Location of Oxley Wild Rivers National ParkClick image to enlarge – note the patchy dark green of remnant forests
[Source: Satellite Map – Google Maps]
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The ‘Macleay River’ Bushfire (Oct 2012)
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Macleay River Bushfire October 2012
– left to burn for a week from 12th Oct 2012 because not a threat to private property
..then the wind picked up…unbelievable!
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Over the past month, a single contiguous area covering some 60,000 hectares of vegetation has been left to burn by bushfire. That equates to 600 km2 or roughly 25km x 25km.
Much of what has been burned is/was of World Heritage values within the included Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. This is unacceptable custodial neglect.
If this was Sydney, this is the black boxed area that would have been incinerated:Putting this 60,000ha bushfire into a Sydney urban perspective
Professional urban fire fighting would not allow 60,000 hectares of private property and human lives to burn
– such would historically dwarf the Great Fire of London.
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The Rural Fire Service has labelled the bushfire the ‘Macleay River Fire‘. But it began as two separate bushfires on or before 12 October, nearly a month prior. One was then labelled ‘Georges Junction Fire‘ and the other ‘Freds Creek Fire‘, both purportedly ignited by bush arsonist(s). Seven days later, the Georges Junction Fire has burnt an estimated 8,931 ha, while the then much smaller Freds Creek Fire had burnt 1,688 ha. By the time the combined bushfire was extinguished 60,000 hectares had been burned, much within the World Heritage Area..
This is yet another classic case of bushfire neglect primarily by the delegated custodians of the National Park and World Heritage Area – the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. Is this due to chronic lack of resourcing; and/or symptomatic of a disturbing rationalist culture that believes that burning Australian vegetation, even ancient rainforest, could be somehow beneficial to biodiversity.
Remote ignitions go undetected, then unsuppressed, until many days later, bushfire weather conditions worsen and the fires get out of control, combine and destroy vast areas of important Nationl Park and World Heritage.
This 2012 Macleay River Fire is like the ‘2006 Grose Valley Fires‘ of the Blue Mountains repeated to script.
The Australian Government continues to be ultimately culpable for gross neglect in failing to protect its custodial listed natural heritage.
The Rural Fire Service has learnt to avoid accusatioins of incompetence by routinely removing timely records on its websites about the operational response in the days at the start of the ignitions. Details about the timings of ignition detection and initial suppression are deliberately withheld from the public.
The following bushfire updates are mainly from second-hand news media. A notable recurring theme across these news reports is that the media interest and the target of the fire fighting effort, just like in urban fire fighting, is to save humans lives and property. This is not a bad thing, but the glaring omission is the lack of interest in suppressing the bushfire in the National Park and World Heritage.
The Rural Fire Service policy and operational strategy is such that if human lives and properrty are not directly threatened by bushfire, then a bushfire is allowed to continue burning, irrespective of whether it is burning through National Park or World Heritage. Since the Rural Fire Service has the same terms of reference as the professionaly paid New South Wales Fire Brigade, then they are essentially doing the same urban job.
The only reason the Rural Fire Service exists in less populated rural areas instead of the professionaly paid New South Wales Fire Brigade, is traditionally so that the Australian Government and New South Wales Government can save money by relying on unpaid, under-resourced volunteers. Yet the environment in rural fire fighters work in is inherently more dangerous, demanding and in need of sophisticated resources for military-speed detection and suppressions of bushfires.
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21 Oct: Bushfire Update
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‘Blazes burn out of control: Permits suspended as hot, dry weather hits North West’
Satellite infrared image of the fire called Georges Junction inside the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
Having already burnt out a massive 14,000 hectares and is likely to join up with the Freds Creek fire.
The active edge of the fire shows up bright yellow; the red areas are the burnt areas.
(Photo by New England RFS)
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<<Two massive bushfires in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park were basically running unchecked yesterday because of adverse firefighting conditions, incident controller for the New England bushfire emergency, Allyn Purkiss, said.
Mr Purkiss said the two Section 44-declared fires one named Freds Creek and the other Georges Junction were likely to join up yesterday and burn out a total of 30,000 hectares in the coming weeks.
“They took a big run under strong winds (on Saturday)..The fires had started after landholder burns had got away”, Mr Purkiss said.
..The fire named Freds Creek, which started on October 12, had burnt out 3,189 hectares and was crowning at 4am yesterday, with flames jumping from treetop to treetop.
“It means it’s very uncontrollable very dangerous conditions,” Mr Purkiss said yesterday.
The RFS had been unable to aerial-bomb the fires because of gusty winds. Mr Purkiss described it as “nigh-on impossible” to water-bomb in those conditions.
Instead, RFS volunteers had concentrated on saving property. He said it was hard to tell how many homes and remote-area shacks might be affected.
“We’re still trying to come to terms with that. We could have up to 50 in the area: there are shacks all through this country,” he said.
Mr Purkiss said the other fire, Georges Junction, had already burnt out 14,000 hectares. (Ed: Same as the 2006 Grose Valley Fires).
He said conditions in the New England RFS zone were “fairly similar” to strong, gusty winds on Saturday. “The forecast is for 50km/h winds by late afternoon,” Mr Purkiss said.
