On Sunday 18th March 2018, the weather in Bega and nearby coastal Tathra was forecast to be a very hot 38 degrees Celsius, low humidity and high westerly gusting winds. So a Total Fire Ban was appropriately declared the afternoon prior by New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. The Fire Danger Rating was set locally to just “High”.
Around midday a fire started on or near the rural property at 580 Reedy Swamp Road, situated about 8km SE of Bega on the western edge of the Tanja State Forest, with the outskirts of Tathra situated on the eastern edge just 4km downwind.
When will the ignition source be published so devastated Tathrans learn the truth?
It was a simple fire in bushfire terms. It started adjacent and upwind of state forest bushland in hot windy conditions and kept going in the same direction as the wind blew it until the wind dropped. It was wholly predicable, not rocket science. So the circumstances are indeed suspicious, but we expect a cronyistic cover up.
The nearest bushfire brigade is the Tarraganda Fire Shed on Tarraganda Lane about 6km NW of the ignition site, but government expects local volunteers to respond on standby, under-resourced to defend their community last minute with no financial compensation.
Four kilometres east is the outskirts of Tathra along Thompson Drive across the Bega River. This is locally referred to as the Tathra River Estate – a Bega Council approved satellite suburb invading remnant native habitat.
The Chronically Avoided Questions
There was no lightning, so what was the ignition source on this day of declared Total Fire Ban?
How long did it take the RFS to discover the fire after its estimated ignition time?
How did the RFS learn about the ignition? Proactive real-time geo-stationary low-orbit satellite with infrared camera or just a reactive public call to ‘000’?
How long did it take the RFS to arrive on site to suppress the fire? We’re talking mum and dad volunteers here, apparently arriving on the fire ground at 12:43pm to do squat.
What is the point of having fire trails throughout the Tanja State Forest if when there is a bushfire emergency, they are too dangerous to use?
When did the RFS realise that the gusty winds would spot embers over the Bega River and impact Tathra? When the embers spotted over the river?
What bushfire preparations and asset protection zones had been in place for Tathra, if any?
Given that Tathra was obviously bushfire prone, which homes were Bushfire Attack Level assessed and compliant?
Where was the RFS Erickson S-64 Air-Crane purpose designed helicopter Elvis with its 9,500 litre water dumping capacity?
Where was the RFS C-130 Thor with its 44,000 litre water dumping capacity? It cruises at 540kph, so from its base at Richmond it could have been deployed and effective over the active fire edge imminently set to impact Tathra within an hour – 360km as the crow flies! – if they were military standard professional.
The under-resourced pre-1939 volunteer model for the bushfire fighting is a repeated failure
Another Promised Wildlife Sanctuary Goes Up In Smoke
So the fire was left to burn into the Tanja State Forest because, according to the RFS cultural scarce resource mindset, it was not immediately threatening property. She’ll be right. A bit of unauthorised hazard reduction wouldn’t go astray. What habitat?
The fire was only incinerating the flora reserve which provides habitat for one of the last Koalas communities along the Sapphire Coast. The RFS dubbed the fire the Reedy Swamp Fire or the Tarraganda Fire. Residents were only advised to “Watch and Act”, whatever that means.
Then mid-afternoon the wind picked up as per the usual diurnal wind variation profile. So with 38 degrees Celsius and 30 kph plus nor-westerly winds, the fire raced out of control through dense bushland toward the western outskirts of Tathra on the coast. At no time did the fire front change direction. It was heading towards Tathra from the outset.
Incident logs from Sunday show Fire and Rescue NSW, a state government agency, offered additional emergency brigades and assistance at 12:34pm in response to a flood of Triple Zero calls from the area. Those offers were declined before the agency attempted to offer more crews again at 12.58pm – again being rejected.
RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said while the fire was burning in remote mountainous terrain, “it would have been dangerous to have [Fire NSW] there”.
The purpose of fire trails? Habitat reduction.
Rural Firefighting Dysfunction
She’ll be right. It was only at 3.40pm that authorities from the Rural Fire Service did request extra help, issuing a priority request for all available assistance, as the fire front rapidly approached Tathra.
Shortly after 2.30pm the bushfire intensified as winds picked up. By 4pm the fire had hit Tathra and NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers warned residents it was too late to leave.
But it wasn’t the 7km bushfire front misreported by the media. The early spread of the bushfire started at around 500m wide and then spread to about a 1500m wide front, spotting ahead as it was fanned by the gusty WNW winds. The bushfire front tracked from the ignition near Reedy Swamp downwind 7 km toward Tathra Head at the coast. The only thing seriously stopping the bushfire was the weather or the sea.
RFS deputy fire commissioner Rob Rogers said the bushfire quickly got out of control after it started yesterday afternoon. “It jumped very quickly to a place called Thompson Drive and that was where the first home was impacted and it just really quickly ran then into the main part of the town,” he said.
By 4:38 pm the RFS was reporting: “EMERGENCY WARNING – Reedy Swamp fire (Bega LGA) – Fire impacting on #Tathra. Seek shelter. It is too late to leave.”
What is the point of having a Catastrophic rating if it isn’t used?
Deputy Commissioner Rogers said dealing with nature was not always “an exact science”. “There has been dozens of hazard-reduction activities in that area,” he said. “There was one that was only two or three years’ old and the fire went straight through that burn as well.
This time 65 homes, 35 cabins and caravans destroyed, and dozens more damaged. Only last January the Tathra Launderette caught fire and destroyed the premises as well as the adjoining Bliss Stylists hairdresser and Little Bottler Tathra Cellars.
But criticism is taboo because the government sends in volunteers, who are automatically beyond reproach. The politicians are very quick to remind us at every bushfire aftermath.
Different Fire, Same Incompetence
The RFS in hindsight are reporting it as “catastrophic” and “a perfect storm”. It’s frankly a bit late Shane Fitzsimmons and are they now furiously shredding their communication records?
“It will never be the same again,” said Renata Boulter, a Tathra resident of 26 years.
Trust government’s used and abused volunteer force with your livelihood?
The insurance damage bill will be in the hundreds of millions, again, and that ignores the human, livestock and wildlife cost ignored by a sound bite media. Ina few weeks the ghoulish media filming amongst the ruins in their shiny hi-vis wear will have packed up and moved on.
It’s another Dunalley (Forcett bushfire) (2013), another Yarloop (2016), another Mundaring (2018), another Marysville (2009), Canberra (2003), Cockatoo (1983), Anglesea (1983), Hobart (1967), Leura (1957). On each occasion, the bushfire had been not threatening houses and so wrongly left to burn in some cases for days, then the wind picked up in the afternoon as it usually does and it was all too late.
And the lawyers will no doubt be getting in for their pound of flesh, just like Maurice Blackburn profited $100 million in fees out of the victims of Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Tathra victims would be well advised to read up on Garry Angus, Kinglake victim, who suffered $4.2 million in economic losses. But after six years trustful waiting, Maurice Blackburn offered him a compensation cheque for $120,000. He sent it back to them in disgust. The lawyers also exposed the victims compensation to a $20 million tax liability – so the government to a cut from the victims compensation as well.
“The whole thing was flawed right from day one. The $494m (for Kilmore East-Kinglake victims) that they settled on was never going to be enough to help people. It needed to be three times that amount.”
(Read Postscript below).
Disaster Waiting to Happen..again
The western outskirts of Tathra, known as Tathra River Estate, bore the brunt of the bushfire. It was subdivided and developed and built out from 2013. The NSW Government Department of Planning and Infrastructure and the Bega Council happily approved the ‘Planning Report: State Environmental Planning Policy No. 71 (Coastal Protection) Master Plan: Tathra River Estate, dated June 2012.
Concerns over the current inadequacies of bushfire access was raised during submissions, as the well as the cumulative impact of additional dwellings and the need for emergency access in the event of a bushfire.
Many of the residential houses decimated by the fire were built between the 1960s and 1980s, in cheap and nasty asbestos. No bushfire tolerance. She’ll be right.
The provision of Asset Protection Zones, connection to the fire trail network and emergency access around the edge of the development apparently addressed many of the concerns. It was then up to Bega Council “to consider other matters in a bushfire emergency strategy.” What did Bega Council do or not do? We suspect cronyistic developer corruption.
The NSW RFS raised no objection to the Master Plan. Yesterday, Tathra River Estate (Thompson’s Drive or Estate) as well as similarly recently approved housing subdivisions extending into the native bushland such as Wildlife Drive and Sanctuary Place, bore the bushfire frontal attack.
It’s called ‘Wildlife Drive’ for a reason.
The residential development encroaches upon Tanja State Forest – established in 2017 to protect wildlife
There is shared culpability here, and how did they get home and contents insurance?
Tathra River Estate/Thompson’s Estate (bottom right of image) – juxtaposed next to Tanja State Forest
(This is an old image – more development has been allowed since)
It costs $20,000 a day to keep the Elvis air crane on stand-by and an additional $11,000 a day to operate. This extrapolates to $11 million a year to have Elvis ready and able to seriously suppress bushfires. Sounds like a lot of money but the economic loss and emotional cost besetting Tathra residents?
In 2015, the NSW Rural Fire Service unveiled its latest fire fighting weapons, including a monstrous-sized former RAAF C-130 Hercules converhuman ted water-bombing tanker capable of dropping up to 44,000 litres of water on any bushfire any time. It costs a bomb, but what cost Australian livelihoods?
The official economic cost of the Dunalley (Forcett) bushfire was $100 million, the Yarloop bushfire $45 million, Marysville $300 million and Canberra $300 million.
Melbourne University’s follow up study into the human aftermath of Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires reported a quarter of survivors still experiencing serious mental health problems six years later, including affected children. (Read report below under Further Reading’)
“The reality of the disaster and its aftermath formed the ongoing backdrop of children’s daily lives. Children from a very young age through to older youth experienced anxieties and upheavals at home, in school, in sport, in friendship groups and in the community.
“She had so much trouble going back to school. She couldn’t think, concentrate at all. Everything seemed irrelevant that she was doing and they tried so hard. They were very helpful but she had a lot of trouble with just fitting in with the kids that she knew before there. They weren’t understanding her and she just felt that all their problems were very trivial.”
(Parent)
Photo by Ngaire Walhout
Lessons To Be Blocked by Cronyism..again
Of course there will be another government enquiry, so the government is seen to given a damn. There are the same number of government enquiries as there have been bushfire tragedies since the Black Friday back in 1939. It concluded – “Mistakes We’re Made”, and then the report gets filed and bushfire fighting returns to business as usual and set to repeat history.
The 1939 Black Friday fires in Victoria burned almost two million hectares, claimed 71 lives and destroyed more than 1,000 homes, including entire townships. In adjusted terms, these fires cost some $750 million.
On 1983 Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria and South Australia claimed 75 lives, more than 2,000 homes and over 400,000 hectares of country. Total property losses were estimated to be over $400 million. Between 1967 and 1999, bushfires in Australia resulted in 223 deaths and 4,185 injuries, and a total economic cost of more than $2.5 billion. Victoria’s Black Saturday in 2009 cost $4.4 billion and 173 lives.
For Tathra yesterday, it could and should have been responsible, militarily heroic, and quite beautiful – professional fire suppression like Sydney gets, where emergency professionals have proper resources at their disposal, are properly remunerated, and so residents entrust the firies to save their homes and family.
Where was it parked this time?
In 2017 the NSW Government delivered a $4.5 BILLION surplus, so they are not exactly struggling.
Tathra is a microcosm of Victoria’s bush-enclosed Mornington Peninsula coastal residence west of Rosebud; timber and fibro shacks enveloped in a tinder dry tea-tree forest – in a bushfire Forest Fire Danger Index scary scenario – another catastrophic crematorium waiting to happen.
What does the land manager National Parks Service say about Tanja State Forest? It is part of the Murrah Flora Reserves which encompasses 4 areas covering nearly 12,000 hectares and include Murrah, Mumbulla, Bermagui and Tanja flora reserves along the New South Wales Sapphire Coast. The Murrah Flora Reserves were created in March 2016 and are significant to the local Aboriginal Yuin People who own neighbouring Biamanga National Park. They also provide an important conservation role, as habitat for the last significant koala population on the NSW South Coast and other threatened species, such as the long-nosed potoroo, yellow-bellied glider and the powerful owl.
Of course it was “overgrown”. It’s called wildlife habitat. And firies, it’s scarce and valuable and worth defending. It is not expendable. yet another 1200 hectares of native habitat set aside for supposed sanctuary has been incinerated. It was a defacto RFS hazard reduction again gone wrong.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service:
“The national and state forests within the Sapphire Coast are home to some of the most iconic views and breathtaking landscapes in Australia. The South Coast’s outstanding national park system offers visitors a wide choice of opportunities to discover spectacular landscapes, from dense forests to quiet, solitary beaches; from cool, silent rainforests to colourful, alpine wilderness wildflowers. The national parks a diversity of unspoiled habitats and ecosystems which offer refuge to unique, and often ancient, plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth.”
Hypocrites!
Koala in the Murrah Flora Reserve, probably incinerated. Photo by David Gallan.
Source: Far South Coast Conservation Management Network
“I’ve lost the value of my business, I’ve lost everything.”
Garry Angus and Anne Salmon on a block they own outside Kinglake. Photo by Stuart McEvoy
‘As cheques from the record-breaking Black Saturday class actions finally began flowing to bushfire survivors in December, many of the victims welcomed the payments as the end of another chapter in their emotional and financial recovery.
Not Garry Angus. He, with an unquantified number of the thousands of claimants who joined the lawsuits, remained angry about Maurice Blackburn’s handling of the cases. The accountant from Pheasant Creek, just outside Kinglake, decided to put his money where his mouth is and sent back his cheque for $120,000.
Now he is launching a website for fellow survivors to register their complaints about Maurice Blackburn’s administration of the settlement scheme. He hopes support from other aggrieved claimants will bolster his bid for a judicial review of the $494 million Kilmore East-Kinglake settlement and the $300m settlement for the Murrindindi-Marysville fire, announced in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
“The only winners out of this have been Maurice Blackburn,” Mr Angus said. “The whole thing was flawed right from day one. The $494m (for Kilmore East-Kinglake victims) that they settled on was never going to be enough to help people. It needed to be three times that amount.”
Like a number of other bushfire survivors who have spoken publicly, Mr Angus is angry at the fees Maurice Blackburn has stripped from the settlements — more than $100m — and the Australian Taxation Office’s claim that the firm has acted unusually to expose the funds to a tax liability of about $20m. He is also furious at how his case was personally handled, claiming that the firm was lax in communicating with him, and only junior staff dealt with him (even misspelling his name on his formal assessment notice).
Before the February 2009 bushfires, Mr Angus owned and managed an accounting firm that employed eight people. He owned four investment properties around the Kinglake area, losing two completely to the blaze.
He brought a 2000-page tome of his financial records with him to his meeting with assessor Neil Rattray, and says the barrister was clearly overwhelmed and admitted he might not be the best person to handle this complex case.
Mr Angus’s claim for $4.2m in losses — largely based on future earnings from his firm, which he closed while struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder in the fires’ aftermath — was dismissed by Mr Rattray. The barrister did not accept he would suffer from any future loss of earnings or earning capacity, arguing that his business had been struggling and there was “no real suggestion” the company would be successful in the future.
In a submission to Supreme Court judge Jack Forrest, who oversees the Kilmore East settlement scheme’s administration, Mr Angus has accused Maurice Blackburn of failing in its duty of care, and asked for an independent review.
Maurice Blackburn has stood by the assessment, saying Mr Angus missed his chance to formally request a review (for which the firm charges $3800 if the finding is against the claimant).
“Given Mr Angus never objected or asked for a review during the assessment process, it’s an odd protest to now hand back a substantial cheque because of a desire to obtain more money,” a spokesman said.
Mr Rattray told The Australian he could not comment on Mr Angus’s claims, but in the reasons for his assessment, he noted that Mr Angus had treatment for depression and panic attacks before the bushfires. Since the fires, he has been suicidal at times, needing extensive medical treatment and occasional hospitalisation.
“It has psychologically scarred me for the rest of my life,” Mr Angus said. “I’ve lost the value of my business, I’ve lost everything.’’
Ecological consultant David Paul with a koala found in the Leard State Forest
[Source: Photo by Tania Marshall, Front Line Action on Coal,
^http://frontlineaction.wordpress.com/]
.
Environmentalists are urging the New South Wales and Australian governments to save the Leard State Forest. They are concerned about the catastrophic impact of major mining expansion on an isolated and vulnerable koala colony in its natural habitat within the Leard State Forest.
The Leard State Forest is situated near Maules Creek within the Namoi River catchment about 10km north-east of the township of Boggabri on the North West Slopes of New South Wales, about 500km nor’-nor’-west of Sydney.
Maules Creek Mine location map
[Source: Google Maps]
.
The nearby town of Boggabri lies on the Namoi River, a major perennial river and floodplain within the Murray-Darling Basin. The landscape is naturally subjected to infrequent seasonal rains and widespread flooding.
.
.
The native vegetation has been naturally dominated by Box-Gum Woodland ecological communities featuring the endemic species of White Box, Pilliga Box and Bimble Box. These provide vital habitat for numerous woodland bird and microbat species and a small community of Koalas.
The Leard State Forest
An isolated remnant box woodland
.
The region was originally the Aboriginal land of the Kamilaroi people and their ‘place of many creeks‘. However, two hundred and twenty five years of colonial pastoral settlement and associated widespread deforestation has seen the region denuded of most native vegetation historically for sheep and wheat; and more recently for irrigated cropping, particularly water thirsty cotton.
Native habitat has been sadly reduced to a few isolated islands of land set aside as ‘State Forests’. These include the Pilliga Forest, the largest remnant temperate forest in Eastern Australia, as well as Jacks Creek, Plagyan, Rusden and Leard State Forests, as well as the rugged Mount Kaputar National Park.
Leard State Forest includes the most extensive and intact stands of the nationally listed and critically endangered Box-Gum Woodland remaining on the Australian continent and is home to nearly 400 native species of plants and animals, and includes habitat for 34 threatened species and several endangered ecological communities.
.
Leard State Forest location map
[Source: Google Maps]
.
It’s believed as few as 20 koalas are left in the Leard State Forest, which is considered its primary habitat. The primary food source for the koalas is thought to be the Pilliga Box, Red Gums and Yellow Boxes. This Koala population is very fragile and could be significantly impacted on by the future mining plans.
Ecological consultant David Paul:
“If they are part of the same population as the Pilliga koala, then Leard is a very important area for allowing the dispersal of these animals in an east west direction. Leard Forest is a stepping stone between habitat in the Pilliga and to the east and south. While there are not many koalas there it’s a very important area to allow the dispersal of koalas in the region.”
Whitehaven Coal mining expansion into the Leard State Forest
.
<< Approval has been given for one of the biggest open-cut coal mines in the world in the state’s north-east. Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Project, near the Leard State Forest, will extract 12 million tonnes of raw coal a year.
If given the final go ahead from the Federal Government, Whitehaven expects production to start mid-2013, with operations predicted to last around 30 years.
Managing director Tony Haggarty:
“The mine will be good for the region economically and good for the state. It’s one of the best coal developments in the world. It’s a large reserve, it’s very good quality. It’s the sort of coal that is in demand in the market place, and because the reserve is large and because it has a long life, there will be a significant area of land involved.”
.
But Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke says the project will now face Commonwealth scrutiny. It will examine the mine’s potential impacts on the nearby critically endangered white box woodland.
An Environment Department spokeswoman says once the assessment is complete, it will go before Mr Burke who will consider the advice of the department, the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on possible water impacts, and any public comments.
Environmentalist Phil Spark:
“The planning commission’s approval is a blow to the endangered trees and animals that live in the forest. My biggest concern is that the environment has been totally undervalued. You just can’t destroy a forest and think it’s going to be compensated. It’s an endangered ecological community and it just can’t be replaced.”
The Maules Creek Project is about 18 kilometres north of Boggabri in the Gunnedah Basin. >>
Nearby Boggabri Open Cut Coal Mine, owned by Whitehaven CoalSaw thousands of hectares of native Box Woodland bulldozed in 2006.
.
Environmentalists are up in arms over a proposal to mine two thousand hectares of state forest, among it, this remnant koala habitat.
The Maules Creek Mine adjoining the Leard State Forest has received NSW government approval to expand into the forest, which will see most of the forest and its flora and fauna all but completed bulldozed into history.
Whitehaven Coal wants a new open-cut coalmine that will extract up to 13 million tonnes of coal a year to earn it $767 million. It also wants a second nearby Idemitsu Boggabri open cut mine to extract 7 million tonnes a year.
