that still retains a wholly intact forest ecosystem. The upper Savage River, which lends the park its name, runs through a pristine, rainforested river gorge system. The park contains habitat for a diverse rainforest fauna and is a stronghold for a number of vertebrate species which have suffered population declines elsewhere in Tasmania and mainland Australia.
The parks remoteness from human settlement and mechanised access, its undisturbed hinterland rivers and extensive rainforest, pristine blanket bog peat soils and isolated, elevated buttongrass moorlands ensure the wilderness character of the park. Like the vast World Heritage listed Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to its south, the area is one of the few remaining temperate wilderness areas left on Earth.
Unlike other national parks, Savage River National Park remains inaccessible. In keeping with its wilderness character, there are no facilities and no roads or mechanised access to the park. However, the park is surrounded by the Savage River Regional Reserve, in which a number of rough 4WD tracks provide limited access. To the north of the reserve, a number of State Forest Reserves can be accessed by standard vehicles. They offer an insight into the magnificent rainforest ecosystem that lies to the southeast within the Savage River National Park.’
But the above description is only a tiny snapshot of The Tarkine
The Tarkine still is undoubtedly one of the World’s great wild places
Giant Eucalyptus regnans of The Tarkine (click image to enlarge)
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The Tarkine’s World Heritage significance
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The Tarkine is a region of recognised World Heritage significance. It’s wilderness, vast rainforests, wildlife, landscapes and unique Aboriginal values are outstanding on a world scale.
However, the Tarkine is not protected as a National Park nor listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Only a fraction, less than 5%, of the Tarkine region is fully protected as a National Park. This means that many of the Tarkine’s outstanding natural and cultural values, are in dire peril due to repeated exploitation demands from industrial logging and more recently industrial mining.
These industrial threats mean that The Tarkine ecology could be lost forever!
Logging legacy in The Tarkine
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Attempts have been made to have The Tarkine listed not only as a National Park, but also as a World Heritage Listed Area.
Local conservation champions of The Tarkine, the Tarkine National Coalition (TNC) have produced an extensive proposal that would protect the Tarkine and its unique values as a National Park and World Heritage area, for all people, for all time, just like Kakadu NP and Cairngorms NP.
The Tarkine would become recognised as one of Australia’s great iconic wild places, allowing locals, visitors, walkers, photographers, scientists, the Aboriginal community and tourists alike to see, visit and experience this unique place.
A number of prominent bodies have recognised the World Heritage significance of the Tarkine:
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (1990)
The Tasmanian Department of Parks, Wildlife & Heritage (1990)
The Australian government recognised the Tarkine’s outstanding national significance through listing the Tarkine on the register of the National Estate Leading Tasmanian & Australian environment groups (including The Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation, amongst a wide range of others)
The Australian Senate formally and unanimously recognised the World Heritage significance of the Tarkine (2007).
For the Tarkine to be inscribed on the World Heritage list, it would need to be formally put forward to UNESCO (the United Nations Body) by the Australian Government. Yet, there has been a failure by successive Environment Minister’s to instruct the Australian Heritage Council to commence assessment of the World Heritage values contained within the Tarkine.
The natural ecological wealth of Tasmania’s Tarkine Wilderness
(Arthur River rainforest, Photo by Ted Mead)
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On 11 December 2009, Australia’s Environment Minister (then Peter Garrett MP) entered The Tarkine in Australia’s National Heritage List under the emergency listing provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This emergency listing lapsed in December 2010.
The Australian Heritage Council has since completed a preliminary assessment of The Tarkine and found that The Tarkine might have one or more National Heritage values. It is now up to Australia’s Environment Minister (currently Tony Burke MP) to decide whether The Tarkine, or areas within it, should be listed of Australia’s National Heritage List. So, the fate of this magnificent wild region, effectively Australia’s Amazon, rests with one man, Tony Burke MP.
Despite The Tarkine’s many unique ecological values, there are some who chose to ignore and dismiss The Tarkine for their own self-serving gain. Industrial Miners are seeking to plunder The Tarkine for minerals below ground. If these miners get their way, they will open cut The Tarkine and irreversibly destroy it. The Tarkine’s natural future as a wild region and its dependent wildlife hang in the balance.
Currently limited mining occurs within parts of the Tarkine. The most significant mining operations within the Tarkine region is the Savage River Iron Ore Mine, which is currently managed by Grange Resources, and the Hellyer Mine managed by Bass Metals.
Now there are another 10 new mines proposed to destroy The Tarkine!
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Tasmanian Government’s mining leases (Dec, 2012) threaten to destroy most of The Tarkine
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Nine of the planned ten mines are nearby Savage River ‘open-cut’ style mines. The Tasmanian Government under the watch of Labor’s Bryan Green MP has overseen its Tasmanian Mineral Council grant some 56 exploration licences over the Tarkine to 27 different industrial mining companies.
Savage River Mine location map..already in The Tarkine
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Savage River Open Cut Mine..a harbinger for The Tarkine… landscape absolute anhiliation
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Savage River – a savage scar in The Tarkine..courtesy of industrial miner Grange Resources
(Google Earth – click image to enlarge)
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Venture Minerals‘ proposed Tin Mine at Mount Lindsay (2011)
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West Australian headquartered Venture Minerals has submitted mining permits to the Tasmanian Government to allow it to develop a tin/tungsten open cut mine at Mount Lindsay, so it can sell Tasmanian resource wealth to China. It will extend over 36,000 hectares (360 km2), creating a permanent scar through The Tarkine, roughly an area the size of the Tamar Valley from Launceston to Georgetown.
Mount Lindsay Tin Mine Plans (Venture Minerals)
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“The Mount Lindsay mine is a Pilbara style open cut super pit that will devastate a large area of the Tarkine rainforest wilderness within an existing reserve. The 3.5 x 3km disturbance area is the equivalent of 420 Melbourne Cricket Grounds and a 220m depth being over twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge,” said Tarkine National Coalition spokesperson Scott Jordan.
“It is completely inconsistent with the protection of the Tarkine, and Minister Burke must act immediately to ensure that the Tarkine has the highest level of protection going into this assessment.”
Venture Minerals plans to rely on Tasmanian hydro power (probably at a government subsidised discount and so further reducing the power available to Tasmanian residents). Tasmania’s precious natural heritage is pillaged to make West Australian and foreign corporate investors richer.
Shree Minerals proposed open-cut mine at Nelson Bay River (2011)
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Shree Minerals wants an open cut mine on the upper reaches of Nelson Bay River. According to the Tasmanian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Shree Minerals Ltd has proposed to develop an open pit magnetitie/hematite mine and processing plant near Nelson Bay River, approximatley 7 kilometres east of Temma in northwest Tasmania. The proposed mine will target 4 million tonnes of the resource over a 10 year period producing 150,000 tonnes of product per year.
Shree Minerals is an Indian company based in Madhya Pradesh in central India [Read More: ^http://www.shreemineralsandfuels.com/] So Tasmania’s precious natural heritage is pillaged to make Indian billionaires richer.
It has found to give scant regard to protecting fragile ecology in The Tarkine. Shree Minerals’ Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Nelson Bay River open cut iron ore mine as a mismatch of omissions, flawed assumptions and misrepresentations, according to the Tarkine National Coalition.
Key data on endangered orchids is missing
Projections on impacts on Tasmanian devil and Spotted tailed quoll are based on flawed and fanciful data
The EIS produced by the company as part of the Commonwealth environmental assessments has failed to produce a report relating to endangered and critically endangered orchid populations in the vicinity of the proposed open cut mine. The soil borne Mychorizza fungus is highly succeptible to changes in hydrology, and is essential to the germination of the area’s native orchids which cannot exist without Mychorizza. Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke included this report as a requirement in the project’s EIS guidelines issued in June 2011.
Shree Minerals have avoided producing scientific claiming that its proposed 220 metre deep hole extending 1km long will have no impact on hydrologyor on cthe adjacent Nelson Bay River.
Data relating to projections of Tasmanian devil roadkill from mine related traffic are flawed. The company has used a January-February traffic surveys as a current traffic baseline which skews the data due to the higher level of tourist, campers and shackowner during the traditional summer holiday season. DIER data indicates that there is a doubling of vehicles on these road sections between October and January. The company also asserted an assumed level of mine related traffic that is substantially lower than their own expert produced Traffic Impact Assessment. The roadkill assumptions were made on an additional 82 vehicles per day in year one, and 34 vehicles per day in years 2-10, while the figures the Traffic Impact Assessment specify 122 vehicles per day in year one, and 89 vehicles per day in ongoing years.“When you apply the expert Traffic Impact Assessment data and the DIER’s data for current road use, the increase in traffic is 329% in year one and 240% in years 2-10 which contradicts the company’s flawed projections of 89% and 34%”. “This increase of traffic will, on the company’s formulae, result in up to 32 devil deaths per year, not the 3 per year in presented in the EIS.”
“Shree Minerals either is too incompetent to understand it’s own expert reports, or they have set out to deliberately mislead the Commonwealth and State environmental assessors.”
Nelson Bay River flows through pristine wildernessIndustrial Miners just don’t get it!
[Source: http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au (Nelson Bay Report on water quality monitoring – >Read Report]
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In 2011, a visit to the Shree Minerals’ Nelson Bay River proposed mine site in the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area has discovered that the mining company has failed to cap at least nine drill holes, creating risks to the resident population of disease free Tasmanian devils.
Failing to cap drill holes is a serious breach of both the Mineral Exploration Code of Practice and the operating conditions of their Exploration License. If Tasmanian devils are found to have perished in the holes, the company may be in breach of the Threatened Species Protection Act 1995.
Shree Minerals carving up wilderness across The Tarkine, even before mining commences
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Even before actual mining commences, mineral exploration causes its own destructive impacts upon fragile ecosystems:
New access roads are bulldozed through pristine wilderness to multiple exploration and drilling sites.
Native vegetation and dependent ecology is destroyed as gridlines are bulldozed
Fragile top soils are removed
Soil erosion occurs at drills sites as soon as it rains, and rainfall is particularly intense across western Tasmania
The eroded soil becomes sediment and chokes and pollutes nearby watercourses and further downstream
Exposed soils also erode into watercourses, and without topsoil the native vegetation is unable to recover
Rubbish is dumped
Spills of chemicals and pollutants from drilling contaminate crystal pure watercourses and permeate into ground water and aquifers
Spread of pests including plant diseases such as myrtle wilt is exacerbated
Drill holes into ground water disturb and alter aquifers causing unknown impacts particularly in karst areas, which are prevalent across The Tarkine
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These impacts are ignored by industrial miners.
Industrial Miners eco-raping the fragile Tarkine
Wam, bam thank you mam!
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Tasmania’s Minerals Council – one eyed to pillage
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The Tasmanian Minerals Council exists so that Tasmania may be mined. Irrespective of what values are on the surface, the Tasmanian Minerals Council sees Tasmania as a quarry to be exploited. If it is not mining Tasmania, or talking about current and planned mines, or encouraging more mining of Tasmania, then it simply isn’t doing its job putting its very existence into question. Its mandate is one eyed.
Just as Forestry Tasmania is the industry driver of logging of Tasmania’s native forests, the Tasmanian Minerals Council is the industry driver of mining Tasmania’s native forests – same destructive outcome, just different type of industrial exploitation. Both are tacit Tasmanian government departments only with corporatised names and structures. See a map of Tasmania through the eyes of the Tasmanian Minerals Council below:
Quarry Map of Tasmania
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Tasmanian Minerals Council describes itself as “the representative organisation for the exploration, mining and mineral processing industries in Tasmania“. It counts among its members all of the main mines and mineral processing operations. So basically it is the Tasmanian Government’s Department of Mining, but named a ‘council‘ in order to convey a public impression of being an industry body, whereas it is just a policy arm of government.