No homes had been lost in either fire yet. “None that we know of,” he said. The RFS was doing a “fairly extensive reconnaissance of the area”, he said.
Three other fires one about 40km east of Guyra, one near Walcha and one near Ebor had also started since Friday.
The Guyra fire, which started on Saturday, was located in the Mt Mulligan/Wards Mistake area.
Locals had alerted the RFS to the fire, which was in “very remote country … it’s difficult to get to no roads, no trails”, Mr Purkiss said.
“I’ve tasked an aircraft to get out there today and map it and give us some intel (intelligence),” he said..
“No properties were under threat: it was burning in scrub.“
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Mr Purkiss said he was “not sure” how much land had been burnt out he would have to wait for information provided by the aircraft crew.
The Walcha fire, called Panhandle and in the Enfield State Forest, had burnt out five hectares by the time it was contained by mid-afternoon on Saturday.
The Ebor-area fire was located “in an area we can’t get to”, Mr Purkiss said. “We’re flying to map it today,” he said yesterday.
It had also burnt out five hectares.
“Local landholders and Ebor RFS assisted in containing it,” he said.
Mr Purkiss said the New England RFS zone was unlikely to lift its suspension of fire permits today.
“While ever we have a bushfire emergency like this going, all permits are suspended we’re already dealing with enough fires, so we don’t need any more mistakes giving us grief than we already have,” he said.
Mr Purkiss said this season had already started to play out differently compared to the past three years.
In the past three fire seasons, rain had usually come along and helped extinguish any fires but this season was different, with many more periods of extended dry weather.
“In talking to the local staff, they say that this (Georges Junction) is the largest fire they have had since 2009,” Mr Purkiss said. “We’re working hard to get it done. We thank the volunteers and employers for allowing us to fight these very large fires.”>>
<<Fire continues to threaten properties near Oxley Wild Rivers National Park after two blazes combined yesterday.
The Macleay River bushfire had already burnt about 20,000 hectares early yesterday afternoon as more than 30 firefighters battled the out of control blaze, NSW Rural Fire Service spokeswoman Bridie O’Connor said.
The inferno may have posed a threat to properties between Georges Junction and Five Day Creek, particularly on the Carrai and Fitzroy Tablelands and on the Macleay River in the vicinity of Lower Creek and Comara, Ms O’Connor said early yesterday afternoon.
“We’re looking at a minimum of six hours before some properties might be affected,” she said. “People should expect to see smoke and fire and be alert.”
Hot and windy conditions over the weekend (20th and 21st) saw the fires at Georges Junction and Freds Creek combine.
The Georges Junction fire, near Cochrane State Forest, which started on October 12 had burnt more than 14,859 hectares and was still burning out of control when it met with the Freds Creek fire early yesterday afternoon. The fire at Freds Creek was being controlled yesterday afternoon after three State Forest groups joined the NSW Rural Fire Service to use bulldozers to create fire breaks earlier in the week.
Meanwhile, the Armidale to Kempsey Road between Waterfall Way and Bellbrook was closed on Saturday and Sunday because of the fires.
The Rural Fire Service was concentrating its efforts on establishing containment lines.
People on properties near Georges Junction and on the Macleay were urged to be alert for fire warnings.>>
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23 Oct: Bushfire Update
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‘Total fire bans expected back in place by Thursday’
<<…Adverse weather conditions on Sunday hindered attempts to subdue two massive bushfires in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. Fire crews were reduced to protecting property on the ground and the two fires merged late on Sunday as fire crews battled from the ground to protect property, unable to water bomb due to gusty winds across the region.
The fire, now named the Macleay River Fire had burnt out 28,733 hectares as of last night, Inspector Brett Loughlin, public liaison officer for Armidale Section 44 with the NSW Rural Fire Service, said.
Mr Loughlin was expecting the fire to burn out more land.
“We’re doing some mapping now and expect it to be around that 30,000-hectare mark,” he said. He said 52 firefighters were on the ground creating firebreaks, doing backburning and helping protect the property of landholders living within a few kilometres of the fire front.
“There are properties in close proximity,” Mr Loughlin said. “The fire has flared up a little this afternoon and some embers are falling around properties in the Lower Creek area.
“No property is under threat at the moment … the fire’s not doing anything like it was doing on Saturday (when it was out of control – a day of hot, gusty westerly winds).”
Five helicopters are currently tasked to water bombing the Macleay River Fire.
Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is still shut to the public…>>
<<Rural Fire Service forensic investigators have interviewed a ‘person of interest’ as the battle to contain the Macleay River fire enters its 15th day.
RFS investigators from Kempsey and Coffs Harbour arrived yesterday to investigate the possible cause of the blaze in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park which has since burnt out 33,160 hectares of bush and pasture land.
RFS Public Liason Officer Inspector Brett Loughlin said all major fires were investigated as a matter of cause and investigations were ongoing.
Around 80 firefighters from the NSW RFS, FRNSW and NPWS, supported by five aircraft and four bulldozers are fighting the fire, which has a 247 kilometre perimeter.
Ember attack on properties around the Lower Creek area were reported yesterday but Inspector Loughlin said that firefighters were working with local landholders to protect at-risk homes.