Greens Senate Candidate Cate Faehrmann:
“These approvals will literally change the face of the township of Gloucester as well as the small community of Maules Creek near Narrabri in the state’s north-west. The Maules Creek and Boggabri proposals were referred to the Federal environment minister Tony Burke because they are going to wipe out critically endangered forest which is home to many threatened species. How can any Environment Minister in their right mind approve this?
The Maules Creek coal mine alone will emit the same amount of carbon emissions each year as New Zealand during its proposed 30 year life span. This is disgraceful and it’s why communities everywhere are starting to call on the government to transition away from coal and towards a secure renewable energy future.
I have visited the site of the proposed Maules Creek coal mine recently to see the forest firsthand and saw a koala up close in the forest. Tony Burke has just approved a coal mine which will wipe out a small and vulnerable koala population
“The farmers who have been fighting coal mine proposals in Leard State Forest for years will continue to fight for the protection of their forest.”
.
Up until recently, Whitehaven Coal has been owned by multimillionnaire Nathan Tinkler. Its chief executive is Paul Flynn and one of its directors is former National Party leader Mark Vaile. In June 2013, after securing his Maule’s Creek Mine expansion approval, Tinkler sold off most of his shareholdings in Whitehaven Coal to an American profiteering investment capital firm, Farallon Funds.
Whitehaven Coal has been challenged in the courts against its proposal to mine the Leard State Forest by the Northern Inland Council for the Environment. This community based not-for-profit group has said the Federal government was wrong to approve the project. They are challenging the approval process of both the Maules Creek and nearby Idemitsu Boggabri coalmines “because of the dodgy process by which they were approved and the devastating impacts they will have”.
Whitehaven Coal chief executive Paul Flynn has insisted the court challenge to the approval of the Maules Creek mine in NSW will not stop the project and is merely a “frustrating niggle“.
Last financial year Whitehaven made a loss of $82 million.
Listen to ABC Radio interview with Ecologist David Paul in 2012:
(Click icon and play audio on the ABC Radio website, turn up volume to listen)
[Source: ‘Concern for Koala’s in the Leard State Forest’, 20121112, radio interview by Kelly Fuller, Morning Show, ABC Radio New England NSW,
^http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/11/12/3630754.htm]
<< A clutch of big coal and coal seam gas projects, including the controversial Whitehaven mine near Narrabri in NSW, have been approved by the federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke. He signed conditional approvals for Whitehaven’s Maules Creek mine, planned for the Leard State Forest, Idemitsu’s neighbouring Boggabri coalmine expansion, and a coal seam gas development planned by AGL for Gloucester in NSW.
Together, the three resources projects would have a huge carbon footprint of 47 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year – about 8 per cent of Australia’s total emissions – according to environmental impact assessments. Whitehaven, part-owned by embattled coal baron Nathan Tinkler, was subject to a damaging hoax when anti-coal campaigner Jonathan Moylan issued a fake press release claiming ANZ had stopped funding the project, causing a temporary drop in the miner’s share price. His protest is being investigated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The mining projects had all been approved at state level. Mr Burke’s signature was seen as the final obstacle to development.
”Of all the decisions I have ever made, this is the one where I have the least idea of whether the projects are going to go ahead,” he said. ”For all three projects there are substantial issues.”
Some of the hurdles yet to be overcome are the preservation of a ”biodiversity corridor” in the Leard Forest to allow koalas and other vulnerable animals to survive, high quality offsets to partially compensate for sections of the forest which would be cut down, and a hydrogeological survey around Gloucester.
Mr Burke compared Monday’s decision to the approval granted by former environment minister Malcolm Turnbull to the proposed Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania. That process involved a series of separate ”modules” that stretched the approvals process out for years, before the project was finally canned.
Asked if his coal and coal seam gas decisions then amounted to ”Clayton’s approvals”, Mr Burke said: ”It’s a completely fair criticism. I would have much preferred to do things in the usual way, and give clear approvals or rejections. Unfortunately the NSW government chose to leak commercial information, and caused this process.”
Mr Burke was referring to a confidential letter from him to the NSW government, obtained by Fairfax Media, flagging his intention to approve the Whitehaven mine late last year. He said NSW would be excluded from the further approvals process because the letter was leaked.
Also on Monday, the NSW government granted conditional approval for an expansion of BHP Billiton’s Dendrobium coalmine south-west of Sydney. Five longwall coal panels will be dug beneath Sydney’s drinking water catchment, with some surface damage expected to eight ”upland swamps” – rare ecosystems that support a variety of plants, birds and amphibians.
The managing director of Whitehaven, Tony Haggarty, welcomed the approval and said: ”Notwithstanding the stringent environmental conditions which have been placed on the project and the difficult coal market at present, this is an excellent project and Whitehaven will be seeking to bring it into production as soon as possible.”
An AGL spokeswoman also welcomed the approval and said it would work on satisfying the 36 conditions on matters of national environmental significance and protection of groundwater.
”Conservationists are furious about Minister Burke’s decision,” said the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Pepe Clarke. ”Leard Forest is a rich natural habitat, teeming with life, and this decision marks the death knell of this extraordinary area.” The NSW Greens said the series of approvals made for ”a very black day for the environment in NSW”. >>
<< Whitehaven Coal has contracted Leighton Holdings to build a rail loop for its $766 million Maules Creek project in NSW. The rail loop is a key part of the coal mine’s infrastructure and an important milestone in its construction, Whitehaven said.
The mine, in the Gunnedah basin in the state’s north, is slated to begin production in the first quarter of calendar 2015, providing 10.5 million tonnes of saleable thermal and coking coal.
Environmentalists are fighting the federal government’s approval of the mine in the Federal Court, with a decision expected in November. >>
Community protest meeting against local coal mining
[Source: ‘Sea of hands support gasfield free region at Tamworth public meeting’, 20130226,
^http://maulescreek.org/news/page/3/]
.
[8] Whitehaven Coal – the dirty face of the Coal Industry
Whitehaven Jobs: << With a workforce which will surpass 1000 people in the next five years, we are the place for opportunity. We are independent, we have a high quality portfolio of producing mines and we are developing three of Australia’s most significant new coal projects.
We want smart, committed, motivated people who value a dynamic culture and quick decision making. We want people who value being part of a community and achieving goals. At Whitehaven people can make a difference, and do make a difference. Our operations are currently underpinned by our Narrabri underground longwall operation and our three existing open cut mines – all situated in NSW’s Gunnedah Basin.
Our Maules Creek Project, also in the Gunnedah Basin, was fully approved in July 2013 and will provide significant and exciting career opportunities across a wide range of mining-related professions. Maules Creek is one of the last major undeveloped and significant multi-seam coal deposits in New South Wales and is expected to sustain a potential project life in excess of 30 years. It is approved to extract up to 13 Mt of coal per annum and rail 12.4 Mt of product from the site in any calendar year.>>
Shrinking Koala Habitat – completely dependent upon the whims of Australians, if we give a toss. Being systematically destroyed by O’Farrell Government Loggers across coastal New South Wales, Australia
.
Koala Habitat is being trashed across New South Wales
.
<<The dull, grinding roar of logging trucks has become background noise in the hills around Eden, on the New South Wales south coast. Equally familiar is the sight of people photographing the loggers’ loads as they are hauled down to the local woodchip mill and on to ships bound for Japan. The campaigners are looking for signs of tree trunks that have hollows and may have supported native sugar gliders or owls.
About 1,200 kilometres north, in the subtropical rainforest near Casino, botanists and zoologists are poring over maps and Google Earth, tracking breaches of logging conditions – trees cut down inside protection zones, trees felled that supported endangered wildlife or nourished other flora.
The tit-for-tat battle in the forests has led to frustration on all sides, with forestry workers complaining of ”manic hatred” directed at them. Anti-logging activists say the damage to state forests is systematic and routine, as established rules in the NSW Forest Agreements are disregarded.
”It’s not exactly a surprise to us that there are so many breaches because the fox is in charge of the hen house,” says Lisa Stone, a campaigner with South-East Forest Rescue. ”It keeps happening over and over again. You have got areas where they are supposed to be taking out single trees and then you go there and it’s practically clear-felled.”
For each state forest targeted for logging, a plan must be drawn up that leaves some trees untouched, in accordance with the ”environmental protection licences” issued to logging contractors working for the state government agency, Forests NSW.
.
What the hell is Government’s Forests NSW doing to Wildlife Habitat?
Forests NSW Greenwash:
.
“Forests NSW is committed to ensuring a supply of timber from NSW State forests today and into the future while also protecting other forest values such as biodiversity, clean air and water and public access for recreation. We are committed to running a safe and profitable business for the people of NSW.”
“The NSW (O’Farrell) Government has announced it will make Forests NSW a state owned corporation (SOC). Forests NSW will remain publicly owned and the nature of the business and business relationships will remain largely the same but the governance structures will change to improve the organisation’s commercial performance.
As a state owned corporation under the direction of a skilled commercial board, Forests NSW will be able to focus sharply on its core business of growing and harvesting timber to meet the community’s needs for hardwood and softwood products while still providing recreational opportunities for the people of New South Wales.”
Ed: So to the O’Farrell Government the forests are only about human needs – a babyboomer mindset, just like in the Old Testament. “..And God said unto them be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” [Bible, Old Testament, Book of Genesis 1:28] ..and humans have been self-righteously buggering the planet ever since.
.
<<The many-layered oversight system produces a lot of work for the handful of NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water staff, some of whom have found themselves visiting the same logging sites repeatedly.
Forests NSW stressed that a warning letter can refer to separate breaches, which partly explains why the number of warnings issued to Forests NSW is so much lower than the number of times rules get broken.
Nonetheless, department staff have told the Herald that guidelines are often applied indifferently by loggers and some contractors are serial offenders. Forests NSW has also lost staff through voluntary redundancy this year which, some workers argued, affects its ability to police logging contractors.
A spokeswoman for the Environment Department said logging licences contained ”strict provisions to protect the environment, threatened species and its habitat”. Audits of logging operations are carried out every month as part of its compliance program.
”[The department] is concerned about the number of recent alleged breaches being reported in the south-east of NSW and in response is conducting several comprehensive field audits of Forests NSW work in the region. If any of the alleged breaches are found to be substantiated then the [department] will take appropriate action.”
New spice has been added to the deluge of investigations by the recent so-called ”peace deal” in Tasmania, which saw major logging companies, including Gunns, agree to stop logging in old-growth native forests. The deal also included an effective end to large-scale burning of native timber as a source of renewable energy, a process that is now permitted in NSW. The National Association of Forest Industries said it would oppose any effort to transfer the Tasmanian deal to mainland Australia.
A woodchip company, South-East Fibre Exports, is planning to build the state’s first wood-fired electricity plant at Eden, burning ”offcuts”. The company says opposition to its power plant is driven by people with the broader agenda of ending logging in native forests altogether. This seems likely to be true. South-East Fibre Exports blames anti-logging campaigners for setting up a fake website that mocks the company’s proposal, and a campaigner against the power plant, the former fashion designer Prue Acton, found an electronic bugging device in her home earlier this year. No one knows who is responsible for planting the bug, and there is no suggestion it is linked to the logging dispute. Police are investigating.
The NSW Primary Industries Minister, Steve Whan, said he had faith in the forestry companies and Forests NSW. ”Allegations of ‘systematic damage’ are overstated,” says Whan. ”The majority of the alleged breaches in question are minor in nature – with little to no impact on the environment.”
Former NSW Labor Minister for Minerals and Forest Resources, Steve Whan,who also had Primary Industries, Emergency Services and Rural Affairs – i.e. politically imposed conflicts of interests. .
In southern NSW, the forestry organisation is regularly scrutinised and was operating within the rules.
”Forests NSW southern region has received no penalty notices and not one case has been brought to prosecution for at least the past three years. ‘As a local member in the area as well as the Minister for Forest Resources, I personally welcome the intense environmental scrutiny that forestry operations in the area are subjected to. It is very important that any logging operations in the region comply with all the environmental conditions in place.”
Documents maintained by Forests NSW staff show there were 13 breaches recorded in south-eastern NSW last year.The breaches include cases of ”lack of care taken by operator”, ”operator did not see marking tape” and ”poor rigour in completing surveys”. Some could be explained by mishaps such as a vehicle slipping on a steep hillside into a protected area. In one case a logging contractor cut down trees in an area marked as ”old growth forest” because a global positioning system device had run out of batteries.
Of the 13 recorded incidents, eight resulted in verbal warnings to forestry contractors and one, in which the estimate of damage made by environment department staff differed from Forests NSW’s, resulted in a warning letter. Environmental damage was in every case assessed to be ”nil” and no remedial action was taken.
In part, the mistakes could be put down to forestry workers working to tight deadlines in rugged terrain.
But anti-logging activists are not prepared to be that charitable. The parallels with the situation in northern NSW are remarkable. In the state forests around Casino and Tenterfield, a group called North-East Forest Alliance has identified damage to stands of trees inhabited by koalas, stuttering frogs, sooty owls, powerful owls, golden-tipped bats and yellow-bellied gliders. The same types of breaches are evident, with contractors failing to follow guidelines about properly marking up vulnerable trees. Trees up to two metres wide at the base were cut down inside an area of rainforest described as a ”special protection zone”.
Five sets of allegations, covering dozens of alleged individual breaches in separate forests, were sent to the Environment Department early this year. Staff undertook a joint investigation with the forestry agency, and Forests NSW said a ”compliance response team” had been established.
South-East Forest Rescue recently surveyed state forests at Mogo, near Batemans Bay, and found recent logging in areas that were supposed to have been preserved, including an Aboriginal cultural site and conservation areas. In a report sent to the government, it alleges that many hectares of forest that should have been off-limits to loggers had been cleared.
The group has also walked through south coast state forests Tantawangalo, Yambulla, Glenbog and Dampier, collecting photographs of logging sites. Earlier surveys of the various regions by the Environment Department show habitat supporting sooty owls, yellow-bellied gliders, square-tailed kites, giant burrowing frogs, bent wing bats, tiger quolls, glossy black cockatoos and powerful owls may have been damaged.
The group’s surveys have been passed on to the Environment Department. The department said its own studies in the area are expected to run until mid-November. Stone says the group wanted Whan to visit the logging locations they had surveyed.>>
<<Critical habitat supporting the so-called Strzelecki “super-koala” and endangered powerful owls is to be bulldozed as part of a controversial road-widening project in South Gippsland.
Several hundred trees, many home to koalas and with hollows suitable for nesting owls and other wildlife, will be lost, despite consultants warning the Latrobe City Council that the damp forest habitat is virtually irreplaceable in a region largely cleared of native vegetation.
The local member for Morwell, Brendan Jenkins, is appealing to Environment Minister John Thwaites for an 11th-hour reprieve after local conservationists lost their case in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Latrobe Council wants to widen Budgeree Road so that logging trucks servicing plantations can pass each other. Trucks now travel one way down the road and return via another route. Budgeree Road is also a tourist drive to Tarra Bulga National Park.
The tribunal initially raised strong objections to the project, near Boolarra, in the face of evidence that the council took little account of the vegetation affected, that traffic volumes did not justify the scale of the works, and that a redesign could save most trees. Then, in a surprise turnaround, it approved the project last month with minor amendments.
.
‘Strzelecki koalas are a genetically superior group that may hold the key to the species’ long-term survival in Victoria.
All other koalas in the state are descended from a handful of individuals transferred to French Island more than a century ago, a few years before koalas were hunted to near-extinction on the mainland.’
.
Ed: This is a ecological cry of impending Koala regional extinction and a representative indictment of Australia’s deliberate and evil extermination of its wildlife.
.
The French Island colony was used to repopulate the state, but inbreeding is now becoming apparent. The Strzelecki koalas, however, appear to be a remnant of the original and genetically diverse mainland population.
The roadside forest is rare in its own right, being of “very high conservation significance”. This category has legislative protection under the Native Vegetation Management framework, and can be cleared only under exceptional circumstances.
The loss of hollow-bearing trees is also listed as a threat under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. Consultants from Biosis Research told Latrobe Council it would be difficult to find other damp forest areas that could offset the loss of roadside remnants.
Susie Zent, from Friends of the Gippsland Bush, said VCAT had set conditions for the roadworks based on a mistaken classification by the Department of Sustainability and Environment as to the vegetation’s significance. She said the VCAT decision could be set aside if the department admitted to an error of judgement and requested amendments to its permit conditions.
Latrobe’s chief executive officer, Paul Buckley, said he expected VicRoads to sign off the final plans within three or four weeks. He said the additional width was needed to improve safety.
A spokesman for Mr Thwaites said the department was waiting for final details from the council, particularly in relation to offset measures. “Offset measures are required to ensure there is no overall loss of areas that have ecological significance,” he said.>>
.
Strzelecki Koala Endangered
(South Gippsland Victorian, Australia)
.
<<Of major concern due to the logging and clearing activities of both Hancock Timber Resource Group and PaperlinX is the long term survival of populations of the Strzelecki and South Gippsland Koalas whose entire habitat is now owned by these companies.
An investigation carried out by Dr Bronwyn Houlden, School of Biological Science, University of New South Wales, 20th March 1997 and 6th April 1998 confirmed that the genetic pool of these koalas has not been compromised. Dr Houlden indicates that on a national basis koalas generally are not considered to be threatened. She advises that this assessment has unfortunately led to an extremely simplistic view of conservation of biodiversity in the species.
Through extensive analysis by herself and her collaborators she has revealed that the species is composed of highly differentiated populations with low levels of gene flow between populations throughout their range. The Strzelecki Koala population constitutes a separate management unit and is significant in terms of management of biodiversity on a regional and state basis. Dr Houlden found that the Strzelecki Ranges had the highest level of genetic variation, of any Victorian population she has analysed. This is important, given the low levels of genetic variability found in many populations in Victoria, which have been involved in the translocation program.>>
The Critical Habitat Truth behind Hancock Timber Resource Group
.
Foreign-owned and controlled Hancock Timber Resource Group, claims publicly that its Victorian timber plantation operation, Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP) is committed to…
“environmental responsibility is underpinned by the company’s environmental policy and management system, forest stewardship program, best management practices, which include internal and external performance measures, and active community consultation program, working with groups such as Landcare, field naturalists and Waterwatch.”
.
Hancock Victorian Plantations claims…
“HVP sets its own high standards, its operations are monitored by local shires, water catchment management authorities, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and the Victorian Department of Environment and Sustainability. The company is also subject to regular audits to maintain its Australian Forestry Standards (AFS) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifications.”Around 70 per cent of HVP’s total landholdings are sustainably-managed plantations, growing largely on land that was previously cleared for farming. The company maintains the remaining 30 per cent of its holdings for plantation protection, conservation and other community values.In the Strzelecki Ranges, HVP has set aside almost half of its land from timber production, managing this native forest for conservation.”
Editor: It all sounds wonderful coming from this United States industrial logger. But since when has anyone trusted US corporations? Read the snapshot log below.
.
Road hit female koala with broken jaw. Had to be euthanised after 6 weeks. Urgent research is required to determine breeding populations, location and numbers. Logging seriously impacts on long term populations of this animal.
[Source: Hancock Watch, ^http://hancockwatch.nfshost.com/docs/koala.htm#content_top]
South Gippsland, Victoria (October 2002) – systematically being destroyed for corporate profit by United States multi-national ‘Hancock Timber Resourse Group’:
.
Jeerlang West Road Strzelecki Ranges
Locals outraged by removal of native vegetation – Koala Feed Trees. Koala corridor destroyed. Koalas are now not sited in this area. 8 Koalas have died in this area in the last 12 months.
.
Strzelecki Ranges (Jeeralangs)
Eucalypts globulus – Bluegum (4ssp.) Southern Blue Gum – subspecies globulus. Restricted on the mainland to South Gippsland and Otways. Road works resulted in logging of older trees. Prime koala habitat destroyed by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. A recent change in management will hopefully result in the end of this type of practice.
.
Strzelecki Ranges (Jeeralangs)
Prime koala habitat destroyed without permit application by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. Destruction of the rare Globulus globulus.
.
93-41 Creswick plantations
Creek crossing over Anderson’s Gully which feeds into Creswick Creek. Tullaroop Water Catchment. Drinking water for Maryborough, Carisbrook, Talbot, Adelaide Lead, Alma, Havelock, Majorca and Betley. Sediment enters waterways mainly via creek crossings and roads.
.
93-41 Petticoat Plantation
Tributary of Anderson’s Gully in the headwaters of the Murray Darling Catchment (Loddon River). Logging machinery driven straight through creekline.
.
93-41 Petticoat Creek
Closeup of machinery entering tributary of Anderson’s Gully in the Tullaroop Water Catchment. Note build up of sediment which will wash into gully after rain. Note also buildup of stagnant water.