And the board of directors are all executives employed by industrial miners. They each have vested interests in mining Tasmania for their own company benefits, and collectively to maximise the exploitation of Tasmania for mining. It is cosy chronyism, and accountable to the broader Tasmanian community.
Terry LongTasmanian Minerals Council current CEO
Capable of seeing Tasmania only through miner’s subterranean eyes
“You wouldn’t want to contemplate a Northern Tasmania economy without Temco (an industrial manganese-alloy smelter operation) and Bell Bay Aluminium”
To justify its existence the Tasmanian Minerals Council thinks it and mining Tasmania is very important.
“The minerals industry is the cornerstone of Tasmania’s economy. It is important to the lives of every Tasmanian and brings with it a rich economic and cultural heritage and a capacity to ensure a prosperous future for Tasmania.”
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The Tasmanian Labor Party (currently in government) and the Tasmanian Liberal Party both see mining as important to Tasmania because of the mining royalty revenue derived by the Tasmanian Government. Of course it is about money.
To be politically correct, the Tasmanian Minerals Council professes a catchphrase: “promoting the development of safe, profitable and sustainable mineral sector operating within Tasmania“. It may be sustainable, but sustainable for industrial miners, not Tasmania’s ecology.
It sees itself playing a role in developing the world’s natural resources to supply the demands of modern society, by digging up more of Tasmania. It says that it recognises modern societal expectations of good environmental management and claims that it is ensuring environmental impacts are minimised. It promises that ongoing problems from old mining operations in Tasmania will be rectified if possible. It talks about following a ‘Code for Environmental Management‘ and about observing a set of principles and encourages continual improvement for environmental performance, and indeed broadened the Code to encompass goals and actions that are more representative of a sustainable development framework.
Wonderful motherhood stuff, except the mining reality across Tasmania is completely different.
2011: Sludge from the Aberfoyle Mine runs into the river at Luina (Savage River National Park)..in The Tarkine
(Photo by Peter Sims, Fairfax)
Queenstown’s sulphuric acid legacy of copper mining
..no plans to rehabilitate the moonscape.
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The confluence of the King River and Queen River, a few years ago.
Orange-coloured heavy metal toxins from Queenstown and Mt Lyell copper mining continue to flow into Macquarie Harbour.
No effort is made by the Tasmanian Minerals Council to rehabilitate these wild rivers.
Says the Council: “It was established well before the understandings and knowledge we have now, and the practice we expect today. The legacy from the old surface workings will be carried for a long time..”
And this council want more mines in The Tarkine?
‘Past damage caused from mining around Queenstown was a product of its times, although present and future generations live with its legacy. Historical practice is not modern practice. Mt Lyell Mine’s holocaust landscape legacy is testament to a past that did not have the technological knowledge or environmental vision we have today. The economic imperative was the main consideration.’
[Source: A mining propaganda brochure produced by The Tasmanian Mineral Council in 2004 entitled ‘Wilderness, Rivers and Mines – The West Coast Experience‘, ^http://www.tasminerals.com.au/west-coast.pdf]
What has changed? Nothing.
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Tasmanian Minerals Council – ‘Group-Serving Bias’ Syndrome
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Head in the ground, the Tasmanian Minerals Council is functionally fixed on the view that Tasmania exists so that it man be mined for profit.
The Tasmanian Minerals Council and its mining fraternity suffer from Group-Serving Bias – the tendency to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to the interests of miners, while auto-dismissing conservationists’ ecological concerns. They see themselves as unaccountable to the Tasmanian public – only to the government and mining vested interests.
The plethora of evidence showing the mining industries destructive impacts on the natural landscape and irreversible harm caused to wildlife and its habitat are ignored by industrial miners and the Tasmanian Minerals Council. The devastating moonscape and dead river legacies of mining across Tasmania are conveniently dismissed by the Tasmanian Minerals Council as ‘history’.
Those careered into the exploitative cultures of Industrial Logging and Industrial Mining, ignorant of Ecology, fail to respect vital and rare natural values even when immersed in a pristine and rare region like The Tarkine.
Why?
Industrialists during their working lives culturally learn a perception bias to dismiss Nature not as integrated Natural Assets, but as untapped Resources waiting to be exploited and profited for industrial gain.
This is an Industrial World View that emanated out of the Industrial Revolution in early 18th Century Britain. Industrialism has become synonymous with Human Progress and has exponentially grown into what has become known as 20th Century global multinational industrialism. Multinational Industrialism is all about large scale efficient exploitation of resources – Natural or Human in order to maximise self-serving interests. On a local level, this translates into exploitation. The Industrial World View is locally destructive, selfish, arrogant and short-sighted. The Tasmanian Minerals Council continues as a legacy of that time..
Scott Jordan of Tarkine National Coalition at the so-called “rehabilitated” tailings dam at a tin mine in The Tarkine.
.. would mining executives drink this brown toxic, acidic, heavy metal water?
This is the Tasmanian Mineral Council being ‘sustainable‘ – they just don’t get it!
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Tasmanian Mineral Council’s public image spin-doctoring claims that the Tasmanian mining industry did not have a good history when it came to good environmental management. Environmental awareness began to rise around the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Until then, the environmental performance of both industry and individuals was often poor, when measured against today’s standards.
Crap!
The Tasmanian Minerals Council does not recognise The Tarkine. Instead, it sees the west coast of Tasmania being “world famous for its geology and mineralisation and world class mineral deposits lie in an arc of volcanic lavas from Low Rocky Point in Tasmania’s South West, northwards through the great mining areas of Mt Lyell, the Dundas mineral field, Henty, Zeehan mineral field, Renison Bell, Rosebery, Tullah, Que River and Hellyer then eastwards to the Moina mineral field near SheffieldSuper…”
What Tarkine? What forests, where?
This year, the Tasmanian Minerals Council encouraged by the Labor Party’s pro-industrialist, Bryan Green MP, is ramping up mining activity, particularly in The Tarkine. Bryan Green is currently Tasmania’s Deputy Premier and Minister for Primary Industries, Water, Energy, Resources, Local Government, Planning, and Racing.
Bryan Green and Tasmanian Minerals Council are in a froth at present with ‘almost 80 companies spending a record $38.7 million last year looking for the mines of tomorrow’. Drill rigs are humming on many of the 194 exploration licences held by these companies and another 15 licences are pending approval’ – reports the Hobart Mercury newspaper.
Spending on exploration has now rebounded to above pre-global financial crisis levels and several projects have progressed to the point where new mining jobs are on the horizon.
Mining hopefuls are shoring up iron and tin deposits on the West Coast, while others are looking deeper into coal proposals at Fingal and silica projects at Maydena.
Venture Minerals is progressing its iron and iron, tungsten and tin mine at Mount Lindsay outside Burnie and Shree Minerals is working to get its iron ore mine running at Nelson Bay River, in the Tarkine.
Shree Minerals is one of about 20 companies with their eyes set firmly on the mining potential in the Tarkine, as conservationists are working to have the area protected through a Natural Heritage listing. Ultimately, green groups want the area to become a national park, which would stop mining development in its tracks.
At Zeehan, Melbourne-based company Stellar Resources is spending $6 million on a year-long drilling program as it progresses its plans to construct a $108-million tin mine and processing plant.
Stellar Resources chief executive Peter Blight said the company hoped to move into construction in 2014 and start producing tin concentrate in 2015. He said the company was excited by its Heemskirk Tin project which it took on as a solo venture last year.
The area has been investigated for its mineral potential before first by the West Coast’s mining pioneers and more recently by Aberfoyle. When Western Metals took over Aberfoyle, the Zeehan tin project sat in the bottom of a drawer.
But Mr Blight said early drilling and scoping studies looked promising and he expected to be working on financing the project by the end of next year.
Demand for tin continues to increase as the world shuns lead solder. Right now, there is a 70,000-tonne gap between global tin demand and supply.
When developed, the Heemskirk project would produce almost 4000 tonnes of tin concentrate a year and be only the second tin mine in Australia.
The other, Renison Bell, is just 18km away from Zeehan.’
African Elephant at Franklin Zoo & Wildlife Sanctuary
situated outside the town of Tuakau near Auckland, New Zealand.
Its wildlife veterinarian surgeon (the late) Dr. Helen Schofield stands in front.
[Ed. Note elephant’s tusks have been previously sawn off by a circus] (Photo by Associated Press, 20091220)
[Source: ^http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/ca-sanctuary-says-killer-elephant-still-welcome-1.3684690]
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Last Wednesday afternoon (20120425) New Zealand wildlife veterinarian surgeon, Dr. Helen Schofield, was tragically crushed to death by an African Elephant who sat on her at Franklin Zoo & Wildlife Sanctuary near Auckland, according to emergency officials and reports.
Reports say the female elephant was trying to protect the vet after the elephant got a fright and wrapped her trunk around the vet, before going down, killing the vet. [Ed. This suggests that it was an accident caused by fright, and not the intention of the elephant to kill the vet]. Emergency services say the woman died at the zoo/sanctuary at around 4.30pm local time.
What is significant is that this 39-year-old African elephant was formerly used and abused in circus entertainment (Loritz as well as Webers), where she had lived shackled for 28 years with no other elephants. The circus had not surprisingly named the elephant ‘Jumbo‘.
Same elephant back in 2009, named ‘Jumbo’, tethered to Loritz Circus trailer for 28 years
African elephants in the wild live up to 70 years, but in captivity only to 50, not surprisingly.
[Watch Video at Webber’s Circus in 2009].
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About three years ago, the elephant was given to the SPCA Auckland (Society for the Prevention Against Cruelty to Animals, ^http://www.spca.org.nz/) which then found a refuge for it in 2009 at the Franklin Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary just outside Auckland. The elephant has for the past three years been under the care and rehabilitation at the zoo/sanctuary.
Dr Schofield at Franklin had previously stated that the elephant (renamed by the zoo ‘Mila‘) had settled in well and developed close and affectionate relationships with her team of keepers. She wrote: “Our dream for Jumbo is to get her in a situation where she can have other African elephants for company.”
A woman who lives in a property neighbouring the zoo, who declined to be named, said she had seen the activity at the zoo when the ambulances arrived.
“We look out and see the elephant every day,” she said. “I don’t think it’s very friendly. It hasn’t had a very happy life.”
Same elephant in 2009
SAFE (Save Animals from Exploitation, NZ) animal rights protest group stage a protest outside the circus at Avalon Park, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
[Source: ‘Loritz Circus Jumbo the Elephant’, YouTube, ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5c00551DUw]
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Sad circus scenes only three years ago (different elephants)
[Source: ‘Jumbo Stars: Elephants in Carson & Barnes Circus’, YouTube,
^http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=jX58pNwWcRY]
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New Zealand Police have stated that if the death is confirmed as an accident it is unlikely the elephant will be put down, but a final decision will be made in 24 hours. At the time of writing six days hence, the elephant is still alive and under care at the nearby Auckland Zoo (^http://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/) awaiting her fate.
Same African Elephant, renamed ‘Mila’
Elephants are social creatures and there was concern Mila had been lonely.
Mila was the only elephant at the Franklin Zoo, which built a new enclosure for her in 2010.