Inspector Loughlin said that good containment lines had been established by fire crews in the last 24 hours and today “aerial incendiary” work by helicopter would be carried out on the south western side of the blaze. “It’s still an active fire but we’re starting to get a handle on it,” Inspector Loughlin said.
The Macleay River Fire is the culmination of the ‘Freds Creek Bushfire‘ and ‘Georges Junction Bushfire‘ that had merged last weekend. The fire is burning in the vicinity of the Comara, Georges Junction, Five Day Creek, Lower Creek, Blanches Creek and Smith Creek areas.
Another fire burning near Guyra, has been contained. The ‘Mulligans Bushfire‘, which has burnt out 3207 hectares near the Guy Fawkes National Park has been burning since Saturday.>>
Macleay River Bushfire
(Photo by Sean Bremmer)
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1 Nov: Bushfire Update
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Rural Fire Service Reported Operational Statistics:
‘MACLEAY RIVER FIRE‘
ALERT LEVEL: Advice
LOCATION: 50 kms east of Armidale, 75 kms west of Kempsey, 65kms east of Walcha
COUNCIL AREA: Armidale Dumaresq
STATUS: Being Controlled (Ed: glass half-full spin)
TYPE: Bush fire
FIRE: Yes
SIZE: 51,405 ha
RESPONSIBLE AGENCY: Rural Fire Service
UPDATED: 1 Nov 2012 15:25
<<Three local government areas have been declared natural disaster zones in the wake of a major fire that has been raging in northern NSW for two weeks.
The massive front formed on October 21 when the Freds Creek and Georges Junction fires combined at the Macleay River. It has damaged over 51,000 hectares of:
National Parks
State Forests
Private Land
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across three shires:
Armidale Dumaresq shire‘
Walcha shire
Kempsey shire
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“These fires have been burning in the area for a number of days and due to the conditions, they merged into one large fire, jumped containment lines and threatened numerous properties,” Emergency Services Minister Michael Gallacher said in a statement on Monday.
“This declaration triggers a number of disaster assistance schemes to assist with the cost of disaster relief and recovery.”
Over the last two weeks, bushfires have raged across the New England and Mid North Coast regions. Other fires under this declaration include the Clay fire in Armidale Dumaresq, the Panhandle fire in Walcha and the Mulligans fire in Guyra on the western side of Guy Fawkes National Park, which has burnt over 3,400 hectares of National Park and private land.
Mr Gallacher said the Macleay River fire had damaged significant portions of the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, which is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area, a series of protected areas which were first inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 and extended in 1994.
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5 Nov: Bushfire Update
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<<Three separate fires burning out of control south-west of Casino since the weekend have been contained, the Clarence Valley Rural Fire District reports.
The ‘Dubadar Creek Bushfire‘, which was believed to have been started by arsonists before blowing out from 50ha to 300ha on Saturday, was contained on Sunday and was extinguished at midday today, the district’s incident controller Stuart Watts said.
Two separate blazes, also deliberately lit, at Mt Pickabooba 4km from the Dubadar Creek fire were expected to be contained by this afternoon following back-burning, Mr Watts said. The Rural Fire Service had 10 fire trucks, 19 personnel and two bulldozers working to bring the fires under control on the weekend. The Northern Star has approached the police for comment.
The battle with the blazes come as NSW Police and Emergency Services Minister Michael Gallacher declared natural disasters for the Mid North Coast – parts of which only a year ago were receiving the same declaration for floods – and New England areas.
“The main focus of this declaration is the Macleay River Fire, which developed on 21 October 2012 as the culmination of the Fred’s Creek and Georges Junction Fires,” Mr Gallacher said in a written statement.
“These fires have been burning in the area for a number of days and due to the conditions, they merged into one large fire, jumped containment lines and threatened numerous properties…Firefighters have been working hard to create containment lines around the Macleay River Fire to protect properties as the fire approaches.
“As of 1 November 2012, the Macleay River Fire continues to burn and is estimated to have damaged over 51,000 hectares of National Parks, State Forests and private land across the three LGA’s of Armidale Dumaresq, Walcha and Kempsey.
“The Macleay River Fire has damaged significant portions of the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, which is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area, a series of protected areas which were first inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 and extended in 1994.“>>
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Reader Comment:
by ‘coco50’ from Ballina 20111105:
<<When is our judicial system going to get serious about arsonists? It is difficult enough to catch them. Think about what they do. They destroy natural bushland and animal habitat. They put the lives of people at risk or even cause deaths. They destroy property which causes hardship and suffering and years to rebuild. This pushes up everyone’s insurance premiums. They out emergency services personnel at risk.
But when we get an arsonist in court, the defence counsel makes an argument like: “My client had a difficult childhood – his parents and peers didn’t understand him. He is remorseful”
The Judge almost cries while handing out a “slap on the wrist” sentence. It is much harder to start a fire in jail while you are doing 20 years time. Lock them up!>>
‘MACLEAY RIVER BUSHFIRE’
ALERT LEVEL: Advice
LOCATION: 65km East of Walcha
COUNCIL AREA: Armidale Dumaresq
STATUS: Being Controlled
TYPE: Bush fire
FIRE: Yes
SIZE: 59, 663 ha
RESPONSIBLE AGENCY: Rural Fire Service
UPDATED: 6 Nov 2012 09:10
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Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is World Heritage‘protected‘
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1986: Gondwana Rainforests of Australia inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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World Heritage Listing because local people thought it was so important to save before it was gone
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Over twenty-five years ago, in 1986 the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, then called the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia (CERRA), were inscribed on the World Heritage List for their outstanding natural universal values.