.
93-41. Petticoat Plantation
Tullaroop Proclaimed Water Catchment. Machinery access into Anderson’s Gully tributary.
.
Morwell River East Branch/Strzelecki Ranges
Creek crossing with sediment washing into waterway. Note also Slender Tree Fern an FFG listed species. Australia’s first FSC Assessment team in the Strzelecki Ranges. Discussing roading/landslide issues in the Jeerlangs.
.
Traralgon Creek in the Latrobe River catchment (Strzelecki Ranges)
Recent pine logging with limited bufferzone in a pine plantation by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock. As part of the Friends of the Gippsland Bush/Australian Paper Agreement of 1997, 50 m buffers of native vegetation will be established along Traralgon Creek after pine logging. There were also problems with a creek crossing at this location, which can be seen eroding into the creek in this photo.
.
Tributary of Jeeralang Creek with cool temperate rainforest (Strzelecki Ranges)
A Myrtle Beech tree is in the centre of the gully. The person in the photo is holding a twig with Myrtle Beech leaves taken from the base of a tree in the gully. According to the 1997 8 Point Agreement 50m buffers along Jeeralang Creek will be replanted with indigenous species. This area should not have been logged at all. Cool Temperate Rainforest needs much greater buffer for its long term protection and survival.
.
Jeeralang West Road
(Non-plantation) Blackwood and Austral Mulberry cut down along roadside easement which is Crown Land. Logged by Grand Ridge Plantations/Hancock.
.
Billy’s Creek Catchment/Strzelecki Ranges
Twenty metre buffer should be reinstated at this site as in accordance with Billy’s Creek Water Supply Catchment, Plan no 1870. (Ideally the entire slope should be retired from timber production due to its steepness).
.
Billy’s Creek catchment/Strzelecki Ranges
20m buffers should be reinstated in this plantation area.
.
Jumbuk Road/ Strzelecki Ranges
Logging of roadside buffers/easements. Wildlife corridors destroyed at this site as well as the head of a gully feeding into Billy’s Creek.
What is the long term impact on water yield from pine plantations in this catchment?
.
93-41 Petticoat plantation (Headwaters of the Murray Darling catchment [Loddon River])
Tullaroop Water catchment is currently at 30% of its capacity due to primarily to drought. Hancock logged 223ha of pine in this catchment in 2001/2. Much of the land within the Creswick State Forest has in the past been affected by gold mining activities. Stabilisation of the worst affected areas was achieved with softwood plantations. Will sediment from these mining sites be disturbed by current plantation logging. Tullaroop catchment supplies towns such as Maryborough with drinking water. What is the impact of logging on water quality and quantity in this catchment?
.
Korweinguboora Reservoir catchment.
Recently logged by Hancock. Note lack of buffer zones for this wetland feeding into the Reservoir. This reservoir supplies Geelong and other towns with drinking water.
.
Korweinguboora catchment (Geelong’s water supply)
How can Hancock guarantee that herbicides and fertilser residues will not enter Geelongs water supply? Note lack of buffers surrounding this drainage line.
.
A tributary of Creswick Creek in the Tullaroop Water supply catchment
Note lack of creek buffer zones and ripping of soil into creek banks. Will herbicide residues enter water from this site? What impact will operations at this site have on quality of water for all species including people? Is this sustainable?
.
Tributary of Creswick Creek in Tullaroop water supply catchment
Over 200 ha of pine plantations in this catchment were logged in 2001/2. What is the long term effect of fast rotation plantations on water quality and quantity? Pines cut out of creek itself and creek banks at this site.>>
.
.
Bligh Labor Government flogs off Queensland’s forests for $603M to Hancock
. .
<<The Queensland Labor government has announced the sale of Forestry Plantations Queensland – the first transaction in its controversial asset sales. Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the 99-year licence for the timber plantation business would be sold for $603 million to Hancock Queensland Plantations. The sale price is well in excess of the $500 million that had been anticipated. Mr Fraser said he signed the contract on Tuesday morning.
“By reaching agreement on a price of $603 million, this exceeds original expectations and is great news for Queensland taxpayers,’‘ Mr Fraser told state parliament on Tuesday. “This is the first of the five commercial businesses to be sold, licensed or leased to the private sector, as the government reforms the state balance sheet and builds a stronger Queensland economy.”
He said award staff would have their jobs guaranteed for three years. Mr Fraser said Hancock Queensland Plantations, a company managed by Hancock Timber Resource Group on behalf of institutional investors, had won the right to grow and harvest the trees.
Crown plantation land on which the majority of the business sits will remain in government ownership. The sale includes about 35,000 hectares of freehold land, which is about 10 per cent of the total estate.
Hancock Timber Resource Group manages more than two million hectares of timberlands worth approximately $US8.5 billion ($A9.7 billion) across the United States, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.>>
<<The opposition has accused NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker of allowing the logging of koala habitats on the state’s mid-north coast. Opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley said the minister had received a “scathing” letter from the local councils protesting her decision to allow logging of core koala habitats in the area.
“These councils are traditionally pro-development – but even they are alarmed that Robyn Parker is allowing a national icon to be endangered thanks to her ‘unsound ecological approach’,” Mr Foley said in a statement on Thursday.>>
He said that…
On October 27 Ms Parker said “logging protects koalas”
.
Editor: Robyn Parker has not got a clue about her Environment portfolio. She is another teacher-turned-politician and clearly insecure. Last month Parker sacked the head of her department, Lisa Corbyn, and has been through five press secretaries.
The opposition’s environment spokesman Luke Foley: “When will Premier O’Farrell do the decent thing and get a new environment minister?”
<<The NSW Government has allowed 2,000 heactares of koala habitat to be logged at Coffs Harbour in northern NSW, despite a local koala conservation plan endorsed by the local council, a Senate inquiry has heard.
One of Australia’s leading koala researchers, Alistair Melzer, has accused federal environment bureaucrats of doing little to avoid ”an escalating conservation crisis” as koala populations decline.
Dr Melzer, who heads Central Queensland University’s koala research centre, told the Senate environment committee inquiry it appeared that Canberra’s bureaucrats ”do not seem to be sensitive to the real state of the environment”.
The six-month inquiry, into the conservation status and sustainability of Australia’s koalas, is investigating threats to the future survival of the species.
In his submission, former Coffs Harbour City Council deputy mayor Rod McKelvey said the NSW Department of Environment’s private native forestry division granted logging permits which resulted in the loss of 2000ha of ”core koala habitat” protected by the council’s koala conservation plan. Mr McKelvey said the department subsequently argued the plan ”did not fall under” NSW environmental planning policy.
”I do not want to be included in the generation who stood by and did nothing while we systematically destroyed koala habitat, making it almost impossible for them to live here,” he said.
Gunnedah farmer Susan Lyle, who has koalas on her three properties, raised concerns about a mining exploration licence issued for open-cut coal mining in the region.
”Our koalas will be decimated. This mining licence is primarily in isolation and to allow such a development is sheer lunacy … There are many, many other resources that can be used for energy, but there is no replacement for the koala,” she said.
.
.
Federal Forest Enquiry a Sham
.
[Source: ‘Federal Forest Inquiry a Sham’, 20111130, North East Forest Alliance, ^http://nefa.org.au/]
.
<<Conservation Group, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), is outraged at the bias of the Federal House of Representatives report ‘Inquiry into the future of the Australian Forestry Industry’ and its refusal to consider the timber supply crisis and the over-logging of north-east NSW’s public forests.
NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, said that most of the evidence presented in NEFA’s 111 page submission was ignored by the inquiry on the grounds that it “criticised the industry”. “What they didn’t ignore they misrepresented. This pretend inquiry was a sham” he said.
“The Commonwealth is party to the North East Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) and claims that it satisfies its national and international obligations for the protection of world heritage, national estate and threatened species.
“While national heritage values were meant to be addressed as part of the RFA, they were not, so the Commonwealth gave the NSW Government an extra two years to complete the process. A decade later and there has still been no assessment and the Federal Government does not care.
“Similarly the RFA was meant to provide protection for nationally threatened species. The evidence we presented, such as the illegal trashing of a population of the nationally endangered fern Lindsaea incisa at Doubleduke, that was meant to be protected by a 50m buffer, was ignored because we were being ‘critical’.
“What is most astounding is that the inquiry refused to consider the evidence we presented on the current timber supply crisis due to the over-commitment of wood from north-east NSW’s public forests.
“Ever since new Wood Supply Agreements for timber from public land were given to sawmillers in 2004 Forests NSW have not been able to supply the committed volumes,” Mr Pugh said.
“The NSW Government’s recklessness in issuing these new Wood Supply Agreements has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars to buy back committed volumes and to compensate BORAL for Forests NSW’s failure to supply. As the crisis worsens, taxpayers exposure to multi-million dollar compensation claims grows.
“In vain efforts to meet shortfalls and reduce their payouts Forests NSW have been over-logging plantations, cutting trees before they mature, increasing logging intensities, logging stream buffers, and logging trees and areas required to be retained for threatened species. They are cutting out the future of the industry and causing immense environmental harm in the process.
“It is appalling, that an inquiry dealing with forestry has completely ignored this crisis and recommended that the Commonwealth Government condone and support this grossly unsustainable and irresponsible logging.
“Local Page MP, Janelle Saffin features in the inquiry’s report despite her electorate being one of the worst affected by the timber supply crisis, rampant illegal logging and widespread forest dieback.
“We call upon Janelle to please explain why the Commonwealth continues to ignore the gross over-logging, fails to identify and protect national heritage values, refuses to take action on the illegal logging of the habitat of nationally threatened species and refuses to consider the dieback of tens of thousands of hectares of public forests in her electorate. She needs to tell her constituents what she is going to do about it”” Mr. Pugh said.>>
.
.
South East Forest Rescue cranking it in south-east NSW
<<South East Forest Rescue have taken some crackerjack action this morning, halting forestry operations with a giant tripod and tree sit structure to highlight illegal logging in the Yambulla State Forest, south of Eden. The logging compartment where breaches have been identified by SEFR contains records of nationally listed endangered species such as glossy black cockatoos, smokey mice, southern brown bandicoots, tiger quolls, eastern pygmy possums, bent wing bats, yellow-bellied gliders, gang gang cockatoos and white-footed dunnarts.
“The response from Forests NSW shows the complete lack of regard for the licence conditions that Forests NSW and their contractors must abide by. The licence conditions for threatened species and habitat conservation are not being adhered to, even though the conditions are grossly inadequate” said forest campaigner Lisa Stone.
“We have reported the breaches in this compartment to the Office of Environment and Heritage,” said Ms Stone. “We stated last time that the probability of further breaches in this compartment if harvesting continues is high given that this logging contractor is a repeat offender and that FNSW still is not complying with the licence conditions” said Ms Stone.>>
<<The NSW Liberal government is failing to protect koalas by allowing logging in remaining habitats, the opposition says. Environment spokesman Luke Foley accused Environment Minister Robyn Parker of breaking an election promise to protect koalas after logging went ahead at the Bermagui State Forest on the south coast.
Logging also started last week at Boambee State Forest on the mid north coast, one of the last habitats for the vulnerable species in the area, Mr Foley said.
“For you to fail to respond and fail to intervene is a gross breach of your election policy to protect our national icon,” Mr Foley said at a budget estimates hearing in Sydney today. “Surely the precautionary approach would be for you as Environment Minister to stop the logging of this key koala habitat?”
Ms Parker denied breaking any election commitments, and said the government was working hard to protect koalas.
“When it comes to forestry, we are about getting a balance and protecting our native species. We are working very hard on them,” she said. “We have written to Forests NSW recommending a precautionary approach to managing impacts on koalas in the Boambee State Forest…The agreement that allowed logging to take place had been signed by the previous government, Ms Parker said. “Perhaps you should go back and look at what was going on when your government signed up to that agreement.”>>
.
.
Koala habitat cleared to make way for more houses
.
[Source: ‘Koala habitat cleared to make way for more houses’, 20121127 (today), by Nicole Fuge, Sunshine Coast Daily, ^http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/koalas-lose-vital-coast-habitat/1637085/]
.
<<More than 100 hectares of koala habitat has been cleared to make way for more houses, another nail in the coffin for one of Australia’s icons.
Work has begun clearing the land behind Aussie World and the Ettamogah Pub for a 334-lot rural residential development.
Despite more than 30% of the 145-hectare site secured for environmental reserve and 12 hectares of revegetation to offset present clearing, Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue volunteer Ray Chambers fears it’s not enough.
Mr Chambers said the area’s koala population was already fragile and the removal of so many trees would have a disastrous affect.
“We do have the odd koala in part of the Palmview area, it’s not a great deal but we know they are there,” he said. “From Forest Glen to the Caloundra turn-off is a koala corridor.”
.
Mr Chambers said there were only about 100 koalas left on the Coast, representing 18% of the Queensland population.
.
A council spokeswoman said despite approval of the development pre-dating an introduction of state-wide regulatory provisions for koala conservation, the council and Department of Environment and Heritage Protection officers had enforced koala protection measures and vegetation offsets.
Developer guidelines include:
More than 30% of the original site secured in environmental reserve.
Traffic calming, speed bumps, and fauna under and overpasses installed to minimise car strikes.
Building envelopes to be enclosed with dog-proof fencing, leaving the balance of each lot free for fauna movement.
About 12ha of revegetation, including planting koala food trees, to be carried out to offset the clearing.
The spokeswoman said a fauna spotting catcher had also been present during clearing.>>
Once were common – now pose for the commoner! Australia’s Koala
(Phascolarctos cinereus)
.
Australia’s iconic and once prolific Koala is now nationally listed as vulnerable to extinction.
What a despicable indictment of Australians!
<<The Koala was formerly common throughout the broad band of forests and woodlands dominated by Eucalyptus spp. extending from north Queensland to the south-eastern corner of mainland South Australia, Australia (Maxwell et al. 1996). However, the overall distribution of Koalas has been reduced since European settlement. This decline was primarily due to disease, bushfires, and widespread habitat destruction in the early decades of the 20th century.
Commercial poaching of koalas (they called it ‘harvesting‘) took place across the range towards the end of the 19th century and early 20th century (huge numbers, running into the millions, were killed for their pelts for a large export industry in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland). Koalas were widely hunted during the 1920s and 1930s, and their populations plunged.>>
Backward Queensland was the worst offender. In August 1927, the Koala fur trade saw the Queensland Government declare ‘open season’ on Koalas. Some 600, 000 koalas were shot to make gloves and hats in jut one month. It became known as ‘Black August‘.
1927 ‘Black August’When 600,000Koalas were shot and skinned across Queensland
.
Commercial hunting was banned in Victoria in the 1890s, yet it continued sporadically (and under regulation) in backward Queensland until 1927 (Hrdina and Gordon 2004).
<<The Koala currently ranges from northeastern, central, and southeastern Queensland with patchy populations in western areas, to eastern New South Wales including the coastal strip and highlands of the Great Dividing Range, the western plains and related riparian environments where suitable habitat occurs, Victoria, and southeastern South Australia. The geographic range has contracted significantly due to loss of large areas of habitat since European settlement. In Queensland, extent of occurrence and area of occupancy have contracted by about 30% (Gordon et al. 2006).
Helped by reintroduction, Koalas have reappeared over much of their former range, but their populations are smaller and scattered. Koalas need a lot of space—about a hundred trees per animal—a pressing problem as Australia’s woodlands continue to shrink.>>
(2.6MB, pdf – NB. if slow to open, GoTo: File > Save As.., then open the PDF file from your auto-download folder)
.
[Source: The Decline in the distribution of the Koala in Queensland, G. Gordon, F. Hrdina, R. Patterson, Zoologist Vol 33, 2004,^http://www.rzsnsw.org.au/]
<<Since European settlement, approximately 80% of Australia’s eucalypt forests have been decimated. Of the remaining 20% almost none is protected and most occurs on privately-owned land.>>
Koala reduced range map Ed: Interpretation is Dark Green = known to occur, Light and Mid Green = used to occurDark green is where human population growth is worst!
(Source: ‘Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) Listing’, Australian Government, 2012),
^http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/koala.html]
.
.
Koalas partially listed as ‘Vulnerable’ to extinction
.
In April 2012, Australia’s Environment Minister, Tony Burke, declared that ‘at-risk’ koala populations along Australia’s eastern seaboard ‘vulnerable‘ under Australian national environment law – specifically under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
This ‘EPBC Act‘ remains the Australian Government’s central piece of environmental legislation, providing a legal framework to protect and manage nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places. The Australian Government’s Department of Environment (etc) is currently developing EPBC Act referral guidelines for the Koala.
<<Rigorous scientific assessment by a variety of experts over the past three years has been reported back to Australia’s lead body on biodiversity conservation, the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC), which has found that Koala populations particularly in Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory have declined markedly in recent years to a point where in these areas populations are vulnerable to regional extinction.
In 2011, the Threatened Species Scientific Committee combined available data for Koala populations across their natural range and generated estimates of the decline experienced over the period 1990–2010 by the national Koala population and, separately, the combined Queensland, NSW and ACT population (TSSC 2011bi).
The parameters of greatest uncertainty are the size of the Queensland population in 1990 and rate of subsequent decline, particularly in inland bioregions, and the size of the Victorian population.>>
The following table is a summary of the TSSC assessment of national Koala populations (TSSC 2012p):
<<These are the same regions where rapid ongoing housing development is allowed and encouraged, as Australia’s human population expands uncontrollably.
Mr Burke said “Koala populations are under serious threat from habitat loss and urban expansion, as well as vehicle strikes, dog attacks, and disease…In fact, in some areas in Victoria and South Australia, koalas are eating themselves out of suitable foraging habitat and their numbers need to be managed.”
“That is why the Scientific Committee recommended to me to list the Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory populations as threatened, rather than to list the koala as nationally threatened across its full range.”
Mr Burke said the Gillard Government had committed $300,000 of new funding under the National Environmental Research Program Emerging Priorities to find out more about koala habitat.
“This funding will be used to develop new survey methods that will improve our knowledge of the quality of koala habitat using remote sensing, and help fill important data gaps to enhance our understanding and ability to protect the species,” Mr Burke said.
“The new funding is in addition to more than $3 million we have invested since 2007 to ensure the resilience and sustainability of our koala population.”>>
[Source: ‘Koala protected under national environment law’, The Hon Tony Burke MP media release, Minister for Environment etc, 20120430, ^http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/burke/2012/mr20120430.html]
.
Koalas reduced to patchy populations Below the IUCN radar/crisis, Koala functional extinction looms
… patchy populations, and more patchy every year.
Do we wait until Koala numbers downgrade to ‘Critically Endangered‘ before the Australian Government gives a toss!
[Source: ^http://home.vicnet.net.au/~fofkk/]
.
.
Australian Government – too little, too late, too selective
.
<<But the Australian Government’s announcement (back in April 2012, now six months ago) only confirmed what the Lismore-based ‘Friends of the Koala‘ group has known for more than a decade. Friends of the Koala volunteer carer Lola Whitney said the listing was long overdue.
“The work that we do here tells us that koalas are in danger of becoming extinct,” she said. “So many koalas come through our care centre every year, that it’s amazing we’ve got any around here at all. And the amount we lose from being hurt or from diseases – we lose a lot.”>>
.
Ed: But the Australian Government has only partially listed Koalas as vulnerable to extinction in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Whereas Victorian and South Australian koalas were omitted.
.
This was because these were the recommendations of the 2011 Senate Enquiry, despite the TSSC confirmed 39% decline in the South Australian Koala population between 1990 and 2010.
.
Tony Burke as ultimate custodian: Why were problematic declining Koalas across South Australia and Victoria excluded from the EPBC Act?
.
It was also because the lead authority, the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, had “information gaps”, and because “the body of data on the status of koala populations is patchy, often sparse and not nationally comprehensive or coordinated”, the TSSC ignored the ‘Precautionary Principle and repeatedly rejected the Koala’s threatened species listing on the EPBC Act.
.
What it failed to appreciate was the more appropriate IUCN Red List categories of ‘DATA DEFICIENT’ (DD) and ‘NOT EVALUATED’ (NE).
.
.
The Conclusion by the 2011 Senate Committee Enquiry was selective. It read as follows:
.
<<The most prominent issue raised during this inquiry was whether the koala should be listed as a threatened species. Although the committee does not have the technical expertise of the TSSC, and therefore believes it is not qualified to determine whether or not the koala should be listed as threatened, the committee is deeply concerned about the sustainability of Australia’s koala population.
On one hand, the committee is pleased that the koala may not yet be eligible for listing as threatened. The committee believes that to have such a significant Australian icon included on the threatened species list would be a national shame.