(Photo Franklin Zoo/Sanctuary)
Franklin Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary was nearing the end of a two year preparatory re-adjustment process for the elephant to have her ultimately crate shipped to California (USA) to Pat Derby’s Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) ^http://www.pawsweb.org/ in San Andreas outside Sacramento. Since 1984, The Performing Animal Welfare Society has provided a sanctuary for animals that have been the victims of the exotic and performing animal trades. PAWS also investigates reports of abused performing and exotic animals, documents cruelty and assists in investigations and prosecutions by regulatory agencies to alleviate the suffering of captive wildlife.
Despite the tragic accidental killing of Dr Schofield, Pat Derby has confirmed that it remains committed to receiving the elephant into its Californian sanctuary.
Hans Kriek, executive director of New Zealand based Save Animals from Exploitation ^http://www.safe.org.nz/, said he had talked to Dr Schofield the day before she died and that she told him she believed Mila was ready to ship.
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Pat Derby advised her experience with elephants rescued from circuses:
“All elephants, particularly Africans, suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ed. like humans).
“They’re captured from the wild. The capture usually involves killing their whole family unit, which is a terrible drama.
They all suffer horrendous physical and psychological problems. You just never know when it will express itself.”
In addition, Derby said she is sure the stress of circus life contributed to the trauma of adjusting for Mila.
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In San Andreas, near Sacramento in Northern California, where Mila was headed, three African elephants are kept separate from other elephants, Derby said.
“We always keep safe distances and safety barriers between the elephants and the people so there’s no opportunity for accidents to happen“, she said.
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Elephant Shipment Trauma
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Transporting an elephant halfway around the world is extremely tricky, Derby said. Flying is the fastest way but also the most expensive and “I don’t know what the funding issue is there,” Derby said.
If a ship and truck are used, it’s a “long, long journey,” she said. Once an elephant leaves on such a trip, it is stuck in the crate until it arrives, she said.
“When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals”
~ Peter Singer, Author/Philosopher, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, USA
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Animal abuse and cruelty is immoral. Most modern civilized societies have outlawed animal cruelty, making it a crime.
Entertainment involving animals is a form of animal abuse. Circuses and zoos conceived for human entertainment are primitive and barbaric, dating back to 18th Century Georgian times when human slavery was cultiraly acceptable. The first modern zoo evolved out of an aristocratic menagerie in Vienna in 1765.
Although many circuses have been banned from using wildlife in their entertainment, disgustingly it has only been in recent years. But still, organisations such as Sea World (^http://www.sea-world.com.au/) still entertain the public using dolphins, seals and orcas.
Jumbo was the last of New Zealand’s circus elephants, retired in 2009 after a concerted pressure campaign by Save Animals from Exploitation (SAFE), and there are no more circuses that use wild animals in this country. But the practice has still not been banned outright. This puts it in the category of anachronistic laws which should be repealed at the earliest opportunity.
In New Zealand, Dunedin and Wellington City Councils have local bans on the use of wild animals in circuses. There is a Circus Welfare Code, but like many of the codes under the Animal Welfare Act 1999 appears to contravene the Act under which it was created, particularly section 4(c) which stipulates that animals must have the ‘opportunity to display normal patterns of behaviour.’ A requirement that is by definition outside the performance expected of a circus animal.
The plight of elephants in circuses is particularly troubling. Elephants are majestic creatures who are intelligent and self-aware. They are among the most socially- bonded animals on the planet, and display a complex array of emotions, including expressions of grief and compassion. They mourn their dead, use tools, and communicate with each other over vast distances through sound. They are biologically designed to browse, constantly on the move for 18 or more hours out of the day, even where food is readily available…
But enslaved in circuses, far removed from conditions they need to thrive, elephants:
Spend days at a time chained in cramped train cars or trucks, eating and sleeping in their own excrement, exposed to temperature extremes, for much of their lives. When not in transit, they are chained or confined in tiny pens, usually on concrete.
Perform unnatural tricks that are often damaging to their bodies. Wild elephants do not stand on their heads or on two legs.
Often display neurotic behavior, such as swaying and head-bobbing, from boredom and severe stress (Ed. like Jumbo in the video above).
Suffer from painful foot and joint disease, a leading cause of premature death in captive elephants, from standing too long on hard surfaces and in their own waste.
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Circuses Tear Families Apart
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Elephants have intense, strong family bonds. Wild females stay with their mothers, aunts and cousins for life. Males do not leave the herd until their teens. The entire extended elephant family helps nurture and care for the young.
Most of the elephants performing in circuses today were captured from the wild, violently separated from their mothers, and shipped to the U.S. when they were very young. Every Asian elephant taken from the wild has endured a brutal breaking process (“the crush”), which involves beating with nail-studded sticks, sleep-deprivation, hunger, and thirst to break the animals’ spirits.
Elephants born into captivity in circuses are routinely torn from their mothers as infants younger than two years old, for training and performance.
For anyone who knows about elephants, seeing these complex, family-centered individuals chained and broken, performing demeaning tricks is simply heartbreaking…
There’s no family fun to be had at an event that involves such cruelty and suffering. Let’s teach our children to respect animals by seeing them in their natural states, not as captives forced and beaten into unnatural displays for our entertainment.
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“We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves”
As of 1 July 2010, the use of any animal in a circus has been banned in Bolivia. A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses but only Bolivia has banned exploitation of domestic animals in circuses as well.
The Bolivian law, which states that the use of all animals in circuses ‘constitutes an act of cruelty’ was enacted on 1 July 2009, with operators given a year to comply.
The bill took two years to pass through both chambers of the Plurinational Assembly, meeting stiff opposition from the eastern states of Bolivia where there was concern that the law would be expanded to include bullfighting, which is popular in rural villages. Bullfighting remains legal in Bolivia.
The legislature were eventually won over by a screening of videos shot by undercover circus infiltrators in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia co-ordinated and funded by Animal Defence International (ADI), a London-based NGO which found that ill-treatment and violence against animals in circuses is commonplace.
The harsh Bolivian climate alone claimed has claimed many victims. Just last year, a hippopotamus died in his sleep when the circus pool froze over in the Andean city of Potosí, 4000 metres above sea level. A dwarf elephant died of exposure in La Paz’s dry winter of 2007.
The follow-up to this law change is also important; with a number of wild animals no longer economically useful to their owners, many will be either killed or turned loose. Animals released from captivity generally do not re-integrate and are likely to die from starvation or attack from other animals. To avoid this, Ximena Flores, sponsor of the law, has said that “[a]bout 50 animals are circulating in national and international circuses at the moment [in Bolivia] and we want to negotiate to make sure that the animals aren’t eliminated.”
Austria, Costa Rica, Hungary, Finland, India, Israel, Singapore and most recently China have banned the use of wild circus animals while Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic have limited the use of certain species. The State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the cities of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Porto Alegre (Brazil) have implemented full bans on both wild and domesticated species. Nationwide bans on all animals in traveling circuses are under consideration in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, where legislation is expected in the near future. Several major European towns and cities have either banned all circus animal acts or wild animal acts, including Thessaloniki (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Cork (Ireland) and Venice (Italy). In Croatia, most major cities have bans.
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Australia
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In Australia, Ipswich Council (Queensland) and Parramatta (Sydney, NSW) have local bans of wild animals in circuses.
Around the world, the plight of animals in circuses is increasingly heard. National, regional and local governments in at least 30 countries have already banned the use of exotic or all animals in circuses. But the Australian Federal and State Government policies are failing these animals. The requirements in the — mostly voluntary — guidelines for the keeping of animals in circuses in Australia are far below what is generally required for the same species kept in zoos and are totally inadequate to protect their welfare. Thankfully an increasing number of Australian councils are taking an ethical stance by adopting a ban on exotic animal circuses on council land.
For Animals Australia, entertainment stops where animal suffering begins. Circuses can not recreate a natural environment nor can animals in circuses perform much natural behaviour. A non-domesticated animal’s life is consequently impoverished and the keeping of exotic animals in circuses should therefore be banned. The animals currently being kept by circuses need to be re-homed in a quality sanctuary or zoo.
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Britain
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Currently, Britain appears to be at at a critical juncture with regard to banning the use of performing wild animals. A ban in the UK would affect around 40 animals owned by four circus companies. On 25 March 2010, Labour’s environment minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, said he was “minded” to ban performing wild animals after research showed that 94 per cent of the public supported a ban. A survey by the Animals Defenders International (^http://www.ad-international.org/adi_uk/) of 310 local authorities (town and county councils) showed that 39% had already banned all animal acts and 17% had banned wild animal acts.
However, while the new Coalition government has said it is considering whether or not to proceed with the ban, 143 politicians have now signed a parliamentary Early Day Motion, (EDM) 403, calling for the wild animal ban to finally be implemented.
Exotic animals in circuses are routinely subjected to months on the road confined in small, barren cages. These animals are forced to live in enclosures denying them every opportunity to express their natural behaviour and their training is often based on fear and punishment as revealed by numerous undercover investigations.
As circuses play no meaningful role in education or conservation, the lifelong suffering of these animals continues only for the sake of a few minutes of entertainment.
Below: How do you get a wild animal to perform unnatural circus tricks?
This shocking undercover footage from the U.S. shows Carson & Barnes ‘trainers’ using bull hooks, electric prods, and even blowtorches on their elephants. Footage thanks to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, ^http://www.peta.org/). ^http://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/circuses.php
Saved by the Mail: Anne the elephant, pictured with former owner Bobby Roberts, who along with his wife Moira has been charged with causing the animal suffering
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Circuses will be banned from keeping wild animals within two years. Ministers will today announce the U-turn after coming under intense pressure from MPs and celebrities to implement the crackdown. The Department for the Environment will confirm plans to introduce a law within this Parliament.
Last year, MPs inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Government by backing a backbench motion by Tory MP Mark Pritchard, which called for a ban.
Until this is introduced, ministers will bring in a tough licensing regime for the few circus owners still using wild animals.
An estimated 150 to 200 animals are currently held in circuses, 37 of which are wild. They include zebras, lions, tigers, camels, a kangaroo and crocodiles.
Sir Paul McCartney, comedian Ricky Gervais and actor Brian Blessed are among the celebrities who have called for a ban, which 94 per cent of the public supports.
The Daily Mail has been at the forefront of the campaign after highlighting the plight of Anne, Britain’s last circus elephant.
Former owners Moira and Bobby Roberts have been charged with causing Anne suffering by failing to prevent her groom beating her.
The 59-year-old elephant now lives at Longleat safari park in Wiltshire thanks to our readers, who donated £340,000 for her care.
The prosecution is believed to be the first of a circus owner for animal cruelty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
An estimated 150-200 animals are currently held in circuses, and an estimated 37 of these are wild animals. These include zebras, lions, snakes, tigers, camels, a kangaroo and crocodiles.
Prime Minister David Cameron has previously signalled his support for the crackdown by acknowledging that it was ‘not right’ to still have lions and tigers performing in the big top.
A Defra spokesman said: ‘We always said we were minded to ban wild animals performing in travelling circus, the only issue being that we have to be sure that it cannot be overturned legally. ‘Therefore in the meantime we are proposing a tough new licensing regime which can be introduced quickly, to ensure high welfare standards.’
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Entertainment Zoos or Wildlife Sanctuaries?
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Removal of wild animals from their habitat is wrong. They should be left in their natural surroundings and not exploited as objects for human entertainment.