Theses rainforest comprise the Great Escarpment of eastern New South Wales, then known as the Australian East Coast Sub-tropical and Temperate Rainforest Parks, were inscribed on the World Heritage list meeting the following three World Heritage Natural Criteria:
Outstanding example representing significant ongoing geological processes and biological evolution (World Heritage Natural Criterion viii)
Outstanding example representing major stages of the earth’s evolutionary history (World Heritage Natural Criterion ix)
Containing important and significant habitats for the in situ conservation of biological diversity (World Heritage Natural Criterion x)
The Gondwana Rainforests contains the largest and most significant remaining stands of subtropical rainforest and Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus moorei) cool temperate rainforests in the world, the largest and most significant areas of warm temperate rainforest and one of only two remaining large areas of Araucarian rainforest in Australia.
Enormous Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus moorei)
At Cobark Park, Barrington Tops, 50 metres tall
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The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia is a serial property comprising the major remaining areas of rainforest in southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales. They include the most extensive areas of subtropical rainforest in the world, large areas of warm temperate rainforest and nearly all of the Antarctic beech cool temperate rainforest. Some of the oldest elements of the world’s ferns and conifers are found here and there is a concentration of primitive plant families that are direct links with the birth and spread of flowering plants over 100 million years ago.
A wide range of plant and animal lineages and communities with ancient origins in Gondwana, many of which are restricted largely or entirely to the Gondwana Rainforests, survive in this collection of reserves. The Gondwana Rainforests also provides the principal habitat for many threatened species of plants and animals.
The area is one of the best places on earth to see ancient ferns and Araucaria such as Hoop Pines.
Hoop Pine
(Araucaria cunninghamii)
Found naturally in the dry rainforests of New South Wales and Queensland and in Papua New Guinea.
The trees can live up to 450 years and grow to a height of 60 m.
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Rainforest once covered most of the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana and remains the most ancient type of vegetation in Australia. The Gondwana Rainforests provide an interesting living link with the evolution of Australia. Few places on earth contain so many plants and animals which remain relatively unchanged from their ancestors in the fossil record.
Due to two centuries of colonial deforestation across New South Wales and Queensland – timbergetting, ‘land clearing’ for agriculture and housing – the reserves of rainforest that comprise The Gondwana Rainforests in discontinuous patches, surrounded by fireprone eucalypt forest and cleared agricultural lands.
These patches range in size from tiny gully stands to lush forests covering large valleys and ranges. Collectively, these ‘serial sites’ despite their small size and scattered fragments, provide proximity and interconnection by corridors of semi-natural habitats and buffers. Their natural asset value is fragile and demands intensive management and protection in order to preserve their ecological integrity.
The ecosystems of the Gondwana Rainforests contain significant and important natural habitats for species of conservation significance (World Heritage Natural Criterion x).
The Gondwana Rainforests provides the principal habitat for many species of plants and animals of outstanding universal value, including more than 270 threatened species as well as relict and primitive taxa. Many of the rare and threatened flora and fauna species are rainforest specialists, and their vulnerability to extinction is due to a variety of factors including the rarity of their rainforest habitat.
The Gondwana Rainforests also protects large areas of other vegetation including a diverse range of heaths, rocky outcrop communities, forests and woodlands. These communities have a high diversity of plants and animals that add greatly to the value of the Gondwana Rainforests as habitat for rare, threatened and endemic species. The complex dynamics between rainforests and tall open forest particularly demonstrates the close evolutionary and ecological links between these communities.
Species continue to be discovered in the property including the re-discovery of two mammal species previously thought to have been extinct:
The Hastings River Mouse (Pseudomys oralis)
Parma Wallaby (Macropus parma)
Parma Wallaby (Macropus parma)
Endemic to rainforests and sclerophyll forests in New South Wales from the Watagan Mountains in the South to the Gibraltar Range in the North.
Parma wallabies were thought to have become extinct a century ago until being discovered again in the 1970s.
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1994: Oxley Wild Rivers NP added to World Heritage
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In 1994, large extensions of rainforests across south-east Queensland and New South Wales including the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park were added to the World Heritage listed Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia (CERRA), now entitled The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia (since 2007).
OxleyWild Rivers National Park – location map
[Source: Google Maps]
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These reserves comprise almost 50 separate remnant reserves of unspoilt rainforest wilderness stretching from north-east New South Wales (the Oxley Rivers region) up through south-east Queensland. Each of these reserves contains important nature conservation values in its own right, however the full significance of the property becomes evident only when viewed as a whole, and collectively CERRA provides a significant network of habitats for many of Australia’s rare and endangered species.