On the other hand, the committee believes there are parts of the koala population that require much greater protection. This is occurring to some extent in Queensland and NSW where the koala is listed in some areas under state environment protection legislation. However, state listing has not stemmed the marked decline in the population. If declines continue it will only be a matter of time before the koala is nationally listed as a threatened species.
The EPBC threatened species listing process is reactive and not well suited to the conservation needs of the koala. In the committee’s view, there ought to be processes available to enable proactive protection for the koala as well as other significant Australian species. In this regard the committee notes the possible mechanisms announced as part of the government’s response to the review of the EPBC Act which could enable a more proactive approach to koala conservation. Perhaps, building on the TSSC’s proposal to monitor species of cultural, evolutionary and/or economic significance, there ought to be a category of nationally significant species.
Ultimately, the committee would like to see Australia’s koala population return to plentiful numbers of healthy individuals, in resilient habitats, across the koala’s natural range.>>
[Conclusion, p. xix]
.
Threatened Species Scientific Committee repeatedly rejected Koala listing on EPBC Act
.
Three separate Listing Advices by the ‘ by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) to successive Australian Environment Ministers rejected the listing of the Koala as a threatened species on the EPBC Act, as follows:.
.
Feb 2006:
.
Due to the TSSC acknowledging that “there are still information gaps regarding the species’ conservation status“, the TSSC recommendation to Australia’s Environment Minister on Koala conservation was:
“The Committee recommends that the species Phascolarctos cinereus (Koala) is not eligible for inclusion in the list referred to in section 178 (Listing of Threatened Species) of the EPBC Act.”
[Source: ‘Advice to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage from the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (the Committee) on Amendments to the list of Threatened Species
under the EPBC Act’, 20060206, Item 6, p.15, Threatened Species Scientific Committee,^http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/pubs/koala.pdf, >Read 2006 Listing Advice]
.
Sep 2010:
.
<<The body of data on the status of koala populations is patchy, often sparse and not nationally comprehensive or coordinated. The data quality is also variable. There has been only limited improvement in quality, relevance and integration of these data over the 15 years that the koala has been considered by this Committee and its predecessor. This situation is not unusual for the Committee but what is unusual is the huge area of occurrence and variability that the koala demonstrates. I addition there is a lack of any consistent reliable methodology for population monitoring of the koala.>>
.
<<In its deliberations, the Committee concluded that a Conservation Dependent listing for the koala could not be justified at this time.>>
<<The Committee recommends that the list referred to in section 178 of the EPBC Act not be amended at this time by including the Phascolarctos cinereus (koala) in the list in the Vulnerable category.>>
Nov 2011 (change of heart, but ignoring Victoria and South Australia):
.
<<12. Recommendations
(i) The Committee recommends that the Minister declare the combined koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory to be a species for the purposes of the EPBC Act under s517 of the Act.
(ii) The Committee recommends that the list referred to in section 178 of the EPBC Act not be amended by including the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) over its national extent.
(iii) The Committee recommends that the list referred to in section 178 of the EPBC Act be amended by including in the list in the Vulnerable category the combined koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.
(iv) The Committee recommends that there should be a recovery plan for this species.>>
To his credit, Tony Burke had asked the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) for more precise boundaries detailing areas where koala populations are in trouble.
In February 2012, Australian Koala Foundation chief executive officer Deborah Tabart said that this Senate Committee Enquiry document was telling Mr Burke that he should act now and not wait another 10 weeks.
Deborah Tabart OAM
– not smiling
.
<<“Minister Burke has delayed this decision, I think, twice and Minister (Peter) Garrett prior to that, I think, three times. “I’m just hoping that the Senate inquiry document, which is now firmly on his (Mr Burke’s) desk, should persuade him that, if nothing else, he should protect the koala under a precautionary approach”, said Tabart.>>
<<The National Board of the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF), being much more aware of the Koala population range reality, undertook an extensive mapping project to quantify how many koalas remained in the wild, and where those koalas were located.
Extensive research was undertaken using National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) data, vegetation mapping, a bidling database of records for over 80,000 individually assessed trees from 2,000 field sites across the Koala’s range. Data has been collected by AKF from sixteen of the twenty-four Australian bioregions that the Koala is known to occur.>>
In 2011, the following map has been prepared estimating Australia’ national Koala population:
Estimated Australian Koala Population, 2011 >Read Large Map(pdf) (3.4MB – – NB. if slow to open, GoTo: File > Save As.., then open the PDF file from your auto-download folder)[Source: ‘Bob’s Map’, Australian Koala Foundation, ^https://www.savethekoala.com/our-work/koala-numbers]
.
2011 Senate Committee: ‘The koala—saving our national icon’
.
The 19 Recommendations of the Senate Committee
.
<<Recommendation 1
The Australian Government fund research into the genetic diversity of the koala including a population viability assessment of the southern koala and determining priority areas for conservation nationally.
.
Recommendation 2
The Australian Government fund a properly designed, funded and implemented national koala monitoring and evaluation program across the full range of the koala.
.
Recommendation 3
The Australian Government establish a nationally coordinated and integrated program for population monitoring of threatened species and other culturally, evolutionary and/or economically significant species.
.
Recommendation 4
The Australian Government assist the koala research community and interested organisations to work towards a standardised set of methodologies for estimating koala populations.
.
Recommendation 5
The Threatened Species Scientific Committee provide clearer information to the Environment Minister in all future threatened species listing advices, including species population information, and that the Threatened Species Scientific Committee review its advice to the Minister on the listing of the koala in light of the findings of this inquiry.
.
Recommendation 6
The Australian Government undertake habitat mapping across the koala’s national range, including the identification of priority areas of koala conservation, with a view to listing important habitat under the provisions of the EPBC Act.
.
Recommendation 7
The habitat maps be used to identify and protect important habitat in known koala ranges.
.
Recommendation 8
The Australian Government review its land holdings which contain koala habitat and consider biodiversity, and specifically koala populations, in the management and sale of Commonwealth land.
.
Recommendation 9
The Australian Government actively consider options for recognition and funding for private land holders for the conservation of koala habitat.
.
Recommendation 10
The Australian Government fund research into koala disease, including the viability of vaccination programs and the effect of changes in leaf chemistry.
.
Recommendation 11
The Australian Government fund the Koala Research Network’s request for a Research Liaison Officer.
.
Recommendation 12
The Australia Government consider further wild dog control options in priority koala areas.
.
Recommendation 13
Local and state governments:
Introduce appropriate speed limits in priority koala areas; and
Where appropriate, build or retrofit underpasses or overpasses for major roads in priority koala areas as well as installing koala fencing adjacent to major roads.
.
Recommendation 14
Where the Australian Government provides funding for roads or other infrastructure in or adjacent to koala habitat, it be contingent on the provision of adequate koala protections.
.
Recommendation 15
The Australian Government work with the states to develop new national guidelines to ensure that all new roads and upgrades in or adjacent to koala habitat are koala-friendly.
.
Recommendation 16
The (Australian Government’s) Environment Minister consider the evidence provided to this inquiry when making his final decision on listing the koala as a threatened species.
.
Recommendation 17
The (Australian Government’s) Environment Minister consider options to improve the conservation status of the diverse and rapidly declining koala populations in New South Wales and Queensland to ensure a nationally resilient population is maintained. These options include listing the koala as vulnerable under the EPBC Act in areas where populations have declined significantly or are at risk of doing so.
.
Recommendation 18
An independent external review be conducted on the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy to monitor the adequacy of progress. The review should assess and report on the progress made at the strategy’s midpoint.
.
The review must include an assessment of the:
Strategy’s implementation to date and prospects into the future;
Strategy’s effectiveness in stabilising koala numbers in areas of declining population, and in reducing the pressure of overabundant populations;
Strategy’s level of ambition, including whether new elements are required; and
Adequacy of the Commonwealth’s and the states’ respective roles and funding commitments.
.
Recommendation 19
The Australian Government adequately resource the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy, and ensure that it is properly implemented through committing to a much stronger leadership role.>>
.
.
.
Of note, ‘Recommendation 17‘ restricted the conservation status of the Koala only to ensure a ‘nationally resilient population is maintained’. That means that regional extinctions shall be acceptable, so long as a ‘nationally resilient population is maintained’ somewhere.
These are the places that the Koala is deemed to be declining and so given the vulnerable status. Other Koala populations elsewhere don’t weem to matter to the Australian Government.
Koala tokenly listed as ‘Vulnerable’ but politically only at the above ‘selected places’ under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999)
.
.
2000: Even then, the United States recognised Koalas as ‘Vulnerable’
.
<<Back on 9th May 2000, the United States Government listed all koalas in Australia as vulnerable under the Endangered Species Act. The US Government determined that a) the eucalyptus and woodland ecosystems on which the arboreal marsupial depends has been greatly reduced, b) that despite conservation action by the governments of Australia, koala habitat continues to deteriorate, and c) that irrespective of koala numbers, the threats were present and real.
At the time, the Australian Government was outraged. The Australian Koala Foundation considered that the US may have been pointing out to Australia (when President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were in power) that Australia needed to control its land clearing in readiness for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. One petitioner pointed out that Australia at that time was clearing land second only to the Amazon.
At the time, the Victorian Government was pleading that they ‘had so many koalas they are pests’, and a similar cry was heard in the 2011 Senate Committee Enquiry into the plight of the Koala.
Australian Greens Leader, Senator Bob Brown had in 2010 successfully moved for a new Senate Comittee Enquiry to assess the threats to and management of koalas across the country. The Inquiry into the status, health and sustainability of Australia’s koala population, has particular reference to:
the iconic status of the koala and the history of its management;
estimates of koala populations and the adequacy of current counting methods;
knowledge of koala habitat; d. threats to koala habitat such as logging, land clearing, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, disease, roads and urban development;
the listing of the koala under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999;
the adequacy of the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy;
appropriate future regulation for the protection of koala habitat;
interaction of state and federal laws and regulations; and i. any other related matters.
.
Environment Minister Tony Burke appears to have been swayed by this plea as unlike his United States counterparts he did not consider the following in the American citation “…the actual number of koalas that were present at various times in the past and that may still exist is of much interest and helps to give some perspective but, as for many species, may not be the critical factor in determining whether the species is threatened. A low figure may reflect natural rarity of a population in marginal habitats. A high figure may be misleading if the entire habitat of the involved population faces imminent destruction”.
The document continues “…if we receive strong biological arguments, we would consider giving separate consideration to particular populations. It should be recognised, however, that koalas cannot be considered separate populations solely because they reside in different state jurisdictions”.
No such biological argument could be made. On the contrary, genetic studies in Victoria show that by and large all Victorian koalas, except those in the eastern part, are all pretty much genetically identical which means the future is bleak for conservation. Some of them even have testicles missing. On Kangaroo Island, some research suggests that as many as 29 per cent may have this affliction.
Imagine a koala that lives on the Murray River in New South Wales. On one side of the river, it has protection, but if it swims to Victoria, it does not. In AKF’s view, either the Australian Government values our national icon for its contribution to our nation or it does not.
As seen on Four Corners last night, the fur trade decimated the koala and the remnant populations are still low as a result of that slaughter.
Nowadays, the Koala pays its way in big tourism dollars, not the paltry one shilling (around 10 cents) per skin.
.
‘But the koala has powerful enemies. In the senate inquiry, developers, loggers, bureaucrats and even some departments of environment pleaded with the senators not to list the Koala because it would upset the developers or impede growth.’
.
The partial listing of the koala as vulnerable in NSW, ACT and Queensland can be seen as some sort of win, but will the existing legislation (the EPBC Act) be strong enough to protect the koala from long term destruction of its habitat?
Although the animal itself has been protected since 1936, its habitat really has not.
The Australian Koala Foundation believes its future lies in a koala-specific legislation similar to that of the American Bald Eagle Act, enacted in 1942. The Americans realised that if they did not do something strong and powerful they might lose their national icon forever. We believe that time has come now. The AKF estimates there may be as few a 43,000 koalas with no more than 85,000 left in its original habitat. If we are right, then there is no time to waste.
Greens Senator Bob Brown, as a final gesture before leaving Parliament, said he would support the AKF in our endeavours to enact a Koala Protection Bill. This should be a simple piece of legislation that basically says if you have koalas on your property that you cannot harm them, remove their trees and must – and that is the operative word – must ensure that your activity is benign for their long term future.
Four Corners has identified real threats to the koala and a partial listing will probably not make them go away. Neither will a specific piece of legislation, unless all our politicians actually realise we are at real risk of losing them.’>>
[Source: ‘Koalas deserve full protection‘, by Deborah Tabart, Chief Executive of the Australian Koala Foundation, 20120821, ABC, ^http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/08/21/3571830.htm ; https://www.savethekoala.com/about-us/news-events/senate-inquiry]
.Dead Koalas on a vet’s autopsy table – with all the Green Talk how has it come to this?
A native species that just sits up a tree, sleeps and hurts no-one
..now dying out because of Australian selfish viciousness.
Koalas are dying or being euthanised by the hundreds as a result of dog predation, road carnage, and Koala Habitat destruction.
[Source: ‘Koala Crunch Time’, ABC Four Corners (television programme), 20120821,
^http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/08/16/3569231.htm]
.
Watch ABC Four Corners Programme: ‘Koala Crunch Time‘
Australia’s Sprawl Profit overrules Biodiversity‘Since 1997, koala hospitals along Australia’s eastern seaboard have recorded 15,000 Koala deaths’
[Source: Koala Crunch Time’, ABC Four Corners,^http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/08/16/3569231.htm]
.
Westfield Shopping Centre development profiting out of Koala habitat apocalypseLow (economic) Cost Housing, Coomera, Queensland
.
.
IUCN wrongly continues to list Koalas as of ‘Least Concern’
.
Although Koala’s only exist naturally in Australia, at the international level the Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is still officially listed as of ‘Least Concern‘.
The most recent survey count of Koala status obtained by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the lead global authority on the environment and sustainable development, was back in 2008. Why, when the rapid decline data has been out since 2010?
The IUCN then assessed the Koala as having a ‘wide distribution’ and ‘a presumed large population’. It ignored regional declines and only regarded the national aggregate as appropriate data. Worse is that it stated thay the Koala “requires intensive management in areas where it is considered a pest species“.
Ed: What ecological incompetence, and wildlife hate would assess wildlife as a pest species?
.
The IUCN recognised that the Koala population was in decline in certain areas and identifed the following threats to the species:
Continued habitat destruction, fragmentation, and modification (which makes them vulnerable to predation by dogs, vehicle strikes, and other factors)
Koala loss is symptomatic of Australia’s loss of much of the country’s native wildlife, its ecological communities and its biodiversity.
<<As of February 2011, a total of 1777 species are listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act). A further 210 migratory and 464 marine species are also listed. The EPBC Act also lists 48 ecological communities as being threatened. These communities occur in a range of ecosystems including woodlands, forests, grasslands and wetlands.
Current threats to Australia’s biodiversity are:
Habitat loss
Degradation and fragmentation
Invasive species and diseases
Unsustainable use and management of natural resources
Marine and coastal pollution (including from land based sources and vessels)
Changes to the aquatic environment and water flows
Changing fire regimes (Ed: bushfire management incompetence, and widespread Government-bush arson)
<<Friends of the Koala president Lorraine Vass said conservationists had been waiting for many years for koalas to be listed as vulnerable.
“At least a vulnerable to extinction listing,” she said. “It’s an additional layer of legislative protection and it’s better to have it than not to have it. “Apart from anything else it will be a very, very strong signal to everyone that at long last the nation is taking some responsibility for our national icon.”
Ms Vass said statistics as well as anecdotal evidence showed koala numbers were rapidly declining, particularly in the Tweed (north eastern coastal New South Wales).
“I live at Wyrallah on a small property where koalas come and go, on the basis of observation at home I know that we’re seeing nowhere near as many koalas as we used to”, she said.
“In terms of statistics we’re actually bringing into care more koalas than we used to, but at the same time there are particular areas where we’re not bringing in as many koalas as we used to. So there are areas of local stress and the coastal area of Tweed is certainly one of those.”>>
[Source: ‘Greater protection for koalas‘, by journalist Samantha Turnbull, 20120430, ABC North Coast New South Wales, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ^http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2012/04/30/3491805.htm, accessed 20121102]
.
<<This poor Koala was attacked by a Rottweiler in a suburban yard. It was reported that the koala was trying to get away and the dog grabbed it by the hindquarters as it was shimmying up a tree.
Sadly, this is a common occurrence with Koala’s. If it is not the hindquarters that are grabbed is around the neck or shoulder area. Usual injuries from this kind of incident are multiple puncture and tear wounds, with massive internal canine crush injuries. This koala had about 60 odd puncture wounds on his rump and groin area with many deep lacerations. His musculature around the groin and thigh area was lacerated pretty badly.
He died from shock, blood loss and ultimately a perforation of the intestine. The staff at the hospital gave him large amounts of fluids, and he was on strong painkillers and antibiotics. His wounds were flushed and he was kept in a warmed environment, but he died anyway.>>
<<Not-for-profit conservation group, Friends of the Koala say 52 koalas were killed by vehicles on north coast roads last year.
The findings are part of the organisation’s annual report which documents the reasons behind the deaths of 222 north coast koalas. Association president Lorraine Vass says dog attacks and disease account for many koalas in their care. But she says hits from cars are the biggest concern.
“One disturbing trend is an increase in road strikes,” she said. “Unfortunately that is a number that just keeps on increasing and last year we had 52 reports of koalas hit by cars. “Most of them, I’m afraid, were mortalities.”
But Ms Vass says there’s a positive outlook for koalas despite the figures. “I think there’s a lot to be optimistic about in terms of what’s going on with koala protection this year we’ve seen Lismore, we’ve got Tweed and Byron, those councils all working on a koala plan of management,” she said. “We’ve seen the federal announcement of the koala being listed under federal law as I say there’s a lot to be optimistic about.”>>
[Source: ‘Koala road deaths on rise‘, by Elloise Farrow-Smith, ABC, 20121019, ^http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/10/19/3614061.htm]
.
Koalas face a bleak future
.
Ed: The International Union for Conservation of Nature‘s global framework God-like governance for wildlife threatened by humanity is all about prioritising wildlife species most at risk of extinction for most protection.
.
It proclaims that if a species is not about to become extinct in the next ten years, its is not as important for conservation as those species that are.
.
But this is an Armageddon last man standing rationalisation. It may be administratively convenient, but it is an economic utilitarian philosophy that denies the rights of native wildlife to exist freely without persecution.
.
Were such an IUCN rationalist framwork applied to humans, such that don’t worry about say Chinese or Indians catching a deadly pandemic because there are a billion of them, it would be labelled as Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism or as Nazi Eugenics and quite rightly so. At The Habitat Advocate we espouse a worldview of Nature through: ^Deonteological Ethics and>Species Justice.
.
Every wildlife individual is valuable and has existence rights no different to humans.
.
Test: Would a human mother sacrifice her eldest or her youngest?
.
[Ed: All references sourced for this article 20111102]
>Read Map (PDF, 300kb – NB. if slow to open, GoTo: File > Save As.., then open the PDF file from your auto-download folder)
.
[4] ‘Koala now threatened species‘, 20120215, Radio National Breakfast (radio programme), Australian Broadcasting Corporation,’There’s quiet optimism among koala experts that our national icon will finally be classified as a threatened or endangered species’.^http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/2012-02-15/3830832
>Play .mp3 audio:
℗ 2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
.
[5] ‘Iconic animals – the koala‘, by Margot Foster, 20111228, ABC Rural (radio programme), Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Abstract: ‘Michael Cathcart looks at the current efforts to protect this vulnerable animal. A senate committee has been looking into ‘the status, health and sustainability of Australia’s koala population’. He discovers the koala’s role as a cultural icon and the impact on our awareness of the koala, made by Norman Lindsay, as well as Dreamtime representations of the koala which reveal a great deal about the unique physiology and habits of this elusive animal.
The history of extensive slaughter of the koala since white settlement, because of the quality of its fur and value abroad, is an irony today because on Raymond Island, East Gippsland, koalas are making too many babies. There are about three hundred koalas on the small island and Department of Sustainability and Environment wildlife manager Charlie Franken says that’s about 250 too many.
Michael Cathcart speaks with Deborah Tabart OAM, CEO of the Australian Koala Foundation; Ann Moyal, author Of “Koala: A Historical Biography”; Michael J Connolly, Munda-gutta Kulliwari, Dreamtime Kullilla-Art; Helen Glad, Norman Lindsay’s grand daughter; Ann Moyal, author and historian; Charlie Franken, wildlife manager, Department of Sustainability and Environment; Dr Jay Patterson, Melbourne zoo vet and Dr Grant Kuseff, Bairnsdale veterinary surgeon;
>Play .mp3 audio (large data file so may take a minute):
℗ 2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
.