In situ wildlife refuges or wildlife sanctuaries play a critical role in habouring wildlife at risk from poaching and from the many human drivers of extinction. Wildlife refuges or wildlife sanctuaries situated in the native country of origin are best placed to enable wildlife to survive naturally. Zoological captive breeding programmes that facilitate wildlife reintroduction into the wild in safe sanctuaries are to be commended. This is where the resourcing, efforts and research need to be channelled globally.
But shipping wildlife over long distances to foreign and typically urban zoos, benefits human entertainment not the wildlife. Elephants belong in Africa or Asia according to their supbspecies, not in New Zealand. Petting zoos that encourage the public to get up and close with the animals are a mere extension of circuses – wildlife for human entertainment and as tourist drawcards/attractions.
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Compare the Old Urban Entertainment Zoos:
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Example 1: Auckland Zoo
The Tourist child spiel:
‘Auckland Zoo is home to the largest collection of native and exotic animals in New Zealand, set in 17 hectares of lush parkland and just five minutes from central Auckland. There is lots to see and do all year, including events, animal encounters, Zoom (behind the scenes) tours and more! Our Zoom (behind-the-scenes) Tours offer you an exclusive backstage pass to go behind the scenes. Imagine helping a keeper wash down an elephant, coming eye to eye with New Zealand fauna, a tiger, or one of Africa’s big five.’
‘Function and Venue Hire:
‘With 180 degree, uninterrupted views of Sydney Harbour, Taronga Zoo provides a picturesque backdrop and unique setting that is guaranteed to make any event truly memorable. With a wide a variety of venue options available, both in and outdoors,Taronga Zoo is an ideal setting for all occasions ranging from gala dinners, conferences, Christmas and cocktail parties as well as boasting a truly stunning venue for Weddings.The Taronga were the proud winners of the 2010 Restaurant and Catering Awards for Excellence -Wedding Caterer in a Function Centre AND voted in the Vogue Top 3 wedding locations 2012. With both these outstanding recognitions for excellence, the Taronga centre combining their passion and enthusiasm for food and their excellence in service and events is certainly an ideal choice to host your next event.’
Example 3: Orokonui Ecosanctuary (Waitati, Dunedin, New Zealand)
‘What began as a mere dream to restore an entire forest ecosystem to its pre-human state, is now a reality.
In less than 10 years, the Orokonui Ecosanctuary has become the only place on mainland South Island of New Zealand where native birds, animals and insects can live a life safe from predators. They are free to fly, feed, mate and nest wherever they wish, exactly as they would in the wild.
Since the $2.2 million, 8.7km pest-proof fence was erected around our 307 hectares of protected habitat in 2007, pests have been almost entirely eradicated. This has allowed us to reintroduce a number of endangered species and there are encouraging signs they are adapting well to their new home. In fact, it is becoming increasingly common for native birds to find their own way to the ecosanctuary and take up residence.
To support the Ecosanctuary, a multi-million dollar eco-friendly visitor and ODT education centre has been built into the hillside above Blueskin Bay. Here, visitors can learn about the Ecosanctuary and the native species it contains, take a guided tour through the Ecosanctuary, purchase gifts and educational material from the souvenir shop, or simply have a coffee and enjoy the view. All of the funds generated from visitors contribute to the ongoing conservation work at Orokonui Ecosanctuary.’
Example 4: Enkosini Wildlife Sanctuary (Northern Provence, South Africa
‘The Enkosini Wildlife Reserve was formed in 2001 to protect and preserve Africa’s wildlife and habitat. Enkosini (derived from the Zulu word meaning “place of kings”) was established as a conservancy, by purchasing and joining together large South African farms with the aim of restoring the environment back to its natural state and establishing a larger reserve for the benefit of African wildlife. Enkosini is a unique conservation initiative that will re-introduce indigenous wildlife onto land they once naturally roamed, ultimately re-establishing all of the original flora and fauna to the area. Enkosini will also continue to acquire habitat for the long-term survival of the wildlife and the preservation of their eco-systems.
Enkosini’s goal is to create a self-sustaining model of responsible conservation that preserves Africa’s natural heritage (habitat and wildlife); enhances the South African economy through overseas capital infusion, local and international eco-tourism, and job creation; and promotes education and awareness of conservation issues.’
Pure Dingo
(Canis lupus ssp. dingo)
Rare and ‘Vulnerable’ on Fraser Island, Queensland
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The Dingo is possibly as old as the last Ice Age
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The earliest archaeological evidence for dingoes in Australia, indicates that the arrival of dingoes in Australia can be dated back to about 18, 000 years BP (before present), based upon mitochondrial DNA data collected by scientists from The Royal Society. [Source: ^http://savefraserislanddingoes.com/pdf/Evolution%20of%20the%20Dingo.pdf, [>Read Report(512kb) ]
Significantly, 18,000 BP was when the last Ice Age ended in Australia, referred to as the Last Glacial Period (Glacial Maximum) when much of the world was cold, dry, and inhospitable. It is the geological epoch in world evolution known as the Pleistocene Epoch, which in archaeology corresponds to the end of the human Paleolithic Age. At this time, Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania were one land mass called Sahulland. Note, this is not to be confused with ‘Gondwanaland‘, which existed between about 510 to 180 million years ago (Mya).
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Sahulland or just ‘Sahul‘ was the name chosen by archaeologists at a conference in 1975 [Allen, J.; J. Golson and R. Jones (eds) (1977). Sunda and Sahul: Prehistorical studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia’]. Other names offered include ‘Australasia‘ and ‘Greater Australia‘, and this larger land mass forms the basis of Australia’s Continental Shelf, half of which is less than 50 metres deep under the Torres Strait to New Guinea and Bass Strait to Tasmania.
Evolutionary global warming melted the glacias and so rose sea levels, which overflowed the interconnecting lowlands and separated the continent into today’s low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. Not surprisingly, flora and fauna across these long separate lands have a comparable biota. Since Papua New Guinea and Australia were connected via a land-bridge until 6,000 years ago, travelling from one to the other would have been possible.
DNA-analysis has shown that New Guinea Singing Dogs have a genetic line back to Australian dingos. Genetic analysis reported in March 2010 by Australian Geneticist Dr. Alan Wilton (1953-2011), from the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences found the mtDNA-type A29 among Australian dingoes concluded overwhelmingly that genetically, the Australian Dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog are closely related to each other.
Australian Geneticist Dr. Alan Wilton (1953-2011)
an expert on Australian Pure Dingos
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Dr Alan Wilton’s study paper published in the journal Nature suggests that those two breeds are the most closely related to wolves and may be most like the original domesticated dog as it was across Asia and the Middle East thousands of years ago, according to one of the 37 authors of the study, making both Australia’s dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog possibly the world’s oldest dog breeds.
“This paper examines the domestication of the dog from the wild wolf using genetic differences,” Dr Wilton says. “48,000 sites in the dog genome were examined in hundreds of wolves, almost a thousand dogs from 85 modern breeds of dog and several ancient dog breeds. “The data suggest most dogs were domesticated in the Middle East, which was the cradle of agriculture 10,000 of years ago, rather than in Asia as had been suggested previously.
“It also shows dingoes, which have been separated from other breeds of dog in Australia for the past 5,000 years, are the most distinct dog group with most similarity to wolves.”
The dingo and New Guinea Singing Dog stand out as being most different from all other breeds of dogs and closer to wolves than other breeds.
To gather all of the results from many dog breeds and wolves from many locations, a worldwide effort was mounted. Dr Wilton and Jeremy Shearman – from the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences and the Ramaciotti Centre for Gene Function Analysis at UNSW – have been working on dingoes and methods to differentiate between pure dingoes and crosses between domestic dogs and dingoes. They contributed the genetic data from seven dingoes, which is a small amount of data but makes a large contribution to the paper. The data from all samples was analysed together at Cornell University and UCLA.
New Guinea Singing Dog
(Canis lupus familiaris hallstomi)
An ancient genetically pure dog breed with links to the Australian Dingo
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Further biotechnical research published in September 2011 by The Royal Society (UK) has found direct genetic links between ancient Polynesian dogs of South China, Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia to the extent that the Dingo has been found to be a direct descendant species dating back to 18,000 BP. The oldest dog remains found in the world are fragments of a dog’s skull and teeth discovered in a cave in Switzerland dating back more than 14,000 years BP, so the dingo is 4000 years older that this.
Genetic study by Klutsch and Savolainen in 2011 concluded that South China was the probable source population for Dingoes and Singing Dogs dating the arrival of dingoes in Australia between 4,640 years ago and as far back as 18,100 years ago. They find “a clear indication that Polynesian dogs as well as dingoes and NGSDs trace their ancestry back to South China through Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia.
Yet after 18,000 years, the Australia Pure Dingo has evolved into a pure unique subspecies in its own right – ‘Canis lupus ssp. dingo’[ssp. = subspecies]
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The Dingo is not a breed of dog, but a distinct subspecies of ancient wolf (Canid lupus).
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Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are a separate subpecies of wolf, and of course domestic dogs have multiple breeds mainly due to human interference, referred to as ‘selective breeding‘. Other modern subspecies of the ancient wolf is the Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), the Coyote (Canis latrans) and the Black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) as well as many other subspecies globally.
The Dingo for thousands of years has been Australia’s largest mammalian predator. It has evolved to become an integral part of the native Australian ecology, as apex (top order) predators at the top of the natural food chain and highly adaptive and naturally distributed across every habitat and region of Australia, except Tasmania.
The Dingo’s natural prey consists of small native mammals and ground-dwelling birds, as well as small kangaroos and similar ‘macropods‘ (kangaroo botanical family ‘Macropodidae‘). In this way, naturally occurring population of dingoes has played a key role in maintaining the populations and diversity of these native species.
Unlike domestic dogs, the Dingo yelps and howls, but generally does not bark. It has a different gait to domestic dogs with almost with a cat-like agile habit. Its ears are always erect and it uses its paws like hands. In its natural state the Dingo lives either alone or in a small group unlike many other wild dog species which may form packs. Dingoes tends to survey their surroundings from a height.
Whereas traditional Aboriginal occupation of Australia evolved over thousands of years with harmonious ecological interaction and respect, European colonial invasion of Australia and the widespread deforestation and introduced species that came with it, has destroyed or otherwise perverted Australia’s natural ecology. Dingos and Colonist-introduced domestic dogs interbreed freely resulting in very few pure-bred dingos in southern or eastern Australia. This is seriously threatening the dingo’s ability to survive as a pure species. Public hostility is another threat to the dingo.
Australian Aboriginal peoples commonly refer to the dingo as the ‘Warragul‘. This name has been used for a town 100km south-east of Melbourne, reflective of the traditional presence of the dingo as far south as southern Victoria. Other Aboriginal names for Dingo across Australia include include ‘binure‘ and ‘mirragang‘ (Gundungurra language), ‘mirri‘ (Darug language), ‘nurragee‘ and ‘mirragang‘ (Tharawal language).
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Pure Dingo at Risk of Extinction
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Pure-bred Dingo numbers in the Australian wild are declining as Colonists and their decendants continue to encroach deeper into wilderness areas, releasing feral dogs that inevitably compete, socialise and breed with pure Dingoes.
Professor Bill Ballard of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales has conducted research showing that there are few remaining pure dingoes are left in wild. [Read More].