Since 1994, the Australian Government in co-operation with both the New South Wales and Queensland Governments have recognised the need for coordinated, consistent and cooperative management, to ensure that the integrity of CERRA‘s values is protected. At the time, the World Heritage Committee requested the Australian Government complete management plans of individual sites. Six years later in 2000, the Australian Government published its ‘Strategic Overview for Management for the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia to guide co-operative management by the three Governments in relation to the identification, protection, conservation, rehabilitation and presentation of the Gondwana Rainforests. In 2002, a Technical and Scientific Advisory Committee and a Community Advisory Committee were established.
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia are managed principally by the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (part of the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change) and the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency.
Later 1,850 ha of Winterbourne State Forest, also known at the Big Lease, was added to the reserves wilderness. Currently (2012), the remaining 1,560 ha of Winterbourne and 1,075 ha of Enmore State Forests are to be added to the National Park. Further inclusions include Green Gully headwaters and 1,439 ha of leasehold land in the lower Chandlers River gorge.
The Macleay Gorges Wilderness Area, covering 50,000 hectares, was declared World Heritage in 1996 and further extended in 1997.
In 2007, Macleay Gorges Wilderness Area and Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, along with the 50 separate Crown Land reserves of remnant ancient rainforest were collectively renamed under the umbrella term Gondwana Rainforests of Australia to better reflect their World Heritage values. These include important rainforested areas between Newcastle and Brisbane from Mount Royal National Park and Banrrington Tops National Park to Lamington National Park inland of Queensland’s Gold Coast.
Aspley Falls in flood
Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
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High waterfalls crashing into steep gorges are spectacular examples of an important ongoing natural process – erosion. Erosion by coastal rivers created the Great Escarpment and the steep-sided caldera of the Tweed Valley surrounding Mount Warning. This towering mountain was once the buried plug of an ancient vast volcano. Today, rainforest grows on the fertile, well watered soils that remain.
The Macleay River on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, has the world’s second-fastest flowing currents during flooding, when it can hold over 200,000 gigalitres.
Its headwaters flows from the Gara River on the eastern side of the Northern Tablelands near the tonwships of Armidale and Walcha. Key tributaries are the Chandler River, Styx River and Apsley River as well as the Tia River, Dyke River and Yarrowitch River, which pass through a number of spectacular gorges and waterfalls in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park.
The Macleay River flows 400km south-east through Kempsey and into the Pacific Ocean at South West Rocks. Upon colonial discovery in the 1820s; the ancient, tall native Red Cedar (Toona ciliata) forests were completely deforested.
Australian Red Cedar Forest
Tamborine National Park, Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland
(such trees have long been logged through the Oxley Rivers region)
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In 1976, the Apsley Macleay Gorges were identified as being of ‘true wilderness quality‘.
At that stage the public protection offered to the area was limited to two small reserves in the south, and a few local council run recreation areas at popular sites such as Wollomombi Falls, Dangars and Apsley Falls. With future land-use undecided, the NSW Electricity Commission began surveying the Apsley Valley for a hydro-electric scheme in the late 1970s. The Apsley Gorge National Park of 6,718 hectares was gazetted followed by the 3,456 hectare Yarrowitch Gorge National Park soon after.
In 1989 East Kunderang Station of 30,400 hectares passed to the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and was proclaimed the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park.
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Rich Wildlife through Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
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Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is rich in fauna, with over 350 species recorded, including 55 mammals.
It is a major refuge for the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby (Petrogale pencillata), with the largest confirmed population in the Green Gully area of Yarrowitch.
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Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
This species is listed in New South Wales as ‘Vulnerable to extinction’, but that was by the NSW Scientific Committee in 2003, nine years ago
There have been two major bushfires through since then – one in 2009 and now in 2012
How many viable individuals have been lost to the Macleay River Bushfire – does the NSW NPWS know or care?
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<<Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, including Green Gully Track, is closed until further notice due to wildfire.>>
Over 173 bird species, 38 reptile and 19 amphibian species have been recorded in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park.
Skinks, goannas, tortoises, lizards, snakes, frogs and fish occur in the park, particularly on the river flats. A number of fish species have been recorded. Notable, is the speckled longfin eel (Anguilla reinhardtii), which breeds in the ocean with the juveniles eventually returning to the Apsley–Macleay River system.
There are fourteen known threatened species within the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park:
All these wildlife were previously widespread, but now are vulnerable to extinction or worse; which has become an Australian cliché, but at the same time an indictment on Australians.
But how much of this protected wilderness region is left after last fortnight’s bushfire catastrophe?
How can it be deemed to be protected, when bushfire is allowed to ravage it and its vitally recognised flora and fauna? Was the World Heritage Area allowed to burn as a convenient bushfire management operational defacto Hazard Reduction? There were no human assets at risk. It was wilderness and so out of sight out of mind…such is the dominant bushphobic culture of the Australian and State Governments, so accused of neglect and incompetence after the 2009 Victorian Bushfires that killed 173 people.
To current anthropocentric (20th C babyboomer) governments, this ‘Macleay River Fire’, irrespective of its World Heritage ecological protection, is blanketly and culturally dismissed as just another hazardous fuel region to target within Australia’s continent-wide Government Arson strategy. Successive generations will revisit this prevailing cultural mindset of ‘hazard reduction‘ and cast it alongside 19th C ‘timbergetting‘ and 20th C ‘clearfelling‘.