[6] ‘Interim koala referral advice for proponents‘, June 2012, Department of Environment (etc.), Australian Government,
Abstract: ‘Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations in Queensland (QLD), New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) have been listed as vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This listing came into legal effect on 2 May 2012. The listed threatened QLD, NSW and ACT populations are hereafter referred to in these guidelines as the koala.’
[The following article was written by Tigerquoll and initially published under the title ‘Anthology of State Serial Rape of Bermagui’s Spotted Gum Forest Habitat‘, on ^CanDoBetter.net 20100216]
Click this image to play music then click back to this article as it plays
.
Nothing less than the Australian Government can be trusted to protect vital Koala Habitat.Lesser smaller-minded state governments only see Koala Habitat as a logging and tourism resource.Small minded politicians like Kristina Keneally can never be trusted with national treasures
.
Bermagui’s Spotted Gums..the local Narooma Community in their defence against ‘Forest NSW’ (the Forest-Fiddling loggers)
.
Forest-Fiddling Logger driving his Spotted Gum spoils truck
.
But Eucalyptus maculata is a tree, not a floor
.
In terms of Australia’s iconic ‘Spotted Gum’, the word “spotted” refers to the soft mottled colour caused by weathering of the outer tree as it sheds elliptical strips of bark.
Spotted Gum bark
.
This colour varies from pale greybrowns and soft creams to a rich chocolate brown. A very tough timber, its frequent wavy grain can produce an attractive and highly valued fiddleback effect. [Source: Boral website, ^http://www.boral.com.au/timberflooring/timber_species_-_spotted_gum.asp]
.
Build something great, but don’t destroy something great in the process – like Koala Spotted Gum Forests!
Invest in Boral and you invest in Koala extinction
.
About 380km south of Sydney lies what NSW Tourism labels the beautiful ‘Sapphire Coast’ with the popular seaside town of Bermagui.
Less than 3km north of Bermagui heading north along Bermagui-Cobargo Road and up the Bermagui River estuary is the Bermagui State Forest – a label by the NSW Department of Primary Industry (DPI) given to magnificent Spotted Gum forest.
.
This forest is vital habitat for threatened native fauna – the Yellow Bellied Gliders, Grey-Headed Flying Foxes, Tiger Quolls, Sooty Owls, Sea Eagles, Possums and Australia’s iconic Koala.
.
Koala in Bermagui’s Spotted Gum forest – a displaced landlord
Australia’s magnificent and unique Spotted Gums are naturally distributed in open forests along the hilly coastal corridor from south-east Queensland down through New South Wales and with a few isolated pockets in East Gippsland, Victoria. They belong to the botanical family ‘Myrtaceae’ and grow straight and tall up to 40 metres. Their height attracts roosting by Sea Eagles.
Note the planet’s sole natural distribution of Spotted Gum ForestsThey have become the target of corporate development simply because Spotted Gums prefer a mild temperate climate near the coast..like Australia’s millions of breeding humans, and profiteering corporate developers
.
Spotted gums flower once every two years and produce a rich pollen that attracts native birds such as Lorikeets and Yellow Tailed Cockatoos as wells as possums and flying foxes including the IUCN vulnerable listed Grey-Headed Flying Fox. [Source: Australian Native Plants Society, Corymbia maculata, ^http://asgap.org.au/c-mac.html]
Grey-Headed Flying Fox (Pteropus poliocephalus)
The grey-headed flying-fox is listed as vulnerable to extinction under NSW and Australian legislation because of declining numbers and key threats such as habitat loss and urban conflict. Records indicate that grey-headed flying-foxes may once have numbered in the millions, but are now reduced to as few as 400,000. In the decade before listing, their population was estimated to have declined by 30%.
(Photo by Ákos Lumnitzer, ^http://amatteroflight.com/)
.
Unlike the declaration of a ‘National Park’ which affords federal environmental protection to forest habitat, the State label of a ‘State Forest’ is a misnomer. A ‘State Forest’ is deemed a timber and woodchip resource for logging. The same public relations label is used across New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. A State Forest is not treated as a forest for its natural habitat values, but rather as a logging coup on death row, that can be chainsawed at will anytime. Perhaps ‘Death Row Forest’ is a more apt label than speaking the State euphemism of ‘State Forests’.
And its public relations label logging as ‘harvesting’, a euphemism to belie the destructive reality.
Bermagui State Forest after the loggers
.
The NSW Logging Offensive of 1988
.
On the back of a century of clear felling Bermagui State Forest was logged in the late 1980s. Then according to data from the ‘Bureau of Resource Science‘ (aka science graduates on the payroll of loggers), 148ha were “thinned” in 1996, and another 133ha that same year, then 94ha in 1999.
Typically 70% of the spotted gums goes to Boral’s mills in Narooma, Nowra and Batemans Bay as sawlogs to be processed into mainly flooring. The remainder end up as woodchips at Nippon Paper’s woodchip mill at Twofold Bay for export to Japan.
So Australia’s precious endangered habitat is being destroyed for house flooring and office paper. .
This RFA is one of three established in 1999, in which the NSW Government relegated 15.1 million hectares of native forests across New South Wales for logging anytime. The usual public relations spin preceded the logging. Southern Region manager of Forests NSW, Ian Barnes.
It was at this time that Labor’s Minister for Primary Industries (Forests NSW) Ian MacDonald and Labor’s Minister for Police Tony Kelly started to use Dick Cheney tactics to push their weight around with protesters. The following questions to the NSW Legislative Council by NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon on 28th October 2008, highlight the escalated use of law enforcement into a heavy handed riot squad:
.
Lee Rhiannon MLC:
“I direct my question to the Minister for Police. Did officers stationed at Batemans Bay police station in collaboration with Forests New South Wales hold a meeting at the Bermagui Country Club in September to warn locals associated with calling for forest protection not to protest when logging commenced in the Bermagui State Forest? Does the holding of this meeting reflect that Batemans Bay police officers have adopted a zero tolerance policing approach to forest protesters? Considering that since logging started in Bermagui State Forest on 27 October with a group of about 40 protesters gathered in the vicinity, about 15 police cars, more than 20 police, including members of the Public Order and Riot Squad, a mobile police command bus and two police rescue vans have been in attendance, will this level of policing continue for the coming six weeks of logging in this area? What is the anticipated cost of this operation?
.
Tony Kelly MLC (response):
“The Far South Coast Local Area Command of the New South Wales Police Force has been advised that New South Wales Forests is to commence logging compartments of Bermagui State Forest later this month. As in the past, protests are expected. As always, the New South Wales Police Force is committed to maintaining public order. For this reason, local police and various commands, including the Public Order and Riot Squad, Highway Patrol and Rescue Squad will join together to conduct an operation.
This operation will focus on ensuring the protection of persons engaged in lawful activities. Local police have made it clear that anyone engaging in unlawful or dangerous activity in or near the logging operation will have action taken against them. When offences continue and are considered dangerous, police will arrest and charge people as necessary. Police respect people’s rights to protest during these times; in no way are they looking to prevent lawful and peaceful protests. Police have asked anyone who intends to protest to contact them so that they can attempt to facilitate lawful activity, minimise disruption and focus on protecting the safety of everyone involved.”
On Monday 2nd February 2009, logging operations resumed in the Bermagui State Forest after the summer holiday break period and continued for about two months.
Bruce Mathie and Sons is one of the prominent loggers in the area, but most timber finds its way either as saw logs to Boral for Spotted Gum flooring or else to Nippon Papers woodchip mill at Twofold Bay, Eden for export to Japan.
The forest eco-rapers ‘Forests NSW’ – bulldozed, chainsawed, logged, then left with their booty.
.
Kevin Mathie – 4th generation logger
.
Logging contractor, Gil Mathie, in the middle of the picture at front (pink jumper)More notably, this editor is saddened by bearing witness to a senior member of the Bermagui community being arrested for conserving Spotted Gums and Koalas.We love, we defend, we act for love. Salute the man being arrested.
[Source: Local environmentalist, John Perkins, Gulaga Protest near Tilba on the NSW South Coast, 20070514]
.
Labor’s Ian MacDonald’s Forestry Regulation of 2009
.
But rather that do the right thing by the Environment and by the Community and obey the law of the land, those in power The Labor Government’s (Forests NSW) forced changes to the law of the land to bloody well suit themselves. Arguably reminiscent of England’s King Henry VIII changing laws to accommodate his adultery, or Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s gerrymandering that secured his electoral hold on power.
In order to keep the cameras and local conservationist away from the loggers destructive practices, Forests NSW got the Minister to legislate an exclusion area around its logging with the public relations labeling of “mainly for safety reasons”.
On 1 September 2009, the NSW Forestry Regulation 2009 came into force making it illegal for anyone to trespass into areas marked by NSW Forests for logging. This has given Forests NSW absolute logging power with the police as its enforcement lackies.
Forests NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Ian MacDonald, tabled the Bill and it became law preventing democratic protests by people trying to save important habitat from destruction. It has given loggers free reign to log State Forests with impunity.
Under Part 3, Division 1, Clause 11 of this Regulation, a logger has legal authority to request anyone to leave a forestry area and this includes if that person “causes inconvenience.”
Under Clause 12, a logger can forcible remove anyone from a forestry area “who is causing annoyance or inconvenience.”
Surely such removal by a logger can be construed an assault under the Crimes Act? It is draconian. It is certainly an assault on Australians’ democratic right to protest. What was Ian MacDonald thinking?
.
Labor’s Ministers in charge three years hence…
.
Labor’s Police Minister Tony Kelly MLC
NSW Minister for Emergency Services, Lands, Police and Primary Industries.
.
‘Tony Kelly was targeted by protesters as he arrived to give evidence at the ICAC in June. Today the commission has found the former minister engaged in corrupt conduct.’
‘DISGRACED former state Labor ministers Tony Kelly and Ian Macdonald are demanding taxpayers foot their legal bills and the state government could be forced to hand over up to $250,000. Despite being found by corruption watchdog ICAC to have forged official documents while a minister, Mr Kelly has formally asked the O’Farrell government to cover the cost of his elite legal team.’
Labor’s Logging Minister Ian MacDonald MLC
Forests NSW/ Minister for Primary Industries in 2009
.
‘The disgraced former NSW resources minister Ian Macdonald is to face a new corruption inquiry into the granting of coal exploration licences. The Independent Commission Against Corruption said in a statement yesterday that Mr Macdonald is being investigated for allegedly using his ministerial position ”to advantage the private interests of others”.
‘The senior state minister Ian Macdonald signed taxpayers up to the V8 Supercars race without a system to manage potential conflicts of interest, without advice from the government’s major events body and without a proper business case, the NSW Auditor-General finds.’
In September 2009, Forests NSW commenced logging again in Bermagui State Forest, like pack rapists marauding through a maternity ward.
Sure enough, on Monday, 14th September 2009, Police arrested two of four forest campaigners who had allegedly entered Bermagui State Forest in what Forests NSW had labeled logging compartments 2001 and 2002. Apparenpe known to support koalas is unacceptable, particularly when the NSW government cannot prove their claims that koalas can be found anywhere in the south east,” said Robert Bertram, local Friends of Five Forests member.
“This is yet another example of Forests NSW lack of care for community and the environment,” said Lisa Stone, spokesperson for South East Forest Rescue.
“They are logging old-growth in Dampier, threatened species habitat in South Brooman, endangered species habitat in Nadgee and now this.”
“The loss of biodiversity coupled with logging and burning means the condition of many forests is as bad as the endangered ecological communities on private land, unable to support most threatened and endangered species and unable to recover.”
“We urge the newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Mr John Robertson, to step in on behalf of the native forests and their dependents and stop these archaic practices.”
“The current government policy of destroying habitat to satisfy ‘wood supply agreements’ is robbing from the future generations their chance of survival. The amount of breaches was astounding and shows that Forests NSW cannot be trusted to log these important areas of Koala habitat.”
“We have inspected many other logging operations in the past year and have found the same breaches everywhere we have looked. This is pe known to support koalas is unacceptable, particularly when the NSW government cannot prove their claims that koalas can be found anywhere in the south east,” said Robert Bertram, local Friends of Five Forests member.
“This is yet another example of Forests NSW lack of care for community and the environment,” said Lisa Stone, spokesperson for South East Forest Rescue.
A community morally right to defend habitat and prepared to defend that right
.
“They are logging old-growth in Dampier, threatened species habitat in South Brooman, endangered species habitat in Nadgee and now this.”
“The loss of biodiversity coupled with logging and burning means the condition of many forests is as bad as the endangered ecological communities on private land, unable to support most threatened and endangered species and unable to recover.”
“We urge the newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Mr John Robertson, to step in on behalf of the native forests and their dependents and stop these archaic practices.”
“The current government policy of destroying habitat to satisfy ‘wood supply agreements’ is robbing from the future generations their chance of survival. The amount of breaches was astounding and shows that Forests NSW cannot be trusted to log these important areas of Koala habitat.”
“We have inspected many other logging operations in the past year and have found the same breaches everywhere we have looked. This is not a once off mistake but a systemic disgust for any environmental protection measures.”
Conservationists state the native forest logging industry is unsustainable and only propped up by political will, public subsidies and union backing.
Spokesperson for the South East Region Conservation Alliance, Pru Acton, says:
“The significant social and economic costs of reduced biodiversity can only increase while our natural systems are poorly managed.”
“Credible experts agree that the cost of logging this habitat is not only the last few koalas, but also potable water supplies, oysters, the inspiration for the local artists community, and another chunk of the Wilderness Coast’s tourism potential.”
“It seems the NSW Government has now decided its contractual obligations to supply sawlogs locally and woodchips to Asia is more important then protecting this much loved native animal.”
.
South East Region Conservation Alliance
.
Conservationists state the native forest logging industry is unsustainable and only propped up by political will, public subsidies and union backing.
Spokesperson for the South East Region Conservation Alliance, Pru Acton, says: “The significant social and economic costs of reduced biodiversity can only increase while our natural systems are poorly managed.”
“Credible experts agree that the cost of logging this habitat is not only the last few koalas, but also potable water supplies, oysters, the inspiration for the local artists community, and another chunk of the Wilderness Coast’s tourism potential.”
“It seems the NSW Government has now decided its contractual obligations to supply sawlogs locally and woodchips to Asia is more important then protecting this much loved native animal.”
.
[Source: ‘Logging resumes at Bermagui’, by Stan Gorton Narooma News, 20090204 – note the Narooma News has removed this news item online. However, the Narooma News has chosen not to remove its following story (Source: ^http://www.naroomanewsonline.com.au/story/191381/albino-possum-causes-log-truck-roll-over-at-narooma/ if it be not similarly removed].
Speeding logging trucker blames possum..Narooma News editor’s reputation shot
.
Narooma News spins the following story to appease local logger readership:
.
“In a bizarre set of circumstances, a rare but dead albino possum is believed to have caused a log truck roll-over on the Princes Highway just south of Narooma.
The accident occurred just after 1pm when witnesses said a local from Wallaga Lake stopped to look at the road-kill possum that had been lying on the roadside at the entrance to the Island View Beach Resort.
A series of cars backed up behind the stopped vehicle in the southbound lane. Another Narooma local who was last in the line of stopped cars looked in his rear-vision mirror only to see the huge red-coloured truck coming up fast from behind.
“I think I am going to buy a lottery ticket,” said the local, who at one point thought the truck was going to smash into him and end his life.
The truck driver then allegedly swerved onto the wrong side of the road, narrowly missing the line of cars and while he was fortunate not to face any oncoming northbound traffic, he did lose control on the straight stretch of highway.
The truck reportedly clipped a boat trailer, flipped onto its side, sliding down the highway with the prime mover coming to rest in bushland just off the verge north of the Nangudga Bridge.
An ACT couple who among those first on the scene were able to help the truck driver out of the cab but they said he was badly shaken up and was not aware of where he was.
The Pambula man was the only person injured in the accident and was taken to Moruya Hospital for treatment.
The highway was closed down to one lane with firefighters, police and RMS personnel cleaned up and investigated the scene.
Residents from the nearby Island View caravan park were alerted to the accident by a loud bang and they lined the highway watching the accident.
The accident occurred at the start of the June long weekend where NSW police were out in force urging drivers to be careful on the busy roads.
Albino or golden brush-tailed possums are very rare but there is a known population living in the Narooma area.’
.
~ by the Narooma News editor…and watch out for drop bears too!
.
Meanwhile NSW Forests remains culturally contemptuous to NSW forests
.
Forests NSW recruit their students with Communications degrees to lie for it on its website:
“State forests in NSW are managed sustainably to provide a supply of timber today and into the future, to protect the environmental values of the forest and provide community amenities.”
Forests NSW website claims that “Ecologically sustainable forest management (ESFM) is our guiding philosophy. ESFM is about managing forests to maintain ecological principles and biodiversity while optimising the benefits to the community from all uses of the forest…”
Narooma Community in defence of Koala Habitat
– clearly not convinced about Forests NSW spiel about “optimising the benefits to the community”
.
Revolving Door politics of NSW Labor
.
In the revolving door politics of NSW Labor, Premier #3 Nathan Rees on 16th November 2009 sacked Ian MacDonald from his DPI Ministry.
Rees was himself sacked as premier on 3 December, then a week later, Labor Premier #4 Kristina Keneally (Labor show pony) reappointed Ian MacDonald ‘Minister for State & Regional Development and Minister for Mineral & Forest Resources‘ in December 2009.
The labelling of Minister for ‘Forest Resources’ left NSW State Forests in no doubt about the death row status. Throughout NSW Labor’s factional power shuffle Macca’s chair never got cold.
The then Minister for Primary Industries , Tony Kelly, overseeing Forests NSW, claimed on 18 November 2009: “The NSW Government has a solid track-record for maintaining prosperous and sustainable primary industries, I will be working hard with industry to ensure this tradition continues.”
All State Forests should be added to Australia’a National Park Estate. State Governments and their narrow mindset culture cannot be trusted with ecology. Boral and Nippon Paper can transition their logging operations into plantation-only FSC resources.
The Twofold Bay Woodchip Mill was set up near Eden in 1969 by Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company has exported and profitted from over 35 million tonnes of Australian native forest woodchips, mostly to Japan, where its parent company is based.
In contributing to the annihilation of thousands of hectares of Australia’s native forest habitat the Daishowa Twofold Bay Woodchip Mill is Australia’s Habitat Auschwitz. It must be unceremoniously closed down immediately.
Daishowa – Japan’s BIG Corporate Eco-Rapist and BIG Koala Exterminator
‘Greens MP David Shoebridge today met with local campaigners and timber workers in the Bermagui State Forest to get a first-hand view of the impact of continued logging in the South East Forests.
“There is a real concern that this logging is further fracturing the remaining stands of koala habitat in the South East,” Mr Shoebridge said.
“The logging is being undertaken in a nature corridor that links Wallaga Lake National Park and Bermagui Nature reserve. This corridor should be protected.
“With the logging at Bermagui coming within a few hundred meters of town the prospects of more intensive and drier regrowth producing higher levels of fire hazard are real.
“Forests NSW has said that the beautiful “cathedral” entrance to Bermagui will be protected. However on closer inquiry only a small part of the western side and a 50m ‘visual protection zone’ to the east is currently protected.
“In discussions with Forests NSW today they have committed to reviewing the decision on the cathedral to consider protecting all of it from logging. This would be a welcome, if modest, concession.
“The South East Forests are a priceless natural asset and this new State government has a real chance to break with the past and save them from continued logging for wood chips.
“Local campaigners are committed to saving these beautiful forests and this will remain a key focus in the coming years,” Mr Shoebridge said.
.
[Ed: That was over a year ago – our love and commitment for the old forest – we remember ]
Australia’s Wildlife Hate
(Photo by Peter Culley taken on a backroad to Goolwa, Currency Creek, South Australia.)
.
Peter’s comments:
‘An Australian icon…I was taken by the colours, textures and moronic behaviour of the idiot/s who did this in the first place… For instance there was evidence they had initially fired the first shot at a further distance but not satisfied with that they moved closer… There was a very good chance they were peppered by numerous richochets… candidates for the Darwin Awards…It’s always the minority that ruin it for others…’
.
.
The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll entitled ‘Animal abuse inculcates social deviance‘ and published on CanDoBetter.net 20100403.
Posted April 3rd, 2010 by Tigerquoll. Additional material has been added.
.