According to Dr. Alan Wilton’s mitochondrial DNA testing of Dingoes from 2000, most Dingo populations throughout Australia are 80% hybrids, with some 100% hybrids. Only a few populations remain ‘Pure Dingo‘. One area isolated from colonial incursion is the southern Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, which has been designated a Dingo Conservation Area, supposedly to control wild dogs in this area in order to prevent cross-breeding with pure Dingoes and the hybridisation of the Dingo species. [>Read More (480kb) ]
In 2005, the Dingo was listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as ‘Vulnerable‘ due to a 30% decrease in numbers (IUCN = ‘International Union for Conservation of Nature’). [^Read More]
However, the IUCN wrongly groups the Australian Dingo (Canis lupis ssp. dingo) with the New Guinea Singing Dog (Canis lupus familiaris hallstomi) and with other South East Asian dogs under its Red List classification ‘Canis lupus ssp. dingo‘. This fails to assign proper genetic distriction of the Pure Australian Dingo as a discrete subspecies, which has evolved in Australia over thjousands of years quite separately from these other South East Asian subspecies. The IUCN contradictorily uses the term ‘dingo’ to refer to the Australian Pure Dingo and at the same time in a generic sense as a common name to describe the wild dogs of Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and New Guinea. The IUCN interpretation is contradictory and wrong.
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The ‘Australian Pure Dingo’ is not a Polynesian domestic dog!
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On the one hand , the IUCN explains the difficulty of distinguishing pure dingoes from hybrids and states that the “pure form may now be locally extinct (Corbett 2001)” and that “such quantitative data is not available for countries other than Australia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea“. Yet the IUCN website shows only two known mapped locations of this subspecies – both being on Fraser Island (Aboriginal: K’Gari).
The IUCN concludes that where the most genetically intact populations live is where conservation efforts should be focused.
Fraser Island (K’Gari)
Showing possibly the last of the planet’s Australian Pure Dingo distribution,
according to the IUCN in 2011
[Source: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, version 2011.2, ^http://maps.iucnredlist.org/map.html?id=41585]
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Given the severely restricted distribution of the Pure Australian Dingo, this subspecies deserves discrete classification and listing by the IUCN as ‘Critically Endangered‘. Clearly more intensive research by the IUCN is warranted, particularly recognising the recent and expert studies in this specific field by Professor Bill Ballard, Dr Alan Wilton and Jeremy Shearman, amongst others.
Recognition of the Pure Australian Dingo as at risk is given inconsistent hotch-potch protection by Australian jurisdictions. In New South Wales (NSW), Dingo populations from Sturt National Park, the coastal ranges and some coastal parks have been nominated as endangered populations under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. At Australian national level and under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, the Dingo remains unprotected despite being considered a native species. Under the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 (NSW), Dingoes are still declared a pest species, a throwback to the colonial mindset.
Dr Wilton predicts that within 100 years, the pure dingo will be extinct in the wild.
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‘Dingo’s are going away the Thylacine unfortunately, unless somebody does something about it soon we won’t have any dingo’s left.’
The Thylacene
Persecuted by misguided Colonists until its extinction in the 1930s
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Dr Wilton has identified that there remains only one genetically confirmed population of pure dingoes – those on Queensland’s Fraser Island – perhaps as few as 120 individuals left. This clan was long isolated from early colonial invasion and disturbance, but in recent times has increasingly been threatened by growing tourism incursions (400,000 tourists annually) and mismanagement and persecution by Queensland wildlife rangers. Yet despite the precarious viability of this precious pure Dingo population, in 2001 Queensland Labor Premier Peter Beattie ordered a mass slaughter of forty dingoes in retribution for a boy tourist being killed that year by Dingoes on the island. [>Read More]
Clearly the Queensland Labor Party and the delegated custodian, the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) (or whatever its latest rebranded name) values Fraser Island for anthopocentric tourism more than the survival of the Australian Dingo as a species. Fraser Island is World Heritage Listed, but the Queensland Government has always interpreted this as a tourism branding strategy.
‘Dingoes are often in headlines for all the wrong reasons – agressive behaviour to tourists, culls by national park authorities – but behind the scenes, conservationists hold concerns that dingoes may be interbred into extinction.
Fears for the dingo’s future are proliferating. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) upgraded the dingo’s conservation status to vulnerable in 2004 and dingo experts such as Dr Ricky Spencer from the University of Western Sydney, have predicted Australia’s native canine will go extinct within the next twenty years.
But it’s not just their white socks that are changing though. One recent study found that average dingo weight and size has risen by 20 per cent over the past two decades, probably because of hybridisation. This change could alter the way dingoes hunt, allowing them to attack livestock and wildlife they’ve previously found an unmanageable size.
Behavioural changes also cause ecological problems. There is some evidence, for instance, that the dingo breeding season has grown longer under the influence of domestic dog genes; dogs breed twice a year, in contrast to the dingo’s single season. This might be one reason for the explosion in dingo and wild dog numbers across the country.
Another might be the breakdown in the pack structure of dingo societies. In the wild, dingo packs sometimes centre around a breeding alpha pair which suppress the breeding of subordinate members – a possible natural population control measure. Domestic dogs, however, seem to form larger packs with uncontrolled breeding, again possibly contributing to the current population explosion.
Hybridisation with domestic doges is the Dingo’s greatest threat. Dingoes and domestic dogs, both subspecies of Canis lupus, can interbreed with ease and this has led to a massive influx of domestic dog genes into the dingo gene pool.
In many places around Australia (some experts say ‘most‘) dingoes have been almost totally replaced by dog-dingo hybrids. Even those animals that appear to be dingoes are often now, in reality, mostly domestic dogs. “The only way to tell for sure,” says Dr Guy Ballard, a dingo researcher with the NSW government’s vertebrate pest unit, “is by analysing their skulls, or taking DNA samples”.
But it’s not just their white socks that are changing though. One recent study found that average dingo weight and size has risen by 20% over the past two decades, probably because of hybridisation. This change could alter the way dingoes hunt, allowing them to attack livestock and wildlife they’ve previously found an unmanageable size..
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Saving the Purebred Dingo
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This inexorable tide of hybridisation has lent new urgency to the question of how best to save the dingo. Most experts are pessimistic about the chances of preventing interbreeding, pointing out that contact between dog and dingo populations is only going to increase.
Some proponents advocate the establishment of refuges where remnant populations of pure dingoes could be maintained. The best known of these is Fraser Island, where the Great Sandy National Park protects what is regarded as the purest population of dingoes left in Australia. However, the culling of problem dingoes on the popular tourist island has led to fears that the dingo population there is now too small to be genetically viable.
Such concerns have led some conservationists to opt for a different strategy: establishing their own private breeding refuges on the mainland instead. One such is the Australian Dingo Conservation Association’s (ADCA) 92 ha compound at Colong station in the Blue Mountains National Park.
There the ADCA maintains a breeding population of 31 purebred dingoes.
“We try hard to maintain that genetic purity,” says ADCA vice-president Gavan McDowell. “We even separate our breeding packs into sub-types, like mountain, desert and tropical dingoes.”
The Association’s ultimate aim is to breed a number of pure dingoes that can be released into the wild to recolonise areas, cleared of feral dogs.
Silver Lining
.
Other researchers, like Guy, are more optimistic of the dingo’s plight.
His research includes several field projects looking at dingo purity around Australia. While Guy acknowledges that hybridisation is a major threat, he says that wherever his group tests dingoes, even in heavily hybridised areas of NSW, they still find good numbers of purebred dingoes.
“People often don’t realise that the environmental factors that lead to large numbers of hybrids also mean large numbers of pure dingoes,” Guy says. “It’s impossible to prove, but I suspect there are actually more purebred dingoes around today than at any other time in history.”
Best of all, says Guy, is the fact that his team has identified several hotspots where pure dingo numbers are consistently high. One is the Tanami Desert, where the dingo population is 90 per cent pure, apparently due to the area’s remoteness. Two others, however, lie on the heavily settled NSW coast: at Myall Lakes National Park and Limeburners Creek Nature Reserve.
Quirks of geography – Limeburners Creek is on a peninsula, and Myall Lakes is connected by green belts to the wilder lands out to Sydney’s west – have apparently allowed both areas to sustain populations of pure dingoes, despite their proximity to settled areas with large populations of domestic dogs.
Guy also believes that with careful management – such as continual DNA tests to identify and euthanise hybridised dogs – the populations at Limeburners Creek and Myall Lakes can maintain their purity for some time to come.
“Dingoes have survived two hundred years of interbreeding already,” he says.
“I don’t see why, with a little help, they can’t survive for another two hundred.”
.
Aboriginal Respect for Dingoes
.
‘Following its arrival into Australia, the dingo was readily accepted into Aboriginal life, both practically and spiritually. Dingoes have long been valued companion animals to Aboriginal peoples, serving as hunting companions, camp guard dogs, camp cleaners and as bed warmers on cold nights.
Spiritually, dingoes have been regarded as a protector (particularly by traditional Fraser Island tribes) and representing ancestral spirits – able to perceive the presence of evil spirits undetectable by humans. Mythological or Dreamtime stories about the Dingo in Aboriginal cultures across Australia are for Aboriginal people to convey.
Dingoes are valued companion animals to traditional Aboriginal peoples
Dingoes are as Australian as Aboriginal peoples.
“It’s the Dingo’s environment, WE are the ones who should be monitored. Please leave them alone, let them live their lives how they should be lived, NOT HALF STARVED. Please go to Fraser Island and look for yourself, then feel what your conscience tells you.” ~ Australia.
[4] ‘Genetic diversity in the Dingo‘, by Professor Bill Ballard [Head of School], School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences -Faculty of Science, University of New South Wales, ^http://www.dingosanctuary.com.au/dna.htm
“Fraser Island (K’gari) lies off the coast of Queensland, Australia, approx. 200k (120miles) north of Brisbane. It is the largest sand Island in the world. In 1992 it was World Heritage listed by UNESCO because of its natural beauty and unique flora and fauna. The apex predator on the Island is the dingo (canis lupus dingo) and may well be one of the last pure strains of dingo remaining in Australia. The conservation of this gene pool is of national significance.”
“Australia’s only wild dog, the iconic dingo, has survived a couple of hundred years of persecution – from shooting, trapping and poisoning. Ironically, it is now at grave risk of disappearing. The greatest threat isn’t so much over-hunting or the usual culprit, habitat destruction; it’s the friendly domestic dog.” [>Read article(1140kb)]
This article was initially written by this editor and published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper on 20051005 as a letter to the editor, entitled ‘RFS strategy misguided‘.
.19th Century heritage-listed ‘Six Foot Track’
..bulldozed by the Rural Fire Service in July 2005, widened into a convenient Fire Trail for its fire truck crews.
.
It has been revealed that the June bulldozing or grading of the Six Foot Track near Megalong Creek (Blue Mountains, New South Wales) was a mere drop in the Rural Fire Service (RFS) Bushfire Mitigation Programme.
Across the Blue Mountains, some twenty natural reserves including the Six Foot Track were targeted under the RFS 2004-05 Fire Trail Strategy:
Edith Falls
McMahons Point
Back Creek
Cripple Creek
Plus some 95 hectares inside the Blue Mountains National Park.
According to the Australian Government’s (then) Department of Transport and Regional Services (DOTARS) website, some $151,195 was granted to the RFS in the Blue Mountains alone, for it to bulldoze and burn 144 hectares of native bushland under the euphemism of “addressing bushfire mitigation risk priorities” (Ed: Read ‘bush arson‘)
‘The Six Foot Track Conservation and Management Plan 1997, Vol II’ lists numerous vulnerable species of fauna recorded near Megalong Creek – the Glossy Black-Cockatoo (Clyptorhynchus lathami), Giant Burrowing Frog (Heleioporus australiacus), Spotted-tailed Quoll (Dasyurus maculatus).