In the Blue Mountains, some 40,000 hectares of native vegetation is currently approved by the same Australian and New South Wales Governments for deliberate burning.
If deliberately setting fire to the native vegetation is committed privately it is deemed bush arson and so attracts a poultry 14 years gaol or less even less, despite people having been burned to death as a direct consequence.
But if deliberately setting fire to the native vegetation is previously prescribed by Government, then participants are artificially deemed legally immune and impune from criminal liability, even if the prescribed bushfires they light get out of control, which is all too frequently.
The Australian Government’s official public relations message reads:
Institutional arrangements for the protection and management of Gondwana Rainforests are strong. The property is made up of 41 reserves, almost all of which are within the protected area estate, and primarily managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. Both States have legislation relating to protected areas and native flora and fauna that provide protection for the values of the Gondwana Rainforests.
All World Heritage properties in Australia are ‘matters of national environmental significance’ protected and managed under national legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This Act is the statutory instrument for implementing Australia’s obligations under a number of multilateral environmental agreements including the World Heritage Convention. By law, any action that has, will have or is likely to have a significant impact on the World Heritage values of a World Heritage property must be referred to the responsible Minister for consideration. Substantial penalties apply for taking such an action without approval. Once a heritage place is listed, the Act provides for the preparation of management plans which set out the significant heritage aspects of the place and how the values of the site will be managed.
National Heritage is also a matter of national environmental significance under the EPBC Act.
Importantly, this Act also aims to protect matters of national environmental significance, such as World Heritage properties, from impacts even if they originate outside the property or if the values of the property are mobile (as in fauna). It thus forms an additional layer of protection designed to protect values of World Heritage properties from external impacts.
The impacts of climate change and high levels of visitation, undertaking effective fire management, and mitigating the effects of invasion by pest species and pathogens present the greatest challenges for the protection and management of Gondwana Rainforests.
Climate change will impact particularly on those relict species in restricted habitats at higher altitudes, where particular microclimatic conditions have enabled these species to survive.
Management responses include improving the resilience of the property by addressing other threats such as inappropriate fire regimes and invasion by pest species, and trying to increase habitat connectivity across the landscape.
[Source: Australian Government, ^http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/gondwana/values.html]
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Recall 2009: 9,500 hectares of Oxley Wild Rivers left to burn
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In December 2009, a lightning strike started a bushfire in the Youdales Hut area of the Oxley Wild Rivers region. The hut was unaffected (human property?), but 1,500 hectares of inaccessible steep country was burnt out before it was brought under control.
Another lightning strike started a large bushfire in the Reedy Creek region of the park. This fire has burnt out over 8,000 hectares of rough country.
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[Ed: Yes, steep wilderness terrain without convenient fire trails carved through it, is naturally inaccessible to lumbering urban fire trucks – so RFS/NPWS where were the waterbombing aircraft on 12th Oct 2012, when the fires were tiny and manageable?]
Once were common – now pose for the commoner! Australia’s Koala
(Phascolarctos cinereus)
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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
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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)
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[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]
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Koalas partially listed as ‘Vulnerable’ to extinction
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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]
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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/]
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Australian Government – too little, too late, too selective
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<<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.”>>
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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.
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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.
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Tony Burke as ultimate custodian: Why were problematic declining Koalas across South Australia and Victoria excluded from the EPBC Act?
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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.
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What it failed to appreciate was the more appropriate IUCN Red List categories of ‘DATA DEFICIENT’ (DD) and ‘NOT EVALUATED’ (NE).
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The Conclusion by the 2011 Senate Committee Enquiry was selective. It read as follows:
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<<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]
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Threatened Species Scientific Committee repeatedly rejected Koala listing on EPBC Act
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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:.
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Feb 2006:
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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]
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Sep 2010:
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<<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.>>
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<<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):
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<<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
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<<“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]
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2011 Senate Committee: ‘The koala—saving our national icon’
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The 19 Recommendations of the Senate Committee
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<<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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Recommendation 7
The habitat maps be used to identify and protect important habitat in known koala ranges.
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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.
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Recommendation 9
The Australian Government actively consider options for recognition and funding for private land holders for the conservation of koala habitat.
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Recommendation 10
The Australian Government fund research into koala disease, including the viability of vaccination programs and the effect of changes in leaf chemistry.
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Recommendation 11
The Australian Government fund the Koala Research Network’s request for a Research Liaison Officer.
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Recommendation 12
The Australia Government consider further wild dog control options in priority koala areas.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.>>
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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)
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2000: Even then, the United States recognised Koalas as ‘Vulnerable’
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<<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.
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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.
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‘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.’
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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]
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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]
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Westfield Shopping Centre development profiting out of Koala habitat apocalypseLow (economic) Cost Housing, Coomera, Queensland
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IUCN wrongly continues to list Koalas as of ‘Least Concern’
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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?
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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]
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<<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]
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Koalas face a bleak future
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Every wildlife individual is valuable and has existence rights no different to humans.
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Test: Would a human mother sacrifice her eldest or her youngest?
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[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)
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[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
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[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
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[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.’