On 29-Mar-2010, Chris Palmer, the self-confessed serial roo shooter on CanDoBetter wrote:
“My son is an up and coming roo shooter to at the age of 4 he can skin and gut a roo nearly as quick as me and over the last 4 weekends he has shoot over 50 roos with only 8 misses they still didnt get away tho like always dad was there to clean up the mess.”
Clearly, this individual values his behaviour of slaughtering kangaroos acceptable to the extent he is inculcating in his young son his same values, attitudes and practices from an early age. Shooting wildlife is a violent crime against the natural animal kingdom. We are not savages anymore. We don’t have to kill wild animals. It is a choice and an immoral act. Clean kills are wrong but also occasional. The suffering death of a bullet injury by a 4 year old followed up with a knife or blunt axe to the joey reflects a vicious and depraved existence.
Orphaned kangaroo ‘joey’
.
Cruelty Connections
.
‘According to a 1997 study done by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Northeastern University, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.
There’s something uniquely sickening about cases of animal abuse that outrages the community more than most crimes. To hear of a defenceless creature being brutalised by a cowardly attacker can get the blood of even the gentlest soul boiling.
Serial killer Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer from Wisconsin (USA) started on animals before moving on to humans.
Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. His murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism.
In his childood he had put dogs heads on stakes.
(Photo: AP)
.
This week we learnt of the shocking case of Snowy, a much loved family pet suffering horrific injuries at the hands of a torturer. The 18-month-old cat’s ears were mutilated and he had been set alight. Also this week charges against the man believed to have tortured Buckley, a puppy who had his ears and tail hacked off, were dropped amid fears that the case would not stand up in court.
In recent months there have been multiple cases of animals being tortured and killed in a trend that appears to be Australia wide. It seems no animal is immune from such callous attacks; pets, wildlife, even dolphins have been targeted by individuals who derive some sort of thrill from inflicting pain on an innocent creature. Despite the increasingly violent and sadistic nature of these attacks and the public’s growing disgust, offenders if caught can expect little more than a slap on the wrist.
More often than not these cases don’t reach the courts but the few that do demonstrate our judicial system’s failure to treat animal abuse as a serious offence. Magistrates can impose jail terms of up to 5 years but it is extremely rare for a custodial sentence to be handed down in an animal abuse case. Despite extensive evidence linking cruelty to animals to serious violent offences against people, the judiciary continue to treat such crimes as largely trivial matters.
If our system is designed to punish as well as prevent serious criminal offences then surely greater attention needs to be paid to those who mistreat animals, particularly those who torture and kill for fun. The direct relationship between animal abuse and violent crime has been recognised by the FBI since the 1970s. Many of the world’s most notorious killers have long histories of animal abuse; Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Edmund Kemper and Albert DeSalvo better known as the Boston Strangler were all fond of torturing animals. In Australia murderers such as Paul Charles Denyer, Robert Barrett and Ivan Milat are known to have tortured animals long before they started killing people.
What greater motivation do our legislators and Courts need to treat animal cruelty with the utmost seriousness? Simply cautioning offenders is not good enough.
In the US, there has been a growing trend towards toughening laws to make animal abuse a felony rather than a misdemeanour. Penalties for individuals who engage in deliberate animal cruelty have been increased, dramatically in some states. England has similarly strengthened its animal welfare laws but in Australia we continue to treat these heinous crimes as minor offences not worthy of lengthy custodial sentences despite profilers and psychologists telling us that one of the strongest precursors to violent crime including murder is a history of animal abuse. Tough penalties including incarceration must be handed down for serious animal abuse cases.
You don’t need to be a psychologist to work out that only a uniquely depraved individual could ignore the agonised cries of a defenceless animal and continue the ghastly business of inflicting maximum pain and suffering.
To allow such cruel and sadistic behaviour to go unpunished is not only morally reprehensible, it may very well have dire consequences when at some point these offenders turn their particular brand of rage and fury on the rest of us.’
‘Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology during the last twenty-five years have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty.‘
The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.
The line separating an animal abuser from someone capable of committing human abuse is much finer than most people care to consider. People abuse animals for the same reasons they abuse people. Some of them will stop with animals, but enough have been proven to continue on to commit violent crimes to people that it’s worth paying attention to.
Virtually every serious violent offender has a history of animal abuse in their past, and since there’s no way to know which animal abuser is going to continue on to commit violent human crimes, they should ALL be taken that seriously. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Allen Brantley was quoted as saying
“Animal cruelty… is not a harmless venting of emotion in a healthy individual; this is a warning sign…” It should be looked at as exactly that. Its a clear indicator of psychological issues that can and often DO lead to more violent human crimes.
“So much of animal cruelty… is really about power or control,” Lockwood said. Often, aggression starts with a real or perceived injustice. The person feels powerless and develops a warped sense of self-respect. Eventually they feel strong only by being able to dominate a person or animal.
Sometimes, young children and those with developmental disabilities who harm animals don’t understand what they’re doing, Lockwood said. And animal hoarding – the practice of keeping dozens of animals in deplorable conditions – often is a symptom of a greater mental illness, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Just as in situations of other types of abuse, a victim of abuse often becomes a perpetrator.
According to Lockwood, when women abuse animals, they “almost always have a history of victimization themselves. That’s where a lot of that rage comes from.”
In domestic violence situations, women are often afraid to leave the home out of fear the abuser will harm the family pet, which has lead to the creation of Animal Safehouse programs, which provide foster care for the pets of victims in domestic violence situations, empowering them to leave the abusive situation and get help.
.
“A significant amount of data, both anecdotal and empirical, show that animals are often killed or harmed to intimidate, frighten or control others including battered women or abused children.”
Whether a teenager shoots a cat without provocation or an elderly woman is hoarding 200 cats in her home, “both are exhibiting mental health issues…but need very different kinds of attention,” Lockwood said.
Those who abuse animals for no obvious reason, Lockwood said, are “budding psychopaths.” They have no empathy and only see the world as what it’s going to do for them.
History is full of high-profile examples of this connection:
Patrick Sherrill, who killed 14 coworkers at a post office and then shot himself, had a history of stealing local pets and allowing his own dog to attack and mutilate them.
Earl Kenneth Shriner, who raped, stabbed, and mutilated a 7-year-old boy, had been widely known in his neighborhood as the man who put firecrackers in dogs? rectums and strung up cats.
Brenda Spencer, who opened fire at a San Diego school, killing two children and injuring nine others, had repeatedly abused cats and dogs, often by setting their tails on fire.
Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler” who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the boxes in his youth.
Carroll Edward Cole, executed for five of the 35 murders of which he was accused, said his first act of violence as a child was to strangle a puppy.
In 1987, three Missouri high school students were charged with the beating death of a classmate. They had histories of repeated acts of animal mutilation starting several years earlier. One confessed that he had killed so many cats he’d lost count. Two brothers who murdered their parents had previously told classmates that they had decapitated a cat.
Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer had impaled dogs’ heads, frogs, and cats on sticks.
More recently, high school killers such as 15-year-old Kip Kinkel in Springfield, Oregon, and Luke Woodham, 16, in Pearl, Missouri, tortured animals before embarking on shooting sprees. Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot and killed 12 classmates before turning their guns on themselves, bragged about mutilating animals to their friends.
.
As powerful a statement as the high-profile examples above make, they don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the whole truth behind the abuse connection. Learning more about the animal cruelty/interpersonal violence connection is vital for community members and law enforcement alike.”
It is a fact that acts of animal cruelty lead to forms of cruelty against humans.
“A criminologist and forensic psychologist at Bond University, said the torturing, maiming and killing of animals were red flags of someone capable of future violence against people.”
They go on to state specific cases: “Archibald McCafferty, Sydney’s ‘Kill Seven’ murderer, used to strangle chickens, cats and dogs before killing people.”
“In Victoria, serial killer Paul Charles Denyer disembowelled a native cat and cut the throat of its kittens.” He went on to become the Frankston killer’ murdering Elizabeth Stevens, 18, Debbie Fream, 22, and Natalie Russell, 17, in Frankston Victoria in 1993.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS DISTURBING ANIMAL CRUELTY WHICH MAY OFFEND. WE INCLUDE IT TO PORTRAY THE REALITY OF AUSTRALIA’S TREATMENT OF KANGAROOS
(To play video press the arrow in centre of video; to stop video press the pause button on bottom left)
.
2011: Hobart’s Jamie Peter Smart decapitates 3 kittens
.
‘A Hobart court has heard the DNA of a man accused of decapitating kittens was found on their bodies.
Jamie Peter Smart, 31, is appearing in the Hobart Magistrates Court, accused of decapitating two kittens and of strangling a third.
Prosecutor Mel Jerrim told the court Smart and two other men had gone to the Glenorchy home of the kittens’ owner in March last year because they thought she had thrown rocks to break up their all-night party.
The court was told the owner had refused to open the door and had called police when one of the men smashed the window of her car with a blockbuster. The first officer on the scene has given evidence of finding the body of one kitten, the head and body of another and just the body of a third.
The court heard a full DNA profile matching Smart’s was found on the decapitated kittens. DNA profiler Rita Westbury told the court it was unusual to get a full match from DNA transferred by contact. Normally such a match would come from a body fluid sample.
It suggested the kittens were handled for an extended period of time or with force.
Ms Westbury agreed it was not impossible that Smart’s DNA could have been transferred from blood on an axe handle to the kittens by a third person.
‘A Glenorchy man has been found guilty on two counts of killing an animal. The three five-week-old kittens were found by police after being called by the kittens owner in March 2010. Magistrate Olivia McTaggart found Jamie Peter Smart, 32, guilty of decapitating two kittens.
The Magistrates Court in Hobart heard Smart’s DNA was found on the kittens. The court heard Smart and two other men went to a house in Hopkins St, Moonah, bordering a party they were attending in March 2010. The trio accused the female occupant, and owner of the kittens, of throwing a rock through a house window at the party. The woman denied the accusation before one of the men smashed the window of a car parked in her driveway.
When the woman looked out her window a short time later she said she saw Smart with the head of a kitten in his hand baiting a dog.
Smart had pleaded not guilty to three counts of killing an animal. He will be sentenced next month.
‘The connection between animal abuse and violence against humans is well documented. Melbourne’s serial killer Paul Denyer and mass murderer Martin Bryant are amongst those whose history began with the abuse of animals.
Martin Bryant, who killed 35 people at Port Arthur (Tasmania), tortured and harassed animals at age seven, which was one of the first red flags he was a person with severe conduct disorder symptoms. Bryant was given an air rifle for his 14th birthday. Martin at 19 would kill dogs and shoot at tourists with an air gun which he always carried with him.
Martin Bryant tortured animals
Now, a university study has established a connection between domestic violence and animal abuse. The Monash University study showed just over half of family violence victims reported the perpetrator had also abused the family pets, and many women said they had delayed leaving a violent relationship out of concern for their pet’s welfare.
Interview by ABC Reporter Lisa Whitehead in 2007:
.
‘RIC HOLLAND, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, LORT SMITH ANIMAL HOSPITAL: We had a dog that had clearly been punched in the face with severe facial injuries and broken limbs. Probably it had been struck with a cricket bat or a baseball bat.
DR SASHA HERBERT, LORT SMITH ANIMAL HOSPITAL: The male owner said that the dog had run through a plate glass window to get to him. I suspect the dog had been thrown through the plate glass window rather than having run through it itself, or it else it was so frightened that it was running from something rather than to something.
JUDY JOHNSON, EASTERN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SERVICE: The threats to the pets are used as a controlling mechanism by a perpetrator to say, “Look, remain with me. If you leave I will do such and such. I will either shoot the dog, I’ll strangle a cat, I’ll skin the guinea pigs, and when I find you and the children eventually, I’ll do the same to you”.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Those threats against the family pets may never be carried out, but they’re powerful coercive tool used to trap women and children in the web of domestic violence.
DR NICOLA TAYLOR, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY: They can be used to keep them silent, particularly in the case of children where child abuse is concerned. They can also be used to make the victims stay in the relationship, or to make them behave in ways that they wouldn’t normally behave.
LISA WHITEHEAD: The stories workers in the field of domestic violence have been hearing for years are now being reaffirmed by the findings of the first Australian study examining the link between pet abuse and domestic violence.
DR SASHA HERBERT: And so have there ever been any injuries to your cat?
LISA WHITEHEAD: In the survey by Monash University and Melbourne’s Eastern Domestic Violence Service, more than half of the victims of family violence said their animals had been abused. The report mirrors the findings of research overseas where pet abuse is now seen as an indicator of other violent behaviour.
DR NICOLA TAYLOR: In the States they call it a “red flag” and what this essentially means is that if we know that there is animal abuse going on, then we should be looking more deeply for signs of child abuse and spousal abuse and other dysfunctional behaviour in that family.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Disturbingly, the Monash University study also found a third of the women living in crisis accommodation delayed leaving the family home out of concern for their pet’s welfare.
JUDY JOHNSON: There’s long stories of maybe the crisis line spending an hour on the phone to a woman talking to her about the possibility of finding a refuge, the difficulty of finding the refuge, and then at the very end the woman will say “And what about my horse?” And then you’re really back to square one because she won’t leave without the horse or the cat.
DR NICOLA TAYLOR: We need to also realise that the children very often have an attachment to these pets which can preclude them leaving.
TILLY: I had a family of dogs and they’re just as important to me as my two children. I didn’t want to leave them and find that he had hurt them or victimised them for me leaving.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Tilly was caught in a violent relationship for two and a half years. Desperate to get out, she tried in vain to find a temporary home for her dogs.
TILLY: I rang the RSPCA, I rang a lot of different agencies that … any agency that I could think of and there just was nothing out there. I couldn’t actually afford to take my dogs to a private kennel.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Finally, Tilly says she had no choice but to have one of her dogs put down.
TILLY: I sat in the car and cried for a quarter of an hour, shaking, and it was not something I had ever planned to do, and it’s certainly something that I never wish to ever have to do again.
LISA WHITEHEAD: It’s a grim option, but most domestic violence refuges can’t accommodate pets, and few animal shelters offer respite care for more than a week or two, leaving women and children little choice but to leave their pets behind. That’s the dilemma Naomi faced when escaping to a refuge with her children.
NAOMI: It was one of the first things that was actually brought up “What is he going to do to the animals?” They were really scared and really distressed about leaving them behind. They were their comfort. They were their safety and security.
LISA WHITEHEAD: But Animal Aid’s new Pets in Peril program came to Naomi’s rescue.
CLIENT: Good, good. I believe you have Gidget for me?
ASSISTANT: That’s right, yes.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Working closely with Melbourne’s Eastern Domestic Violence Service and a network of suburban vet clinics, Animal Aid finds safe homes for pets for a month or more. Coordinator, Debra Boland, says the importance of the program was brought home to her by one 12 year old girl.
DEBRA BOLAND, PETS IN PERIL: She used to ring on a regular basis just to … not to find out if they were OK, or not to find out when they could come home, but if they were still alive.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Experts say witnessing pet abuse as a child can have serious consequences.
DR NICOLA TAYLOR: We know essentially that children who do witness domestic violence and who presumably also witness this kind of abuse to pets, will be in a much higher risk category for developing anti social behaviour of some kind or another.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Animal Aid is just one small service helping to break that cycle of abuse, but recognition of the problem is slowly growing. The Queensland RSPCA runs a state-wide animal foster program for pets in crisis and other state RSPCAs have dedicated services in some areas. Now Melbourne’s Lort Smith Animal Hospital wants to get on board, working with domestic violence and child abuse agencies across Victoria. It plans to set up a 24 hour transport and boarding service for pets at risk.
RIC HOLLAND: That then gives a very clear access to the women in this situation to escape from a violent partner, be very confident that the pets are being cared for and once her life has got back on track, to actually reclaim the pets and bring them back into her and her children’s lives.
NAOMI: They were relieved, unbelievably relieved. We could actually start looking at books again, looking at books of different animals without the tears coming. They’re very excited about getting them back.’
2010: Baby Koala Shot multiple times, north of Brisbane
.
A koala joey, affectionately known as Doug, lies on a pillow after being shot by a slug gun in Morayfield, north of Brisbane, on January 19, 2010.
[Photo source: ^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/baby-koala-clings-on-to-life-20101109-17lsb.html]
.
In January 2010, a baby Koala was shot multiple times and eventually died. It’s mother too was shot though survived, as explained in the following news article from Brisbane just two month ago:
‘A young koala is fighting for its life after it was wounded in a cowardly shooting at Morayfield, north of Brisbane.
Moreton Bay Koala Rescue president Annika Lehmann said the young male koala, estimated to be about eight or nine months old, had been taken to Australia Zoo for treatment.
The 940-gram koala, which had been named “Doug”, was in an induced coma.
He was found at the base of a tree at J Dobson Rd in Morayfield, Ms Lehmann said.
“Our rescuers got a call this morning about a little joey sitting at the trunk of a tree and his breathing was laboured,” she said. “Mum was 30 metres up in the tree, so we needed tree climbers to get her down, but the little boy was sitting at the bottom of the tree, so he was easy to get.”
Ms Lehmann said it was unclear how long Doug had been suffering as a result of the attack.
“He was very lethargic and dehydrated, so we don’t think this happened this morning or yesterday, it might have happened one or two days ago,” she said.
“At first we thought he had pneumonia, but when he had an x-ray they discovered the two bullets. “One is in the left chest cavity and one is in the lower abdomen.”
Ms Lehmann said Doug’s mother, which could also have been wounded, was also being assessed.
“I can’t really say much about her condition, but it looks like she’s OK,” she said.
Ms Lehmann said she had never seen a koala shot in the area before, although she was aware of several kangaroos shootings.
“Morayfield is one of those areas that we feel koalas are still relatively safe, so it was really bad that we found him there,” she said.
RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty said the attack was disturbing, with the joey a “50/50 chance” of survival.
“At first glance, because it was a slug gun that was used, it’s probably kids but we really need to catch those who are responsible,” he said.
“All too often we’ve seen in the past the links between animal cruelty and other forms of violence down the track, so if this was kids they need to be made to be accountable for their actions now to nip something like this in the bud.”
Mr Beatty said people could call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or the RSPCA Cruelty Complaints Hotline on 1300 852 188 if they had any information on the attack.’
One of the kangaroos shot with an arrow in Melbourne, February 2009
[Photo: Melbourne Zoo]
.
A man has been arrested over the shooting of two kangaroos with arrows in Melbourne’s outer north this month.
The 27-year-old man from Thomastown, a Northern Melbourne suburb, was arrested in Epping on Wednesday morning. Police say they raided two Thomastown properties and seized two bows, six arrows, an arrow quiver and camouflage clothing. The man is also being interviewed over another incident in which a person was allegedly shooting a bow and arrows in a Bundoora park close to other people.
Kangaroo left for dead with an arrow through its head – it survived
.
An eastern grey kangaroo was found shot in the head with an arrow that had penetrated through the bone and into the nasal cavity at the University Hill Estate in Bundoora on May 9.
After an operation its prospects of a full recovery are good.
In an incident two days earlier at the same location, a juvenile female kangaroo was found with an arrow imbedded in its rump. Wildlife Victoria has offered a $10,000 reward to catch the person responsible.
Police charged the 27-year-old Thomastown man over the Bundoora shootings that horrified animal lovers this month.
One kangaroo survived after an arrow passed through its head while the other was found with an arrow in its rump. The man was arrested at his workplace on McDonalds Rd, Epping, on Wednesday morning and faces cruelty charges. A search of his house discovered two bows, five arrows, an arrow quiver, a paper target and camouflage clothing.
As he left Mill Park police station, he claimed he “didn’t know they were a protected animal” before driving away in a hotted-up car.
Detective Sen-Constable Dave Richards said police had acted on a tip-off.
“We had received a call from someone concerned for their (kangaroos’) well-being,” he said.
Sen-Constable Richards said police had received several tip-offs, particularly after Wildlife Victoria posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to a prosecution under the Cruelty Act.
The man was charged with reckless conduct endangering life and four counts of aggravated cruelty. He was bailed to appear at Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court on June 25.
Wildlife carer Belinda Gales, who has been looking after the injured kangaroos at Chum Creek Wildlife Shelter, said she was relieved to hear of the arrest.
She said it was a miracle the kangaroos – dubbed Beau and Hope – survived.
“Beau has made an amazing recovery. The only evidence is some small sutures on the side of his head,” Ms Gales said.
“Hope has taken a bit longer, because her wound got infected, but, hopefully, they will both be fine.”
Ms Gales hopes the kangaroos will be released in about two weeks.
“They have come to depend on each other, so they will stay here, and when they are both fit, they will be released together,” she said.
“We don’t know where they will go yet, but the main thing is that they go into a safe environment.”
Another five months later Twenty-seven-year-old Justin Stavropoulos was found guilty and jailed..
.