Spotted-tailed Quoll
(Dasyurus maculatus)
Blue Mountains top order predator, competing with the Dingo
.
The RFS contractors wouldn’t have had a clue if they were within 100 metres or 1 metre of rare, vulnerable or threatened species.
The RFS is not exempt from destroying important ecological habitat; rather it is required to have regard to the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD).
The ‘Rationale‘ of this RFS ESD policy states at Clause 1.2:
‘The Bush Fire Coordinating Committee, under the Rural Fires Act 1997 Sec 3 (d), is required to have regard to ESD as outlined in the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991, which sets out the following principles:
a) The precautionary principle namely, that if there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation. In the application of the precautionary principle, public and private decisions should be guided by:
i. careful evaluation to avoid, wherever practicable, serious or irreversible damage to the environment, and ii. an assessment of the risk-weighted consequences of various options.
.
b) Inter-generational equity namely, that the present generation should ensure that the health, diversity and productivity of the environment are maintained or enhanced for the benefit of future generations
.
.
c) Conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity should be a fundamental consideration in all decisions.
.
d) Recognising the economic values that the natural environment provides. The natural environment has values that are often hard to quantify but provide a benefit to the entire community. By recognising that the natural environment does have significant economic and social values we can improve decision making for the present and future generations.’
.
.
Yet the RFS policy on hazard reduction is woefully loose in the ‘Bushfire Co-ordinating Committee Policy 2 /03 on ESD‘ – which (on paper) advocates protecting environmental values and ensuring that ESD commitments are adopted and adhered to by contractors.
Experience now confirms this policy is nothing more than ‘greenwashing’. The RFS wouldn’t know what environmental values were if they drove their fire truck into a Blkue Mountains upland swamp. There is not one ecologist among them.
While the critical value of dedicated RFS volunteer fire-fighters fighting fires is without question, what deserves questioning is the unsustainable response of the RFS ‘old guard’ to fire trails and hazard reduction with token regard for sensitive habitat. Repeated bushfire research confirms that bushfires are mostly now caused by:
Bush arson (hazard reduction included, escaped or otherwise)
More residential communities encroaching upon bushland.
.
Under the ‘Blue Mountains Bushfire Management Committee Bushfire Risk Management Plan’(Ed: their bureaucratic name), key objectives are patently ignored:
‘Ensure that public and private land owners and occupiers understand their bushfire management responsibilities’
‘Ensure that the community is well informed about bushfire protection measures and prepared for bushfire events through Community Fireguard programs’
‘Manage bushfires for the protection and conservation of the natural, cultural, scenic and recreational features , including tourism values, of the area’.
.
Instead, the Rural Fire Service is content to look busy by burning and bulldozing native bushland. The RFS actively demonises native vegetation as a ‘fuel hazard‘, in the much the same way that ignorant colonists of the 18th and 19th centuries demonised Australia’s unique wildlife as ‘vermin‘ and ‘game‘.
.
Further Reading:
.
[1] Previous article on The Habitat Advocate: ‘RFS Bulldozes Six Foot Track‘ (published 20101220): [>Read Article]
.
[2] Tip of the Bush-Arson Iceberg
What these government funded and State-sanctioned bush-arsonists get up to, deliberately setting fire to wildlife habitat, is an ecological disgrace.
The following list is from just 2005 of the vast areas of native vegetation deliberately burnt across New South Wales in just this one year. [Source: DOTARS].
Not surprisingly, this State-sanctioned bush-arson information is no longer published by government each year for obvious clandestine reasons, as the bush-arson continues out of the public eye.
The hazard reduction cult is similarly perpetuated across other Australian states – Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, West Australia as well as Northern Territory and the ACT. No wonder Australia’s record of wildlife extinctions tragically leads the world! There is little precious rich wildlife habitat left.
.
National Park and Wildlife Service (NSW) Bush Arson:
(Note: ‘NR’ = Nature Reserve, ‘NP’ = National Park, ‘SCA’ = State Conservation Area… as if these bastards care)
Reserve / Activity Name
Treatment Area (km2)
Baalingen NR
5
Baalingen NR
6
Bald Rock NP
7
Banyabba NR
0.5
BANYABBA NR
3
BANYABBA NR
24
BANYABBA NR
8
Barakee NP
6
Barool NP
20
Barool NP
6
Barool NP
5
Barool NP
4
Barool NP
2
Barool NP
5
Barrington Tops NP
2.5
Barrington Tops NP
2
Barrington Tops NP
6
Barrington Tops NP
18
Barrington Tops NP
6
Barrington Tops NP
16
Barrington Tops NP
11
Barrington Tops NP
1
Barrington Tops NP
4
Barrington Tops NP
2
Barrington Tops NP
1
Barrington Tops NP
3
Basket Swamp NP
1
Basket Swamp NP
12
Basket Swamp NP
2
Basket Swamp NP
4
Bellinger River NP
1
Ben Boyd NP
0.8
Ben Boyd NP
3
Ben Boyd NP
0.9
Ben Boyd NP
0.9
Ben Boyd NP
5
Ben Boyd NP
13
Ben Boyd NP
5
Ben Boyd NP
0.4
Ben Boyd NP
1
Ben Boyd NP
2
Ben Boyd NP
3
Ben Boyd NP
5
Ben Boyd NP
3.6
Ben Boyd NP
1.9
Ben Boyd NP
1.6
Ben Halls Gap NP
3
Bindarri NP
2
Black Bulga SCA
8
Black Bulga SCA
12
Black Bulga SCA
21
Blue Mountains NP
42
Blue Mountains NP
8.3
Blue Mountains NP
23
Blue Mountains NP
10
Blue Mountains NP
12
Bogendyra NR
Bolivia NR
1
BOLLONOLLA NR
2
Bondi Gulf NR
8
Bondi Gulf NR
6
Bondi Gulf NR
10
BONGIL BONGIL NP
0.3
BONGIL BONGIL NP
0.5
Boonoo Boonoo NP
9
Boonoo Boonoo NP
10
Booti Booti NP
0.5
Booti Booti NP
0.3
Booti Booti NP
3
Booti Booti NP
0.3
Booti Booti NP
3
Border Range NP
6
Border Ranges NP
4
Border Ranges NP
3
Border Ranges NP
4
Border Ranges NP
2.8
Bouddi NP
0.5
Bouddi NP
0.3
Bouddi NP
0.9
Bouddi NP
0.9
Bouddi NP
0.5
Bouddi NP
1.1
Bouddi NP
0.5
Bouddi NP
1.9
Bouddi NP
1.1
Bouddi NP
0.6
Bouddi NP
2.3
Bournda NR
10
Bournda NR
5
Bournda NR
0.5
Bournda NR
0.5
Bournda NR
0.5
Brindabella NP
20
Brisbane Water NP
4.4
Brisbane Water NP
2.4
Brisbane Water NP
3.7
Brisbane Water NP
3.6
Brisbane Water NP
0.3
Brisbane Water NP
3.1
Brisbane Water NP
0.6
Budawang NP
4.8
Budderoo NP
10
Bugong NP
3.1
Bundgalung NP
2
BUNDJALUNG NP
7
BUNDJALUNG NP
4.5
BUNDJALUNG NP
8
BUNDJALUNG NP
1.5
BUNDJALUNG NP
0.5
BUNDJALUNG NP
6
BUNDJALUNG NP
3
BUNDJALUNG NP
3
BUNDJALUNG NP
4
BUNDJALUNG NP
2
BUNDJALUNG NP
1
Bundundah Reserve
1.94
Bundundah Reserve/Morton NP
4.7
Bungawalbyn NP
2
Bungawalbyn NP
2.25
Bungawalbyn NP
4
Bungawalbyn NP
5
Bungawalbyn NP
3
Bungawalbyn NP
4.5
Bungawalbyn NP
6.5
Bungawalbyn NP
5
Bungawalbyn NP
1.65
Bungawalbyn NP
1.5
Burnt Down Scrub NR
2
Burnt School NR
2
Burrinjuck NR
8
Burrinjuck NR
15
Burrinjuck NR
3
Butterleaf NP
Butterleaf NP
3
Butterleaf NP
3.2
Butterleaf NP
1.2
Butterleaf NP
1.6
Butterleaf NP
1.2
Butterleaf NP
2
Butterleaf NP
1.8
Butterleaf NP
1.4
Butterleaf NP
0.5
Butterleaf NP
2.3
Butterleaf NP
3.3
Butterleaf NP
3.9
Butterleaf NP
5.3
Butterleaf NP
0.4
Butterleaf NP
0.5
Butterleaf NP
1.5
Butterleaf NP
2.9
Butterleaf NP
5.3
Butterleaf NP
4
Butterleaf NP
3.3
Butterleaf NP
3.6
Butterleaf NP
1.5
Butterleaf NP
8.8
Butterleaf NP
0.5
Capoompeta NP
10
Cataract NP
Cataract NP
1.5
Cataract NP
2
Cataract NP
2
Cataract NP
1.5
Cataract NP
2
Cataract NP
1
Clayton Chase
5
Clayton Chase
10
Clayton Chase
3.5
Clayton Chase
4
Clayton Chase
3
Clayton Chase
3
Clayton Chase
4
Conjola NP
5.7
Conjola NP
1.8
Conjola NP
8.3
Conjola NP
4.8
Conjola NP
2.9
Conjola NP
4.5
Conjola NP
6.5
Coolah Tops NR
28
Coolah Tops NR
1
Coolah Tops NR
6
Copeland Tops SCA
3
Copeland Tops SCA
3.5
Corramy SCA
0.7
Cottan-bimbang NP
6
Cottan-bimbang NP
16
Cottan-bimbang NP
15
Culgoa NP
30
Curramore NP
Curramore NP
8
Curramore NP
8.9
Curramore NP
11
Curramore NP
5.5
Dapper NR
10
Deua NP
15.2
Deua NP
1.4
Deua NP
1
Deua NP
4
Deua NP
21.5
Deua NP
2.1
Deua NP
1.4
Deua NP
3.3
Deua NP
8.5
Deua NP
20.8
Deua NP
5.3
Deua NP
6.6
Deua NP
28.2
Deua NP
5.65
DUNGGIR NP
4
Eurobodalla NP
0.8
Eurobodalla NP
2.5
Eurobodalla NP
0.8
Eurobodalla NP
2.4
Eurobodalla NP
2
Flaggy creekNR
3
Flaggy creekNR
1.8
GANAY NR
2
GANAY NR
2
Garawarra SCA
Garby NR
2
Gardens of Stone NP
18
Gibraltar NP
14
Goobang NP
5
Goobang NP
25
GUMBAYNGIR SCA
12
GUMBAYNGIR SCA
7
GUMBAYNGIR SCA
6
Ironbark NR
13.5
Jerrawangala NP
6.83
Jervis Bay NP
2.37
Jervis Bay NP
5.42
Jervis Bay NP
0.56
Jervis Bay NP
0.82
Jervis Bay NP
1.45
Jervis Bay NP
1.72
Jervis Bay NP
0.21
Jervis Bay NP
0.32
Jervis Bay NP
0.7
Jervis Bay NP
0.4
Jervis Bay NP
0.35
Jervis Bay NP
0.35