Crimson Rosella in snow, a native to The Gully
(Platycercus elegans)
(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
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It rarely snows in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains these days. In the old days it used to snow every winter, but these days we are lucky to get a brief flurry in August that doesn’t even settle.
So this morning was exceptional. The forecast today (Friday) was for a storm further south, but at 6am in Katoomba it started snowing. And in the middle of October (spring)!
Then it kept snowing and kept snowing ‘ till after 1pm. A few big tree branches crashed under the weight of snow. The streets and roads steadily became blanketed in snow, making them slippery and dangerous to most vehicles. The Great Western Highway remains closed. The trains are snowbound up at Mount Vic. It’s like we’re in the Alps where snow there is normal, but here no-one was ready for it. Snow has regrettably become a freak event in the Blue Mountains.
We must have received about half a foot of snow by lunchtime. Everything became soft white in a black and white landscape.
So it became quite a special morning and well worth a walk around The Gully in the snow.
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The Gully in Snow
(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
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(Click play, then click full screen icon at bottom right of video)
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Streets around The Gully in Snow
(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
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Tyre tracks through the snow in Katoomba
(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
DENMARK: A coalition of NGOs has today (September 4, 2012) written directly to the Prime Minister of Denmark’s Faroe Islands, Kaj Leo Johannesen, to express their deep concerns about the high number of pilot whales killed there so far this year.
In the year to August 24, 590 long-finned pilot whales have been killed on the Islands, bring the total number of pilot whales killed since the beginning of 2010 to 2,423 and raising serious human health, animal welfare and conservation concerns.
The coalition sending the letter comprises the Environmental Investigation Agency, Animal Welfare Institute, Campaign Whale, Cetacean Society International, Dyrenes Venner, Humane Society International, OceanCare, Pro Wildlife and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
In the year to August 24, 590 long-finned pilot whales have been killed on the Islands, bring the total number of pilot whales killed since the beginning of 2010 to 2,423 and raising serious human health, animal welfare and conservation concerns.
Meat and blubber from the animals are distributed and sold in the Faroe Islands for human consumption, despite evidence of high levels of mercury and PCBs. Long-term research undertaken by Danish and Faroese scientists has revealed that consumption of pilot whale meat and blubber has detrimental effects on the development of foetal nervous and immune systems, and increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease, hypertension, arteriosclerosis of the carotid arteries in adults and Type II diabetes.
The Faroe Islands’ Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist have jointly issued health warnings several times. In an open letter to the Government on August 8, 2008 they stated that pilot whale should no longer be used for human consumption.
This conclusion was recently repeated in the 2012 review article “Dietary recommendations regarding pilot whale meat and blubber in the Faroe Islands” by Pál Weihe and Høgni Debes Joensen, based on additional long-term studies.
There is broad scientific agreement on the strong link between mercury in cetacean (whale, dolphin and porpoise) products and a variety of human diseases and medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, arteriosclerosis, immune suppression and hypertension. Threats to children include autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
In July 2012 at its annual meeting, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) adopted by consensus a resolution proposed by the European Union IWC members including Denmark, requesting increased cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO). It encourages the WHO to review scientific publications regarding contaminants in cetacean products and provide updated advice for consumers. It also urges governments to remain vigilant in responsibly informing consumers of the health effects associated with the consumption of polluted cetacean products, and taking steps to counter any negative effects based on rigorous scientific advice and clear risk assessments.
Unfortunately, the Government of the Faroe Islands has so far failed to adopt the recommendations of its own scientific experts to end the consumption of pilot whale, and instead supports continuation of the ‘grinds’ (the traditional name given to the style of kill in which whales are stranded and then slaughtered) and the consumption of these polluted whale products.
Indeed, if all the meat and blubber of the 590 whales killed this year is consumed, it will by far exceed the Faroese Government’s June 2011 guidelines which recommend a maximum of one meal per month.
Pilot whales tend to migrate to the calmer waters around the Faroe Islands to give birth from April to July. Pilot whale hunts frequently occur during the breeding season, despite there being agreement internationally that hunting during breeding seasons should be avoided to allow for stable populations to endure. For this reason, targeting animals accompanied by calves is expressly forbidden by the IWC – the world’s expert cetacean management authority.
The status of cetaceans occurring around the Faroe Islands is uncertain in many cases and the impacts of the hunts which take entire family groups is also unknown. Pilot whales are protected under EU law; many of the pilot whales occurring in Faroese waters also travel to EU waters.
The methods used to kill whales in the Faroe Islands have been subject to international criticism for decades. In the hunts known as ‘grinds’, large family groups of whales are driven by boats into a bay where they are crudely killed with hooks and knives. Pilot whales are known for their highly social behaviours and close-knit family groups.
Although Faroese authorities claim killing methods have improved, there is no documentary evidence to prove this. The grinds are a lengthy process that also involves extreme distress for the whales associated with the chasing, separation of social groups, and individual whales experiencing close family members being slaughtered. This is in addition to the inherent cruelty associated with the killing methods..
In conclusion and in consideration of the serious concerns raised, the nine signatory organisations – EIA, Animal Welfare Institute, Campaign Whale, Cetacean Society International, Dyrenes Venner, Humane Society International, OceanCare, Pro Wildlife and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society – have urged Prime Minister Johannesen, his Government and the Faroese people to bring a permanent end to the hunting of pilot whales and other cetacean species in the interests of human health, animal welfare and conservation.