‘A man who pleaded guilty in Melbourne to shooting four kangaroos with a bow and arrow has been jailed for 12 months.
Twenty-seven-year-old Justin Stavropoulos pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and hunting protected wildlife. His lawyer asked the court to consider a sentence Stavropoulos could serve in the community.
But Magistrate Jennifer Grubissa said a jail term was the only appropriate sentence to deter other people from doing the same thing. She said the offending was cruel and callous.
The four kangaroos were shot in Bundoora earlier this year.
One survived the attacks. Two died quickly. And a third kangaroo, with an arrow through its face, died after surgery.
The magistrate said Stavropoulos should have known that unless he was a perfect marksman his actions were unlikely to lead to a humane death for the animals.
Stavropoulos was ordered to serve a non-parole period of four months.
Stavropoulos is appealing the sentence. He was granted bail to face an appeal hearing in the County Court next March.
Well, Robin Hood aspirant Stavropoulos appealed the court’s decision, however the judge upheld the jail term..
.
‘A judge has upheld a 12-month jail term given to a camouflage-clad man who shot and maimed kangaroos with a high-powered bow and arrow.
Justin Stavropoulos, 27, killed and maimed several kangaroos during hunting trips in Melbourne’s northern fringe during April and May last year. He was given a 12-month jail sentence, with a minimum of four months, in the Heidelberg Magistrates Court last October, but was bailed pending an appeal.
However, his sentence was today upheld by Victorian County Court judge Frank Gucciardo. Judge Gucciardo said Stavropoulos may not have appreciated the stupidity of his actions, but the community needed to be sent a strong message that violence towards animals was unacceptable. The judge accepted Stavropoulos believed the animals were game and could be hunted, but said it must have been obvious to him that using a high-powered bow and arrow would have caused the animals agony.
“How such a weapon can be so easily obtained can only engender dismay”, he said.
Stavropoulos must pay compensation of more than $4000 to wildlife authorities involved in rescuing the injured animals. Stavropoulos, of Thomastown, had pleaded guilty to charges of animal cruelty and hunting protected wildlife.
Outside court, animal activists welcomed the sentence.
2012: Kangaroos shot with arrows in outside Canberra
.
Canberra kangaroos shot with bow and arrows at Mount Ainslie outside Canberra
.
Kangaroos have been shot and killed with a bow and arrows in what park rangers are describing as a “distressing” spate of attacks on Mount Ainslie.
Two kangaroos were shot dead by arrows in the area in the past two weeks, and one had to be put down to end its suffering.
National Parks, Reserves and Rural Land manager Stephen Hughes said those responsible for the attacks could be charged a range of offences, which could see them face two years in prison and up to $22,000 of fines.
“It is very distressing to discover this illegal behaviour which, in addition to the suffering caused to the kangaroos, poses a public safety hazard,” he said.
“Mount Ainslie is a high use reserve which is particularly popular with late afternoon and evening walkers, joggers and cyclists.”
Police and park rangers have stepped up their monitoring of the area to try and catch the culprits.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a report via the website at www.act.crimestoppers.com.au.
[Source: ‘Roos attacked with bow and arrow’, 20120207, ^http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/roos-attacked-with-bow-and-arrow-20120207-1t91v.html]
.
The ACT Government is appealing to the public for information on the arrow attacks. There has been a number of attacks on kangaroos in Canberra’s Mount Ainslie Reserve using a bow and arrow.
Over the past two weeks members of the public have reported finding kangaroos that have been killed or injured with arrows. Rangers found one kangaroo already dead while another had to be put down to end its suffering.
ACT Parks manager Stephen Hughes says the use of a high powered bow and arrow is illegal and the incidents are extremely concerning.
“This is a professional bow and arrow that’s being used,” he said. “Our two major concerns are that apart from the obvious suffering caused to the kangaroos from this activity, it’s a serious threat to the many visitors that walk and ride in Mt Ainslie Nature Reserve every day.
“These people are being put at risk by this irresponsible behaviour.” Mr Hughes says the situation is distressing. “It’s unbelievable that people can find it entertaining to undertake this sort of activity in this day and age, shooting our native wildlife,” he said.
The ACT Government is appealing to the public to help catch the people responsible.
“ACT Policing has been notified of the illegal activity. Together with rangers, police will step up their monitoring of the area,” Mr Hughes said.
[Source: ‘Ainslie roos killed by arrows’, 20120208, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-08/ainslie-kangaroos-shot-arrows/3817500]
.
Hobby Killers(killing for fun) continues to be funded by the New South Wales taxpayer
The Game Council NSW uses euphemistic terms like ‘hunt‘ instead of ‘kill‘, and ‘game‘ instead of ‘wildlife‘.
It is a deliberate strategy to demonise wildlife and to seek public legitimacy to kill for fun.
All types of characters are attracted.
.
‘Animal Cruelty as a Predictor of Other Criminal Behaviours: Australian Data’
.
‘As part of a larger study, a total of 200 participants was randomly selected from a New South Wales (NSW) Police database containing 947 individuals involved in animal cruelty incidents (Clarke, 2002; 2003). The sample included 38 female (M = 32.8 years, SD = 12.6 years) and 162 male (M = 28.4 years, SD = 8.7 years) participants. All participants were located using a NSW police service data collection system.
Conclusions:
Out of the sample of 200, 61.5 percent had alsocommitted an assault. Further, more than half of these individuals, all of whom had a history of animal abuse, also had convictions for driving offences, domestic violence and stealing. Other offences observed included drug and firearms offences, sexual assaults, malicious damage, assaulting police and street offences. It is noteworthy that as many as 17% of these offenders had also been sexually abuse.
In fact, animal abuse was a better predictor of sexual assault than previous convictions for homicide, arson orfirearms offences.
These data demonstrate that animal abuse is predictive of other criminal behaviours including violent crimes. These findings, therefore, indicate that identified animal cruelty needs to be given increased attention, both by law enforcement and service provision organisations, in efforts aimed at reducing or preventing criminal behaviours. Recognition of factors that may inadvertently be endorsing or aiding the maintenance of violent criminal and animal abuse behaviours is also important. Continued legalisation of recreational hunting may be one such factor.”
‘Research shows abusers believe abuse is justified‘
.
A criminal psychology research article by Robert Agnew of Emory University, USA, entitled: ‘The Causes of Animal Abuse: A Social-Psychological Analysis‘ presents a theory that explains why individuals engage in animal abuse.
“First, I describe the immediate determinants of animal abuse. Animal abuse is said to result from ignorance about the abusive consequences of our behavior for animals, the belief that abuse is justified, and the perception that abuse is personally beneficial.
Second, I describe an additional set of factors that have both direct effects on animal abuse and indirect effects through the above three factors. These additional factors include individual traits, like empathy; the individual’s socialization; the individual’s level of strain or stress; the individual’s level of social control; the nature of the animal under consideration; and the individual’s social position.”
Animal abuse is no different to child abuse.
As disgusted as nearly all Australians are with animal abuse, Australia’s animal protection laws remain are inadequate both as a deterrent and as a punishment.
Wildlife killing and abuse is morally unacceptable and should be made a crime in the same way that killing or abusing humans is a crime. All that would be required is adding an animal section to the existing crimes acts around the country.
“A correlation between animal abuse, family violence and other forms of community violence has been established. Child and animal protection professionals have recognized this link, noting that abuse of both children and animals is connected in a self-perpetuating cycle of violence. When animals in a home are abused or neglected, it is a warning sign that others in the household may not be safe. In addition, children who witness animal abuse are at a greater risk of becoming abusers themselves.” [American Humane Society]
Police are not required to enforce animal cruelty breaches.
Instead it is relegated to an under-resourced, under-equipped RSPCA, which is at best a toothless force. Australia should set a moral standard, establish a national squad within the Australian Federal Police to deal specifically with animal abuse. Australia needs to set up a central database on animal killers and abusers just as in the same way paedophiles are monitored as social deviants. No more abuse!
After the cat incident in Cairns, it seems logical that air rifles and bb-guns are those weapons that adolescents get access to before firearms.
Access and acceptance to such weapons tends to one more familiar with those on the land or a non-urban lifestyle. It may be worth investigating this in an article. Meanwhile, the ‘bevan’ mindset and animal cruelty that persists in some communities is an eye opener.
.
“…Bruce Kringle, 60, lay on top of the animal in a desperate bid to stop the attack in Flowerdale (Victoria) just before 7am. A neighbour heard his cries for help and, after telling Mr Kringle to move off the animal, killed it with a blow from the back of an axe. Geoff McClure, compliance team leader for the Department of Sustainability and Environment, said a wombat attack was extremely unusual.”
.
Frankly, I find this hard to believe and indeed suspicious. A ‘rogue wombat’? This is a wombat..
Australian Wombat – a docile noctural herbivore
.
Wombats are native to this part of Victoria. If anything, it is the humans with axes that are the rogues. Did Kringle have a Alexander Pearcian moment after getting on the turps perhaps? Alexander Pearce was that notorious 19th Century convict in Van Diemans Land who butchered his fellow escapees with an axe then ate them, as the recent disturbing film portrays [Watch Trailer]. (To play video press the arrow in centre of video; to stop video press the pause button on bottom left)
The incident should be investigated by both a RSPCA vet and the police taking account of witnesses, and including a blood alchohol test on both the men, and a background check on Kringle and the ‘neighbour’ who killed it with an axe for any history of animal abuse.
Killing a wombat with an axe? How cruel, vicious and unnecessary!
.
Kangaroo shooting ‘industry’
.
‘Contrary to claims by regulatory agencies, the industry here in Australia is not fully professional, with a large proportion of casual shooters amongst licensees.
Kangaroos that are inaccurately targeted (not hit in the head from 80 to 200 metres at night) may suffer a painful, protracted death and their carcasses will not be utilised.
Pouch-young joeys are clubbed on the head!
.
Young-at-foot are supposed to be shot, but since the industry is self-regulated, they are often left to die of starvation or predation.
Taken together, it is likely that up to a million young are killed annually as collateral damage and their carcasses not used. This is an unacceptable practice by international standards. They are the by-products of the greatest massacre of wild animals in the world. In a similar case of harvested terrestrial wildlife, the products derived from young Canadian Harp Seals – which are clubbed to death – have been banned in most westernised countries.
“It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ….I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
Most of Australia’s native vegetation cover, over 75% of that predating the 1788 Colonial Invasion, has been ‘cleared’ – a euphemism for deforested, logged, destroyed, killed.
Today, as one travels around Australia and sees vasts areas of unproductive, degraded, denuded and abandoned farmlands – one questions why destroy more fragile environment? Yet the exploitative bastards are still hell bent on killing more native forest and bushland, even though they can’t properly manage the ‘already ‘cleared’ lands they’ve got. It is a short sighted insatiability, harking to a 19th Century ‘old blighty’ mindset of taming the land. It is deluded thinking that just because the native vegetation is green and looks fertile that it can be replaced for pasture and cropping and that new cleared land will be any different to that already cleared.
The Liberal-Labor governments and their rural National mates haven’t given a toss throughout the entire 20th Century and still couldn’t give a toss.
Recent land clearing in the Daly River catchment area
Northern Territory, Australia.
Photo: Environment Centre NT
.
Moree region New South Wales – mainly deforested
Visit Google Earth and zoom into any area of NSW and see that most of it has been deforested
(click image to enlarge)
.
Still across Australia in 2011, thousands of hectares of native forests continue to be deforested – albeit for farming, logging and development, or just bizarre bushfire abandonment. Not only is this occurring on private land, but in State Forests, which most people think are protected. Native forests on land are being cleared branded by State governments as ‘State Forests’ are simply not protected.
The native trees, flora and fauna are not protected from logging, bushfire, State-sanctioned arson (aka ‘hazard reduction‘), State napalming (aka indiscriminate ‘hazard reduction‘), indiscriminate State aerial poisoning with 1080, wildlife poaching, 4WD hooning, trail bike hooning, or even backpacker murdering. The watercourses (and the interconnected groundwater aquifers), that flow through State Forests are not protected from fishing, stormwater run-off, mine tailing contamination, farm pesticide and herbicide, industrial pollution.
.
Helicopter Aerial Incendiary
Over Bindarri National Park, 20km south-west of Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
Yes, even our National Parks and Wildlife Service sets indiscriminate fires to National Parks!
.
For the likes of taxpayer funded government industrial loggers ‘State Forest’ is a euphemism ‘for not logged yet‘. This applies to the likes of Forestry Tasmania, VicForests, Forests NSW, Forestry SA (spot the naming trend), as well as the more aptly Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, and likewise the Forest Products Commission of Western Australia.
It seems that doesn’t matter whether there is proof that there is an endangered and protected species such as the Long-Footed Potoroo in the Cann Valley State Forest or Drummer State Forest in Victoria, or protected Koalas in the Murrah/Mumbulla State Forests of New South Wales, or three identified endangered species, the wedge-tailed eagle, the swift parrot and the wielangta stag beetle in Tasmania’s Wielangta State Forests, the Liberal-Labor governments of those States turn a blind eye to deforestation.
It is only when self-funded local communities take the respective government logger to the Supreme Court and win that logging stops momentarily, such as in the recent Victorian Supreme Court case Environment East Gippsland Inc v VicForests [2010] VSC 335. In 2006, the Victorian State Government committed to increasing the conservation parks and reserves within the broader Brown Mountain area. Disregarding its elected master and ignoring any concerns for the ecological Precautionary Principle, State industrial logger VicForests, got stuck in with its mechanical clearfelling of old growth forests in the Brown Mountain area.
Not-for profit group Environment East Gippsland (EEG) self-funded and obtained numerous studies of the area indicated the presence of important threatened and rare species. EEG requested the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Gavin Jennings, to make an interim conservation order to conserve critical habitat of the endangered Long-footed Potoroo, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Sooty Owl, Powerful Owl and Orbost Spiny Crayfish at Brown Mountain. Even then, the Minister for Environment and Climate Chang did not grant a conservation order, but instead increased the conservation area surrounding Brown Mountain. It took the overriding legal authority of the Supreme Court to stop the Victorian Government and its delinquent logger trashing protected old growth habitat.
Victorian Labor Minister for Environment (etc), 2007-2010
.
In March 2010, Forests NSW began controversial logging operations in the Mumbulla State Forest, south of Bermagui on the state’s far south coast. Despite being criticised, after a recent survey identified the forest as a key colony for the region’s remaining koala population, Forests NSW Regional Manager Ian Barnes says the logging must go ahead across 240 hectares of the forest, in order to satisfy a supply agreement with the timber industry.
Deforestation is all about lining ones pockets out of ecological wanton exploitationIt’s a ‘wam bam thank you mam’ approach no different to what the Vikings did to the British in the eight Century. Colonial Australians and their descendants are doing the same to Australian ecology in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries.
Mr Barnes says the logging will not affect the koala habitat. “We’ve taken quite some effort to avoid any possible conflict there,” he says. “As anybody who reads the recent report will know, the koalas have been found in the eastern side of the forest, and our logging is planned for the western part, as far away as we can get from the koalas.”
Despite assurances, anti-logging campaigners have organised a vigil in the forest in an attempt to stop the logging. Conservationist Prue Acton says the activity will devastate the koala population.
“Why risk the only healthy koala colony left in the far south coast. For what? “ she said. “95% of what is going to be logged is going to end up at the Eden woodchip mill, be shipped to Japan for cheap copy-paper. What a disgrace.”
The Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says the Premier should put the protection of koalas ahead of the interests of logging companies. “The New South Wales Government has refused to end logging in the south east native forest but they should step in and stop the destruction of the koala habitat,” she said.
The amount of bushland being cleared by logging in NSW soared last year to the highest level since state-wide records began in 1988. An area equivalent to 138,400 football fields was cleared for crops, forestry or infrastructure, says a government report.
The Office of Environment and Heritage said the rise in logging was probably cancelled out by regrowth, leading to no net loss of trees, though its most recent survey took place in 2008, before the land clearing spike. It said the reasons for the logging increase were unclear.
”[The] most likely factors relate to market demand and favourable climatic conditions and [they] can be expected to fluctuate over time,” a department spokesman said. ”It is also possible that recent changes in forestry methods are more readily detectable by satellite monitoring.”
Environment groups said the annual vegetation report was evidence that logging companies were operating in an unrestrained manner.
Bushfires remain the biggest destroyer of forests in the state, leading to a net loss of 48,300 hectares in 2010, the report said.
.
But logging activities now come a close second, accounting for the removal of 42,700 hectares of trees in 2010. This is up from 31,000 hectares the previous year, and an average of about 21,000 hectares a year since 1988.
About 21,200 hectares of bushland was cleared in 2010 to make new areas for crops and grazing, while 5300 hectares were cut down to make way for roads, factories and housing.
”The NSW government is currently conducting a review of native vegetation controls,” said the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Pepe Clarke. ”They should take this report as a warning – what is required are stronger land- clearing laws that do more to protect the environment, not weaker ones.”
The Wilderness Society said the government had ”failed in its promises to restrain land clearing, resulting in rapid and accelerating degradation of wildlife habitat and water catchments.”
The most recent State of the Environment report found that there had been no net loss of ”woody cover” across NSW between 2003 and 2008.
”This is because, although clearing has occurred over that period, there has also been an equivalent amount of regrowth including government sponsored environmental and forestry planting programs conducted by private landholders and state forests, within crown forests areas,” the department said.
”Notwithstanding no net loss over the whole state, some regions have experienced net declines in woody cover.”
The report uses the international definition of ”woody cover”, which includes land at least 20% covered by the crowns of trees higher than 2 metres, a description which would include relatively open country.
The introduction of a satellite monitoring system for land clearing last year appears to have increased the level of prosecution for illegal land clearing on private property. On crown lands, the number of prosecutions has increased threefold, from a low base, since 2007.
In 2010, the government received 471 reports of suspected illegal land clearing.
.
‘Landowners sent satellite images identifying land clearing‘
NSW Department of Environment Climate Change and Water (DECCW) today began a high tech education campaign to encourage compliance with native vegetation laws by sending letters to landholders including before and after satellite pictures identifying land clearing.
DECCW Director-General Lisa Corbyn said the letters were part of an ongoing education program to encourage compliance with the laws and inform landowners of the proper channels available to them if they want to clear native vegetation.
“We’ve been using satellite technology for some time to identify changes in vegetation cover that may warrant further investigation,” Ms Corbyn said.
“Now we are also using the technology as an education tool. From today, advisory letters will be sent to landowners including before and after satellite pictures showing that vegetation has been cleared on their land.”
Ms Corbyn said the letters aim to inform to the landowner that the satellite imagery has picked up that vegetation had been cleared and highlight the proper channels available to them under the legislation to allow clearing of native vegetation, such as property vegetation plans.
The letters support other tools used by DECCW to encourage compliance with the legislation, including strategic investigations, prosecutions, penalty notices, stop work orders, remedial directions, warning and advisory letters.
The letter also alerts landowners to incentive funding available to restore and protect native vegetation on their properties.
The Native Vegetation Act was introduced in 2003 to bring an end to broadscale land-clearing in NSW. Since then, more than 400,000 hectares of native vegetation has been conserved or rehabilitated on private land through property vegetation plans (PVPs) and 1.6 million hectares has been managed for thinning and invasive native scrub management.
.
Over 60 % of the native vegetation in NSW has been cleared, thinned or substantially disturbed.
.
The impacts of native vegetation clearing have included the extinction of 77 plant and animal species, soil erosion, increased dryland salinity and a decline in water quality.’
.
2003: ‘Clearing rate in NSW 116,000 to 216,000 hectares per year: NSW Govt report’
[Source: ‘Clearing rate in NSW 116,000 to 216,000 hectares per year: NSW Govt report’, by Stephanie Peatling, Environment Reporter, Sydney Morning Herald, 20031117, ^http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/id64.html]
.
The equivalent of up to 200,000 football fields may be illegally stripped of native trees and grass each year in NSW, figures suggest.
The first estimates on the extent of the clearings, which the Department of Natural Resources field staff prepared for the Government’s vegetation taskforce, suggest the figure could be as high as 100,000 hectares a year. The figures show between 150,000 hectares and 560,000 hectares were illegally cleared between 1997 and 2002.
The advice is the first official guess at NSW’s illegal clearance levels. The highest rates are in the Barwon, Central West and Far West regions where much of NSW’s remaining native vegetation is located.
The figures have shocked environmentalists, who stress the urgency of making changes to the state’s natural resource management system, which Parliament is debating this week.
A Wilderness Society campaigner, Francesca Andreoni, said: “The new system needs to be fair to everyone, particularly farmers doing the right thing.
“The shocking extent of illegal clearing confirms the urgent need for the Government to implement its decision to end broadscale clearing.”