Jervis Bay NP
0.48
Jervis Bay NP
1.03
Jervis Bay NP
0.65
Jervis Bay NP
1.91
Jervis Bay NP
0.34
Jervis Bay NP
0.95
Jervis Bay NP
1.46
Jervis Bay NP
0.71
Jervis Bay NP
1.07
Jingellic NR
20
Karuah NR
10
Karuah NR
28
Karuah NR
10
Karuah NR
12
Karuah NR
1
Kings Plains NP
7
Kings Plains NP
0
Kings Plains NP
4
Koreelah NP
6
Kosciuszko NP
30
Kosciuszko NP
9.5
Kosciuszko NP
22
Kosciuszko NP
22
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
12
Kosciuszko NP
12
Kosciuszko NP
17
Kosciuszko NP
5
Kosciuszko NP
28
Kosciuszko NP
9
Kosciuszko NP
6
Kosciuszko NP
6
Kosciuszko NP
26
Kosciuszko NP
8.9
Kosciuszko NP
15
Kosciuszko NP
15
Kosciuszko NP
2.5
Kosciuszko NP
8.9
Kosciuszko NP
10
Kosciuszko NP
11
Kosciuszko NP
4.8
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
19
Kosciuszko NP
7.2
Kosciuszko NP
7.2
Kosciuszko NP
13
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
33
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
18
Kosciuszko NP
15
Kosciuszko NP
12
Kwiambal NP
7
Kwiambal NP
3
Kwiambal NP
2
Kwiambal NP
2.25
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.3
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.4
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.4
Lake Macquarie SCA
0.4
Ledknapper NR
15
Linton NR
12.5
Meroo NP
2.4
Meroo NP
0.9
Meroo NP
0.6
Meroo NP
3.3
Meroo NP
3.9
Meroo NP
3.5
Meroo NP
0.5
Morton NP
5.9
Morton NP
8.3
Morton NP
3.8
Morton NP
6
Morton NP
13
Morton NP
0.4
Morton NP
4.5
Morton NP
5
Morton NP
2.7
Morton NP
0.7
Morton NP
2.1
Morton NP
1
Morton NP
6
Mt Canobolas SCA
1
Mt Clunnie NP
6.5
Mt Dowling NR
2
MT NEVILLE NR
11
MT NEVILLE NR
1
MT NEVILLE NR
1.5
MT NEVILLE NR
11
MT NEVILLE NR
1.5
MT NEVILLE NR
3.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
4
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
1.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
1.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
4
MT PIKAPENE NP
7
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
6
MT PIKAPENE NP
3
MT PIKAPENE NP
0.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
0.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
1
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
6
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
1
MT PIKAPENE NP
2.5
MT PIKAPENE NP
2
MT PIKAPENE NP
1.5
Mummell Gulf NP
3
Mummell Gulf NP
7
Mummell Gulf NP
5
Munmorah SRA
0.7
Munmorah SRA
0.8
Munmorah SRA
0.45
Munmorah SRA
1
Munmorah SRA
2
Munmorah SRA
0.9
Munmorah SRA
1.6
Muogamarra NR
1
Murramarang NP
0.9
Murramarang NP
8
Murramarang NP
1
Murramarang NP
5.1
Murramarang NP
8.2
Murramarang NP
3.1
Murramarang NP
6.8
Murramarang NP
16
Murramarang NP
4.3
Murramarang NP
4
Myall Lakes NP
5
Myall Lakes NP
5
Myall Lakes NP
1.5
Myall Lakes NP
2
Myall Lakes NP
1
Myall Lakes NP
5
NGAMBAA NR
2
NGAMBAA NR
5
Nombinnie NR
10
Nymboida NP
6
Nymboida NP
12
Nymboida NP
3
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
1
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
3.2
Nymboida NP
4.5
Nymboida NP
2
Nymboida NP
4
Nymboida NP
2.8
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
4.2
Nymboida NP
7
Nymboida NP
6
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
10.7
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
19.1
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
13.4
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
18
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
18
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
15
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
33
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
33
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
5
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
5
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
4
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
3
Oxley Wild Rivers NP
7
Parma Creek NR
0.21
Parma Creek NR
0.07
Parma Creek NR
0.3
Parma Creek NR
0.01
Parma Creek NR
0.29
Parma Creek NR
5
Paroo Darling NP
60
Policemans Cap
10
Razorback NR
17
Richmond Range NP
3.9
Richmond Range NP
6.5
Richmond Range NP
3.8
Richmond Range NP
4.5
Richmond Range NP
5.5
Richmond Range NP
9
Royal NP
1
Seven Mile Beach NP
1.09
Seven Mile Beach NP
1.79
Seven Mile Beach NP
2.24
Seven Mile Beach NP
0.74
Seven Mile Beach NP
2.03
Severn River NR
6
Single NP
21
South East Forest NP
5
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
2.6
South East Forest NP
3
South East Forest NP
10.9
South East Forest NP
1.3
South East Forest NP
1
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
2.8
South East Forest NP
2
South East Forest NP
1.2
South East Forest NP
2
South East Forest NP
5.1
South East Forest NP
3.5
South East Forest NP
0.5
South East Forest NP
6
South East Forest NP
3
South East Forest NP
1
South East Forest NP
5.5
South East Forest NP
0.8
Stoney Batter NR
6
Tapitallee NR
0.52
Tapitallee NR
0.33
Tapitallee NR
0.36
Tapitallee NR
0.32
Tarlo River NP
3.8
Tarlo River NP
2.1
Tarlo River NP
2.9
Tarlo River NP
5.9
Tarlo River NP
6.5
Tarlo River NP
2.7
Tarlo River NP
2.1
Tarlo River NP
6
Tollingo NR
150
Tomaree NP
1.8
Tooloom NP
3
Toonumbar NP
31.9
Toonumbar NP
8.5
Toonumbar NP
17
Toonumbar NP
21.5
Triplarina NR
0.71
Triplarina NR
0.32
Triplarina NR
0.66
Triplarina NR
0.75
Triplarina NR
1.34
Triplarina NR
0.31
Triplarina NR
1.24
Triplarina NR
1.35
Ungazetted (Kalyarr NP)
48
Ungazetted (Kalyarr NP)
26
Unknown
7
Wa Hou NR
10
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
7
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
11
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
7
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
1
Wa Hou NR
1
Wallaroo NR
3
Wallaroo NR
1.5
Wallaroo NR
8
Wallaroo NR
5
Wallaroo NR
11
Wallaroo NR
7
Wallaroo NR
7
Wallaroo NR
16
Wallaroo NR
6
Wallingat NP
2
Wallingat NP
1.3
Wallingat NP
3.6
Wallingat NP
3.3
Washpool Np
18
Washpool NP
5.3
Washpool NP
5.6
Washpool NP
7.1
Washpool NP
6.4
Washpool NP
1.6
Washpool NP
7
Washpool NP
2.8
Watson’s Creek NR
5
Wereboldera SCA
9
Woggoon NR
144
Wollemi NP
21
Wollemi NP
12
Wollemi NP
10
Wollemi NP
30
Wollemi NP
7
Wollemi NP
11
Wollemi NP
7
Wollemi NP
16
Wollemi NP
2
Wollemi NP
8
Wollemi NP
5
Woodford Island NR
1.5
Woodford Island NR
2
Woodford Island NR
3
Woodford Island NR
3
Woollamia NR
1.51
Woollamia NR
0.77
Woollamia NR
1.95
Woollamia NR
1.88
Woollamia NR
0.74
Woomargama NP
15
Yabbra NP
8
Yabbra NP
45
Yango NP
0.45
Yanununbeyan NP
11
YARRIABINNI NP
2
YARRIABINNI NP
3
YARRIABINNI NP
5
YARRIABINNI NP
6
YARRIABINNI NP
4
Yuraygir NP
4
Yuraygir NP
3.5
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
1
YURAYGIR NP
0.03
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
3.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
1.5
Yuraygir NP
28
Yuraygir NP
10
Yuraygir NP
12
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
1
Yuraygir NP
4
Yuraygir NP
3.5
3,785.10 Ha
i.e. An area 6km x 6km
.
NSW Local Government Areas (LGAs)
Bush Fire Management Committee / LGA
Reserve / Activity Name
Treatment Area (km2)
Blue Mountains
Northern Strategic Line -Primary
8
Blue Mountains
De Faurs Trail – Mt Wilson -Primary
2.8
Blue Mountains
Mitchell’s Creek Fire Trail – Primary
3.5
Blue Mountains
Nellies Glen Fire Trail
2.8
Blue Mountains
Back Creek Fire Trail – Primary
3.2
Blue Mountains
Mt Piddington Trail – Hornes Point
N/A
Bombala
Gibraltar Ridge Fire Trail (2) (PT)
20
Bombala
Mt Rixs Fire Trail (PT)
6
Bombala
Roaring Camp Fire Trail (PT)
12
Cooma-Monaro
Brest Fire Trail (2) (PT)
15
Cooma-Monaro
Calabash Fire Trail (2) (PT)
22
Cooma-Monaro
Murrumbucca Fire Trail (2) (ST)
15
Cooma-Monaro
Bridge Fire Trail (2) (PT)
6
Cooma-Monaro
Log In Hole Fire Trail (2) (PT)
5
Gloucester
Upper Avon Fire Trail
11
Greater Argyle
Mountain Ash Fire Trail
10
Greater Argyle
Mootwingee Fire Trail
6
Greater Hume
Murphy’s Fire Trail
0.2
Greater Hume
Mandaring Fire Trail
1
Greater Queanbeyan City
Queanbeyan River Fire Trail
5.5
Greater Queanbeyan City
Gourock Fire Trail
5.8
Hawkesbury District
Jacks Trail
1.6
Hawkesbury District
Duffys Trail (2) ?tenure
3
Mallee
Various Fire Trails
N/A
Mallee
No 21 Fire Trail
20
Namoi/Gwydir
Warialda State Forest
6.5
Namoi/Gwydir
Zaba-Kaiwarra-Kiora Fire Trail (check)
10
Namoi/Gwydr
Blue Nobby Fire Trail (check)
8
Namoi/Gwydr
Araluen Fire Trail (check)
6
Snowy River
Snowy Plain Fire Trail (2) (PT)
18
Snowy River
Crackenback Fire Trail (PT)
10
Snowy River
Devils Hole Fire Trail (PT)
18
Snowy River
Golden Age Fire Trail (2) (PT)
8
Sutherland
Sabugal Pass Fire Trail
N/A
SW Mallee
Various Fire Trails
N/A
SW Mallee
Oberwells Fire Trail
28
SW Mallee
Mandleman Fire Trail
40
Upper Lachlan
Johnsons Creek Fire Trail
15
Warringah/Pittwater
Lovett Bay Trail (2)
2.5
Warringah/Pittwater
Elvina Bay Trail (2)
1.5
Yass Valley
Nelanglo Fire Trail
21
Yass Valley
Hayshed Fire Trail 1
7
Yass Valley
Hayshed Fire Trail 2
7
391.90 km2
i.e. An area 20km x 20km
.
Forests NSW (government’s industrial logger of NSW remnant forests).