Figures recording the rate of illegal land clearing each year are almost impossible to compile because it so hard to charge people who breach native vegetation laws. There is also a complicated system of exemptions which allow people to clear land for purposes such as maintaining fire access trails.
Monitoring illegal clearing is potentially dangerous for departmental compliance officers. After reports of illegal clearing earlier this year on a property near Nyngan, in the state’s west, department officers were prevented from entering the property by an angry crowd of up to 150 people.
.
When the amount of land illegally cleared is added to land that is legally approved for clearance, the department estimates between 700,000 hectares and 1.3 million hectares of land were cleared between 1997 and 2002.
.
The figures suggest clearing was faster than the Department of Natural Resources’ previously admitted figure of about 60,000 hectares a year. That figure would give NSW the second-highest clearing rate in the country behind Queensland.
Debate on the Government’s package to overhaul native vegetation laws, based on an election promise to end broad-scale clearing, will take place this week. Last month the Premier, Bob Carr, announced a $406 million deal between farmers and environmentalists to end broad-scale clearing.
Most of the money is expected to go towards such things as tree planting and fencing waterways to help counter salinity and erosion. But local authorities may also compensate farmers for not clearing land. Clearing will still be allowed where it is deemed environmentally necessary.
Under the new system, natural resource management is being overhauled. Thirteen catchment management authorities will replace 19 catchment management boards, 20 regional vegetation committees and 33 water management committees.
Scientists often name land clearing as one of Australia’s most urgent environmental concerns. It contributes to soil salinity, loss of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions because carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when the cleared timber is disposed of, usually through burning.
Environment groups have banded together to criticise the level of logging occurring in New South Wales. The Nature Conservation Council, The Wilderness Society, National Parks Association, the Northern Inland Council for the Environment and the North Coast Environment Council have issued a joint warning that iconic and endangered species are being threatened by land clearing.
Illegal deforestation for fire wood, near Taralga, on the western edge of the Blue Mountains
Source: ^http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/article_%20conservation_no3.htm
.
In a joint press release, the groups said the NSW annual report on native vegetation released by the Office of Environment and Heritage (Ed. yet another money wasting name change) this month showed 2009/10 was the “worst year on record for clearing of native bushland”.
.
The Wilderness Society campaigns manager Belinda Fairbrother said the report showed that in 2009/10 an area equating to 138,400 football fields was cleared for crops, forestry or infrastructure.
.
“This is higher than any other year since records commenced in 1988 and shows the NSW Government has failed in its promises to restrain land clearing, resulting in rapid and accelerating degradation of wildlife habitat and water catchments,” she said.
North Coast Environment Council president Susie Russell said the report made a sad end to the International Year of Forests.
“The area cleared for forestry in 2009/10 was almost five times greater than it was in 1988/89,” she said.
“It reveals a massive increase in the rate and intensity of logging in NSW, which will be causing untold damage to the extraordinary high diversity forests of north-east NSW.”
Nature Conservation Council chief executive officer Pepe Clarke said land clearing was recognised as the single greatest threat to wildlife in Australia.
“It causes the death of birds and animals, the extinction of species, leads to the poisoning of soils from salinity and makes a major contribution to global warming,” he said.
.
The Liberal-Labor Party ‘Island Vision’ for Australia’s State Forests
‘The Hill’ (Penrose State Forest, NSW) 2007, drawing by James King
^http://www.jamesking.com.au/drawings.html
The United Nations (UN) has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.
Why?
To seek to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by the end of 2010
To celebrate and promote biological diversity – the variety of life on Earth
To boost awareness of how important biodiversity is for humanity
To highlight how seriously biodiversity and nonhuman species are threatened with extinction, and the implications for human wellbeing.
The UN’s Approach to Protecting Biodiversity
Sound management of natural resources to support peaceful communities
Encouraging well-balanced economic growth
Reducing poverty
.
IUCN
The IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network – a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.
The IUCN helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. It supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world and brings governments, non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice.
The IUCN posits 5 sound reasons why humans need to maintain health biodiversity
To maintain food sources
For medicinal benefits associated with diverse plant and animal life
To mitigate the effects of climate change
To provide employment
To enable peoples vulnerable to the effects of climate change improve their livelihoods and increase their resilience to climate change impacts.
.
The Importance of Biodiversity for its own sake [posited by Editor]
To respect natures processes and ecosystems
To prevent continuing extinctions
To prevent extreme climate change
.
To boost global awareness of the importance of biodiversity for humanity
‘The IUCN together with its Members and partners wants to see biodiversity at the top of the global agenda, leading to stronger action from all sectors of society including government and industry to safeguard it.’ ‘Humans are an integral part of biodiversity and have the power to protect or destroy it.’ ‘In the western world, we have become so far removed from biodiversity that we’ve forgotten how much we use it in our daily lives from the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the medicines we use.’
When we Bluefin tuna, we rarely think of the species that the tuna depends on to thrive, or that this species is a serious risk of being fished into extinction. When forestry agencies fell a mature tree to make a table or woodchips, mammalian habitat is lost.
.
To highlight how seriously biodiversity is threatened
Human activities continue to destroy the natural world at an unprecedented rate through habitat destruction, over-harvesting, pollution, poaching, and induced climate change. We’re facing a global species extinction crisis. We need to do better at making the scientific, social, economic and cultural case for keeping diversity, and show just how much it supports nearly every aspect of human life and progress. Through our International Year of Biodiversity focus, we’ll be doing just that, starting with a look at IUCN’s projects relating to forest biodiversity in February.
.
Risks to Biodiversity, Ecosystems and nonhumans species is at crisis point
‘The escalating extinction crisis shows that the diversity of nature cannot support the current pressure that humanity is placing on the planet.’
‘Every day biodiversity is being lost at up to 1,000 times the natural rate. The extinction of individual species, but also habitat destruction, land conversion for agriculture and development, climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species are only some of the threats responsible for today’s crisis.’
‘Coral reefs provide food, storm protection, jobs, recreation and other income sources for more than 500 million people worldwide yet 70% of coral reefs are threatened or destroyed.’
‘17,291 species out of 47,677 assessed so far are threatened with extinction.’
‘Of the world’s 5,490 mammals, 79 are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild, with 188 Critically Endangered, 449 Endangered and 505 Vulnerable.’
‘1,895 of the planet’s 6,285 amphibians are in danger of extinction, making them the most threatened group of species known to date.’
‘With the current biodiversity loss, we are witnessing the greatest extinction crisis since dinosaurs disappeared from our planet 65 million years ago. Not only are these extinctions irreversible, but they also pose a serious threat to our health and wellbeing.’
‘From time immemorial, nature has fed us, cured us, and protected us. But today the roles have switched. We need to feed nature, we need to cure it and protect it if we want to secure a healthy and prosperous future for our children.’
‘Climate change is set to be one of the major drivers of species extinctions in the 21st century: approximately 20 to 30 per cent of plant and animal species are likely to be at increasingly high risk as global mean temperatures rise.’
.
IUCN Species Most Vulnerable to ‘Climate Change Extinction’
A recent IUCN report identifies the following 10 species are most vulnerable to ‘climate change extinction‘.
The Arctic Fox [Alopex lagopus or Vulpes lagopus]Also known as the White Fox, Polar Fox or Snow Fox.The total population estimate for 1997 is around 60 adults in Sweden, 11 adults in Finland and 50 in Norway. [Source: Tannerfeldt, M. (1997). Population fluctuations and life history consequences in the Arctic fox.. Stockholm, Sweden: Dissertation, Stockholm University].
The Arctic Fox is one of the top land-dwelling predators of the Arctic region. It is thought to be one of the first mammals to have colonised Sweden and Finland following the last ice-age.
As the Arctic region warms, tundra habitat may slowly be replaced by boreal forest from the South. Forest habitat is unsuitable for Arctic Foxes.
Red Foxes prey on and are superior hunters to Arctic Foxes. Northward encroachment of Red Foxes into the Arctic Fox’s range has already been documented and is likely to continue as the tundra warms.
Arctic Foxes prey largely on lemmings and voles. Milder and shorter winters are predicted to cause declines in the regularity of these rodents’ population cycles, as well as decreases in their overall numbers.
These factors are likely to cause declines in Arctic Fox numbers and range size. Arctic Foxes highlight the impacts of climate change on the ways that species interact with each other, both through competition and via changes in predator-prey relationships.
.
Koalas
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)
is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia.
According to the IUCN, as CO2 levels increase, the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves
is declining and the koala faces malnutrition and ultimate starvation.
[Editor: What Australian would have thought our precious and assumed plentiful Koalas could be threatened? Well the Tasmanian Tiger was once plentiful across Tasmania. None of us should take our wildlife for granted]
‘Koalas are iconic animals native to Australia. They are true habitat and food specialists, only ever inhabiting forests and woodlands where Eucalyptus trees are present.’
‘Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels will reduce the nutritional quality of Eucalyptus leaves, causing nutrient shortages in the species that forage on them. As a result, Koalas may no longer be able to meet their nutritional demands, resulting in malnutrition and starvation.’
‘Increasing frequency and intensity of droughts can force Koalas to descend from trees in search of water or new habitats. This makes them particularly vulnerable to wild and domestic predators, as well as to road traffic.’
‘Koala populations are reported to be declining due to malnutrition, the sexually-transmitted disease chlamydia, and habitat destruction.’
‘Koalas have very limited capability to adapt to rapid, human-induced climate change, making them very vulnerable to its negative impacts.’
.
Emperor Penguins
The Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri)
The tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica.
For much of the year, Emperor Penguins live on thick sea ice in the Antarctic, which they use for mating, chick rearing and moulting.
In some regions of the Antarctic, seasonal sea ice extent and thickness have reduced in recent decades following climate change. Continued warming will lead to further reductions in sea ice, impacting Emperor Penguins, with more northerly colonies being most at risk.
The biomass of Antarctic krill has decreased in recent decades correlating with decreases in sea ice. Changes in krill abundance are likely to negatively affect Emperor Penguins and many other Antarctic species.
Emperor Penguins highlight the possible impacts of rising sea temperatures and melting sea ice due to climate change. These changes directly or indirectly affect many other species in the Antarctic marine ecosystem.
.
Ringed Seals
The ringed seal (Pusa hispida), also known as the jar seal
Ringed seals are slaughtered by Artic natives [Inuit] and often killed by the fishing gear of commercial trawlers.
Now climate change is a serious threat to their extence because much of their habitat is dependent upon pack ice.
‘Ringed Seals live primarily in the high Arctic and are heavily dependent on Arctic ice, almost never coming onto land.’
‘Warming spring temperatures and early ice breakup are causing nursing young to be prematurely separated from their mothers and to be exposed both to the elements and to predators.’
‘To cope with global warming, Ringed Seals will need to shift their territories to track suitable ice conditions. Increases in disease and disturbance by humans are also likely challenges.’
‘Marked decreases in Ringed Seal abundance are likely to have cascading effects in Arctic food webs. They are the most important species in the diet of Polar Bears.’
‘Ringed Seals highlight the direct impacts of climate change on polar habitats, including the effects ice loss has on other ice-adapted species.’
.
.
IUCN participation and Goals for 2010
.
Failure of the 2010 Biodiversity Target
Adopted in May 2002 during the sixth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the 2010 Biodiversity Target aimed to achieve, by 2010:
‘a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth’.
Unfortunately, we now know that this aim is far from being met. As we are facing an ever-increasing biodiversity crisis, we need a new, clear and realistic target to respond to it.
Negotiations on the new post-2010 framework will be taking place throughout this year, paving the way for the 10th Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October.
.
1. 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity [Japan]
To follow up on the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro where world leaders adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The Convention has three main objectives:
To conserve biological diversity
To use biological diversity in a sustainable way
To share the benefits of biological diversity fairly and equitably.
The Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will take place from 18 to 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan.
.
This meeting is set to be a milestone for the Convention. It is during this event that the Parties of the Convention are expected to adopt a new set of post-2010 biodiversity targets. They will also agree upon an international regime to regulate access to genetic resources and the sharing of benefits that we gain from their use.
2. COP10 Meeting of the Access and Benefit Sharing Working Group [Colombia]
From 22-28 March 2010, around 600 delegates representing Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), non-governmental and international organizations, and partners, gathered in Cali in Colombia to give the final push to the negotiations on the international regime to regulate access to genetic resources and the distribution of the benefits derived from their use.
This is the ninth and final meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) before the tenth Conference of the Parties of the Convention (COP10). The Working Group has been mandated to finalize its work and deliver an ABS international regime to be adopted at COP10 in Nagoya, Japan later this year. The clock is thus ticking but despite the pressure, delegates seem positive about a favourable outcome of the meeting.
3. Million-dollar boost to people and biodiversity [West Africa]
Part of the IUCN Forest Conservation Programme this IUCN initiative works to improve the livelihoods of people in West Africa receiving a major boost in the form of a CHF 1.9 million grant from Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).’
‘Led by IUCN Member the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, the Satoyama Initiative focuses on conserving villages and farmlands, together with the sustainable practices and traditional knowledge that they represent.’
‘In the remote area of south-east Bangladesh, known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts, IUCN Bangladesh is making sure that traditional health knowledge and practices are revived and secured for future generations.’
IUCN’s biologist Vineet Soni has enlisting the help of tribespeople of the arid regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan, in India to secure the rare ‘Guggul Tree’ [Commiphora wighii], at risk due to overharvesting. Its resin has been a key component in the ancient Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine as an effective treatment for bone fractures, arthritis, inflammation and obesity, and is now widely used in modern medicine for heart problems. Vineet has led a group of friends have founded the Indian Council for Plant Conservation to conserve threatened plant species of Rajasthan through community involvement, running workshops to help make local people aware of the importance and conservation of plants.
‘In Sri Lanka, three elephants are killed every week as a result of human-elephant conflict, leaving behind defenceless orphans. To address this, IUCN State Member The Department of Wildlife Conservation has launched a novel foster parent scheme, where contributions from donors are used to shelter helpless young elephants in a transit home until they have reached an appropriate age to be released into the wild.’
Colombia has six native wild cat species including the jaguar, puma, and ocelot. As in many other countries, the species are threatened by habitat loss, loss of prey and killing by livestock farmers. Lack of information on their populations, their prey and ecosystems have until now prevented the design of effective conservation strategies.
But thanks to multi-stakeholder efforts, the National Conservation Programme for Felids in Colombia is now underway. This has established conservation guidelines for all species by region and aims to form an integrated nationwide initiative to establish the abundance and distribution of these species and their prey, and how to tackle conflicts between the wild cats and farmers.
9. CoP15 to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
.
At Doha, Qatar, 25 March 2010 regulatory bodies from around the world met to discuss agreeing on conventions to ensure the continued survival of species threatened by wildlife trade.
Trade regulation for bluefin tuna, African elephants, tigers, sharks, polar bears and coral have all been under discussion in Doha.
During the conference, IUCN called for a more holistic approach to elephant conservation, urging Parties to rise above divisive issues raised at this meeting in favour of more decisive action on the known problems facing African elephants in many parts of their range including decreasing habitat as a result of the needs of growing human populations and managing human-elephant conflict.
Before the next conference in 2013 in Thailand, CITES has a huge challenge to meet in specifically addressing the key challenges and gaps identified at this conference so that discussions at CoP16 can truly support sustainable trade in all wild species.
10. Talks to dismantle trade in tiger poaching [Southern Asia]
Tigers are listed in CITES Appendix I, which includes species threatened with extinction and allows non-commercial trade only in exceptional circumstances, such as for research. Globally, on a species level, tigers are listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.
At COP15, poaching and illegal trade in tigers was discussed with countries being asked to provide information to the CITES Secretariat and Interpol to help develop anti-poaching strategies.
Estimates from 2007 indicated that there were as few as 3,400 tigers in the wild throughout Asia. Numbers have decreased since then. In the early 1900s there were more than 100,000. Tigers are primarily poached for their skins with other body parts being used for decorative purposes or for traditional medicines.
“If we use tiger numbers as a performance indicator then we must admit that we have failed miserably and that we are continuing to fail. How have we let this happen?” says CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers. “Although the tiger has been prized throughout history, and is a symbol of incredible importance in many cultures and religions, it is now literally on the verge of extinction.
2010 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the International Year of Biodiversity; this must be the year in which we reverse the trend. If we don’t, it will be to our everlasting shame.”
11. Call for Post-2010 Strategic Plan on Biodiversity
The IUCN is calling for a clear post-2010 Strategic Plan on Biodiversity.
We have failed to meet the target adopted through the Convention on Biological Diversity to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 60% of ecosystem services worldwide have become degraded in the past 50 years, and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ gives us alarming facts on species extinction rates, which are increasing continuously.
IUCN is calling for a short, focused and action-oriented Strategic Plan to be adopted at the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, in October.
“Simply aiming at halting biodiversity loss is no longer sufficient; we also need to restore and maintain the populations, habitats and ecological cycles that enable biodiversity and ecosystem services – such as food, water or medicine – to persist “ says Jane Smart, Director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group. “To achieve this, we need engagement on all possible levels, with the economic sector, the development community through to the public sector and civil society. It is critical that the role of biodiversity as the foundation of life, livelihoods and development is understood by all.”
To meet these goals, perverse incentives, like subsidies that harm biodiversity, need to be removed and new regulations and financial incentives need to be put in place, clearly reflecting the value of natural resources. Greater interaction between science and policy, and cohesion between multilateral environmental agreements and other organizations are also essential for the implementation of the new biodiversity targets, according to IUCN experts.’
The next 10 to 20 years could be extremely significant for restoring wild populations of American bison to their original roaming grounds. But for this to happen, more land must be made available for herds to roam free, government policies must be updated and the public must change its attitude towards bison.
A new publication by IUCN, American Bison: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010, reports on the current status of American bison, in the wild and in conservation herds, and makes recommendations on how to ensure that the species is conserved for the future.
“Although the effort to restore bison to the plains of North America is considered to be one of the most ambitious and complex undertakings in species conservation efforts in North America, it will only succeed if legislation is introduced at a local and national level, with significant funding and a shift in attitude towards the animal,” says Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.
Five hundred years ago, tens of millions of American bison roamed free on the plains of North America, from Alaska to northern Mexico. Now the American bison – which includes both plains and wood bison – is listed as Near Threatened on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species™. As of 2008, there were approximately 400,000 bison in commercial herds in North America, some 93 percent of the continental population. But little progress has been made in recent decades to increase the number of animals in conservation herds, which are managed carefully for their genetic diversity and ecological roles. In 2008, there were 61 plains bison conservation herds in North America containing about 20,500 animals, and 11 conservation herds of wood bison, containing nearly 11,000 animals.
“While substantial progress in saving bison from extinction was made in the 20th century, much work remains to restore conservation herds throughout their vast geographical range,” says University of Calgary Environmental Design Professor and co-editor of the study, Dr Cormack Gates, who is also co-Chair of the IUCN Bison Specialist Group. “The key is recognition that the bison is a wildlife species and to be conserved as wildlife, it needs land and supportive government policies.”
The survival of bison populations is affected by many factors, including limited habitat and severe winters. Yet the greatest challenge is to overcome the common perception that the bison, which has had a profound influence on the human history of North America, socially, culturally and ecologically, no longer belongs on the landscape.
“The decimation of the American bison in the late 1800s inspired the first recovery of bison and an entire conservation movement that protected wildlife and wild places across North America,” says Keith Aune, Senior Conservation Scientist, Wildlife Conservation Society. “The IUCN Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines provide a new framework for inspiring a second recovery of bison and restoring functional grassland ecosystems.”
Bison have the best chance of full recovery as wildlife by being allowed to roam freely across hundreds of thousands or even millions of hectares. Making this possible poses one of the biggest challenges for restoring bison herds as both public and private landowners will need to give their support.
“The bison is the largest land mammal in North America, and yet it is perhaps the most neglected icon,” says Steve Forrest, WWF Northern Great Plains Manager for Conservation Science. “These guidelines provide a roadmap for bringing the bison back to its rightful place as a keystone of the great plains.
The under-resourced pre-1939 volunteer model for the bushfire fighting is a repeated failure
What is the point of having a Catastrophic rating if it isn’t used?
Trust government’s used and abused volunteer force with your livelihood?
It’s called ‘Wildlife Drive’ for a reason. 
Tathra River Estate/Thompson’s Estate (bottom right of image) – juxtaposed next to Tanja State Forest
Photo by Ngaire Walhout
Where was it parked this time?
Koala in the Murrah Flora Reserve, probably incinerated. Photo by David Gallan. 
1927 ‘Black August’
When 600,000 Koalas were shot and skinned across Queensland