(Forests NSW did not publish the area burnt, only the cost. As a rule of thumb use $3000/square km)
Bush Fire Management Committee
Reserve / Activity Name
NSW Allocation
Clarence Zone
Dalmorton SF
$30,000
Future Forests
Swan
$20,050
Future Forests
Tindall
$10,680
Future Forests
Tooloom
$10,425
Future Forests
Mazzer
$7,341
Future Forests
Kungurrabah
$4,435
Future Forests
Morpeth Park
$3,773
Future Forests
Loughnan
$3,155
Future Forests
Inglebar
$3,000
Future Forests
Lattimore
$2,604
Future Forests
Byrne
$1,755
Future Forests
Ziull 4
$1,677
Future Forests
Lejag
$1,670
Future Forests
Ziull 2
$1,600
Future Forests
Bates
$1,563
Future Forests
Ziull 3
$1,454
Future Forests
Envirocom
$1,410
Future Forests
Morgan
$1,361
Future Forests
McNamara
$1,279
Future Forests
Neaves
$967
Future Forests
Zuill
$872
Future Forests
Boyle
$807
Future Forests
Fitzpatrick
$791
Future Forests
Morrow
$785
Future Forests
Morrow
$785
Future Forests
Morrow
$785
Future Forests
Wallwork
$665
Future Forests
Smith
$665
Future Forests
Wilson
$622
Future Forests
Jarramarumba
$600
Future Forests
Hession
$597
Future Forests
Edwards
$563
Future Forests
Maunder
$558
Future Forests
Kuantan
$515
Future Forests
Billins
$484
Future Forests
Cox
$475
Future Forests
Paterson
$461
Future Forests
Gladys
$415
Future Forests
O’Keefe
$371
Future Forests
Woodcock
$369
Future Forests
Pratten
$346
Future Forests
Truswell
$323
Future Forests
Divine
$323
Future Forests
Hastings
$323
Future Forests
White
$300
Future Forests
Miller
$300
Future Forests
Koop
$300
Future Forests
Lacy
$277
Future Forests
Nosrac
$277
Future Forests
Tully
$277
Future Forests
Baker
$277
Future Forests
Yaganegi
$277
Future Forests
Siezowski
$254
Future Forests
Zuill
$254
Future Forests
Atcheson
$254
Future Forests
Dissevelt
$254
Future Forests
Hoy
$254
Future Forests
Woods
$254
Future Forests
Dawson
$254
Future Forests
Hagan
$254
Future Forests
Skelly
$231
Future Forests
Robards
$231
Future Forests
Maunder
$231
Future Forests
Day
$231
Future Forests
O’Connell
$231
Future Forests
Kompara
$231
Future Forests
Carmen
$231
Future Forests
Maurer
$231
Future Forests
Cunin
$208
Future Forests
GCC
$208
Future Forests
White
$208
Future Forests
Hayer
$208
Future Forests
Southgate
$208
Future Forests
Peck
$208
Greater Taree
Kiwarrak SF
$40,000
Hastings
Cowarra SF
$30,000
Hastings
Caincross SF
$4,000
Hume
Clearing fire trails
$100,000
Hume
New FT
$6,000
Hunter
Pokolbin SF
$13,600
Hunter
Myall River SF
$12,800
Hunter
Myall River SF
$12,800
Hunter
Heaton SF
$12,400
Hunter
Bulahdelah SF
$6,100
Hunter
Watagan SF
$3,200
Hunter
Awaba SF
$3,200
Hunter
Myall River SF
$3,100
Macquarie
Warrengong
$16,250
Macquarie
Vulcan & Gurnang
$11,519
Macquarie
Kinross SF
$8,800
Macquarie
Mount David
$6,101
Macquarie
Newnes SF
$5,199
Macquarie
Printing 25 fire atlas’
$2,048
Macquarie
Black Rock Ridge
$447
Mid-Nth Coast – Taree
Knorrit SF
$36,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Taree
Yarratt SF
$16,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Boonanghi SF
$37,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Northern Break
$9,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Caincross SF
$3,000
Mid-Nth Coast – Wauchope
Western Break
$2,000
Monaro
Clearing fire trails
$114,685
North East
Thumb Creek SF
$46,000
North East
Candole SF
$29,535
North East
Various State Forests
$20,000
North East
Mt Belmore SF
$12,115
North East
Candole SF
$8,900
North East
Lower Bucca SF
$5,500
North East
All North Region
$3,300
North East
Wild Cattle SF
$3,000
North East
Orara East SF
$1,900
Northern -Casino
Barragunda
$11,522
Northern -Casino
Yaraldi 2003
$8,847
Northern -Casino
Yaraldi 2004
$3,207
Richmond Valley
Bates
$20,000
Richmond Valley
Whiporie SF
$13,154
Richmond Valley
Swanson
$12,000
Richmond Valley
McNamara
$10,180
Richmond Valley
Whiporie SF
$9,582
Southern
Pollwombra FT
$6,360
Southern-Eden
Various – whole district
$112,019
Tamworth
Nundle SF
$40,000
Walcha
Nowendoc SF
$30,000
Walcha
Styx River SF
$20,000
$1,073,482
i.e. Approximately an area 20km x 20km
.
NSW Department of Lands (what native vegetation’s left).
Bush Fire Management Committee
Reserve / Activity Name
Treatment Area Ha / Other
Treatment Area (km2)
Baulkham Hills
Porters Rd / Cranstons Rd
5
Baulkham Hills
Porters Rd / Cranstons Rd (2)
4
Baulkham Hills
Pauls Road Trail
5
Baulkham Hills
Mount View Trail
1
Baulkham Hills
Idlewild
2
Baulkham Hills
Maroota Tracks Trail
7
Baulkham Hills
Yoothamurra Trail
1
Baulkham Hills
Kellys Arm Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Dargle Ridge Trail
5
Baulkham Hills
Dargle Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Days Road Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Dickinsons Trail
6
Baulkham Hills
Fingerboard Trail
3
Baulkham Hills
Floyds Road Trail
8
Baulkham Hills
Neichs Road Trail
4
Bega
Eden Strategic Fire Trail
3
Bega
Illawambera Fire Trail
1
Bega
Merimbula/Turu Beach Strategic Protection
2
Bega
Yankees Gap
2
Bega
Millingandi Special Protection (Trail)
1
Bega
Wallagoot Strategic Protection (Trail)
1.2
Bega
South Eden Strategic Protection (Trail)
1
Bega
Merimbula/Pambula Strategic Protection (APZ)
1
Bega
Pacific St Tathra
0.5
Bland
Bland Villages (FTM)
2
Bland
Water Tower Reserve FTM
3
Blue Mountains
Cripple Creek Fire Trail Stage 2
5
Blue Mountains
Cripple Creek Fire Trail Complex
5
Blue Mountains
Caves Creek Trail
0.4
Blue Mountains
Edith Falls Trail
2
Blue Mountains
Boronia Rd – Albert Rd Trails
1
Blue Mountains
Perimeter Trail – North Hazelbrook
1.5
Blue Mountains
McMahons Point Trail – Kings Tableland
7
Blue Mountains
Back Creek Fire Trail
3.2
Blue Mountains
Mitchell’s Creek Fire Trail
3.5
Bombala
Gibraltar Ridge Fire Trail
11
Bombala
Burnt Hut Fire Trail
5
Bombala
Merriangah East Fire Trail
12
Bombala
Bombala Towns & Villages (Trails)
10
Campbelltown
St Helens Park – Wedderburn Rd (Barriers)
0.3
Campbelltown
Barrier / Gate
Campbelltown
Riverview Rd Fire Trail
0.65
Canobolas
Calula Range FTM
Canobolas
Spring Glen Estate FTM
Cessnock
Neath South West Fire Trail
2
Cessnock
Neath South East Fire Trail
1.5
Cessnock
Neath North Fire Trail (2)
1
Cessnock
Gates – Asset Protection Zones
Cessnock
Signs – Asset Protection Zones
Cessnock
Signs – Fire Trails
Cessnock
Kearsley Fire Trail
0.5
Cessnock
Neath – South (Trail)
4
Cessnock
Neath – North (Trail)
2
Clarence Valley
Bowling Club Fire Trail
1
Clarence Valley
Brooms Head Fire Trail
0.2
Clarence Valley
Ilarwill Village
0.3
Cooma-Monaro
Chakola Fire Trail
21
Cooma-Monaro
Good Good Fire Trail
12
Cooma-Monaro
Inaloy Fire Trail
19
Cooma-Monaro
Cowra Creek Fire Trail
4
Cooma-Monaro
David’s Fire Trail
2.1
Cooma-Monaro
Clear Hills Fire Trail
5
Cooma-Monaro
Mt Dowling Fire Trail
16
Cooma-Monaro
Towneys Ridge Fire Trail
6
Cunningham
Warialda Periphery 2
20
Cunningham
Upper Bingara Fire Trail
Dungog
Dungog Fire Trail Signs
Far North Coast
Byrangary Fire Trail
1
Far North Coast
Main Arm Fire Trail (NC67)
2
Far North Coast
Burringbar Fire Trail (NC69)
1
Far North Coast
Mill Rd Fire Trail (NC95)
1
Far North Coast
Broken Head Fire Trail (NC68)
0.5
Far North Coast
New Brighton Fire Trail (NC44)
0.5
Far North Coast
Mooball Spur Fire Trail
1
Far North Coast
Palmwoods Fire Trail (NC06)
0.5
Gloucester
Coneac Trail
6
Gloucester
Moores Trail
6
Gloucester
Mt Mooney Fire Trail
6
Gosford District
Signs – Fire Trails
Great Lakes
Ebsworth Fire Trail
1
Great Lakes
Tuncurry High Fire Trail
0.6
Great Lakes
Monterra Ave Trail – Hawks Nest
0.7
Greater Argyle
Browns Rd Komungla
12
Greater Argyle
Greater Argyle Fire Trail Maintenance
Greater Argyle
Cookbundoon Fire Trail
2
Greater Taree District
Tinonee St Road Reserve
0.25
Greater Taree District
Beach St SFAZ – Wallabi Point
0.35
Greater Taree District
Sth Woodlands Dr – SFAZ
1.3
Greater Taree District
Cedar Party Rd – Taree
2
Hawkesbury District
Sargents Road (2)?tenure
0.75
Hawkesbury District
Parallel Trail (2)
2.5
Hawkesbury District
Parallel Trail (1)
1.1
Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai
Tunks Ridge, Dural
1
Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai
Radnor & Cairnes Fire Trail
0.5
Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai
Binya Cl, Hornsby Heights
1.5
Shellharbour District
Saddleback – Hoddles Trail
3
Shellharbour District
Rough Range Trail
1
Lake Macquarie District
Kilaben Bay Fire Trail
1.5
Lake Macquarie District
Gates – Access Management
Lake Macquarie District
Signs – APZ
Lake Macquarie District
Signs – Fire Trails
Lithgow
Wilsons Glen Trail
6.1
Lithgow
Kanimbla Fire Trail No 314
7.8
Lithgow
Camels Back Trail No 312
4.5
Lithgow
Crown Creek Trail No 206
7
Lithgow
Capertee Common Trail No 203
3
Lower Hunter Zone
Access Infrastructure – All Districts
Lower North Coast
Cabbage Tree Lane Fire Trail, Kempsey
1.5
Lower North Coast
Bullocks Quarry Fire Trail
0.66
Lower North Coast
Perimeter Protection, Main St, Eungai Creek, Nambucca
Click above icon to play Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’
..first turn speakers on, then while playing scroll slowly through this article…
.
..So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain?
.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
.
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
.
Cold comfortable change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage? …
.
(Lyrics extract from Pink Floyd’s legendary song ‘Wish You Were Here‘ off their 1975 album of the same name)
.
These photos, as you scroll through them, are of Tasmania’s wild old growth forest heritage, which is currently being destroyed in 2012, driven by the Premier Lara Giddings Labor Government of Tasmania.
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Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who on 7th August 2011 personally promised the protection of Tasmania’s old growth forests.
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Click photo to enlarge
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Tasmania’s disappearing wildlife wish Julia was here
"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."
Animal Cruelty by US Republican Katherine Harris
The woman should have a criminal record and be prohibited for life from holding public office
(Photo: AP)
The classic image of the ‘Camp Fire’