DELHI, INDIA: Tiger Range Countries meet in Delhi, India next week (May 2012) to evaluate progress of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP) in what will be a true test of their national commitment to end the tiger trade.
The GTRP was signed into existence in November 2010 in St Petersburg, Russia, with the common objective of doubling the world’s wild tiger population by 2022.
The agenda for the Delhi meeting, from May 15-17, includes issues which to date have received too little attention in this forum – demand reduction and effective enforcement.
With final preparations for the meeting underway, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) today warned that concrete action is needed to shut down tiger breeding operations and destroy their stockpiles of tiger skins and bones if the GTRP is to retain serious credibility.
EIA lead campaigner Debbie Banks said: “Successful demand reduction will be dependent on the closure of operations that breed tigers for trade in their parts and derivatives, and those that provide the living specimens to stock such operations.”
Operations in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam have been implicated in the illegal international trade; in China, breeders are allowed to sell farmed tiger skins on the domestic market.
“This trade simply serves to perpetuate demand, undermining enforcement efforts and sending mixed messages to consumers,” added Banks.
Tiger Farming was hotly debated in 2007 at the 14th Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), where the majority of Parties voted against domestic and international trade in parts of farmed tigers and called for a phasing out of such operations.
No country has yet reported on what action is being taken to fulfil the CITES decision.
While there have been recent high profile seizures and arrests in Thailand, and Vietnam has prosecuted at least one tiger farm owner, there is no report of action against tiger farmers in Laos; China stated in March 2011 that it had inspected tiger breeding operations, but it has not shared information on any convictions of those found selling tiger bone and products.
China also allows tiger breeding operations to maintain freezers full of tiger carcasses, instead of destroying them as urged by CITES. While tiger bone trade is currently prohibited, China has a scheme for registering, labelling and selling the skins but refuses to disclose how many skins have entered the scheme.
“How can these stockpiles possibly be justified?” asked Banks. “Maintaining stockpiles serves no conservation purpose; it only creates confusion and speculates that one day these parts may be traded for profit. That runs completely counter to a commitment to end tiger trade and totally undermines efforts at demand reduction.
“For the credibility of the GTRP, we need to see unequivocal and emphatic action to shut down all commercial tiger breeding operations and to transparently destroy the stockpiles.”
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The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is a UK-based Non Governmental Organisation and charitable trust (registered charity number 1040615) that investigates and campaigns against a wide range of environmental crimes, including illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging, hazardous waste, and trade in climate and ozone-altering chemicals.
Skin trade registration scheme. In 2007, China introduced a mechanism for registering and selling skins from ‘legal’ sources, including captive tigers. EIA has been trying to find out how many skins have been registered, sold, etc, and how legality is determined – read more at http://www.eia-international.org/enforcement-and-asian-big-cats
Auctions of tiger bone wine. In 2011, NGOs reported there was to be a sale of Tiger Bone Wine in Beijing. This was stopped by the SFA after an outcry, but EIA research shows many more sales were advertised and may have gone ahead. We urgently need clarification on these – read more at http://www.eia-international.org/tiger-bone-wine-auctions-in-china
Enforcement action. China has recently reported a number of enforcement actions on wildlife crime in general, but from the reports available it seems it has not focused efforts in the provinces EIA has highlighted as key to the tiger and Asian big cat trade. Criminals we have identified trading in Asian big cat parts between 2005-09 were still operating in July 2011. China has not provided any evidence of targeted enforcement action against known criminals and trade hotspots.
[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
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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
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Bermagui’s Spotted Gums..the local Narooma Community in their defence against ‘Forest NSW’ (the Forest-Fiddling loggers)
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Forest-Fiddling Logger driving his Spotted Gum spoils truck
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But Eucalyptus maculata is a tree, not a floor
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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
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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]
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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/)
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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
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The NSW Logging Offensive of 1988
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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:
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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?
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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.
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Kevin Mathie – 4th generation logger
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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]
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Labor’s Ian MacDonald’s Forestry Regulation of 2009
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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?
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Labor’s Ministers in charge three years hence…
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Labor’s Police Minister Tony Kelly MLC
NSW Minister for Emergency Services, Lands, Police and Primary Industries.
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‘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
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‘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
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“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.”
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South East Region Conservation Alliance
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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.”
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[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
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Narooma News spins the following story to appease local logger readership:
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“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.’
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~ by the Narooma News editor…and watch out for drop bears too!
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Meanwhile NSW Forests remains culturally contemptuous to NSW forests
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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”
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Revolving Door politics of NSW Labor
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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.
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[Ed: That was over a year ago – our love and commitment for the old forest – we remember ]
Dead fox found near Braeside Track, Blackheath, Blue Mountains in 2006
There was no sign of it being shot. Was it baited?
(Photo by Editor, 20060722, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)
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In June 2012, Gerry from Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney wrote in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper:
“Our place backs on to bushland. The other morning I was looking out the kitchen window and I saw two foxes just beyond our back fence, ambling along, very relaxed, looking like they owned the place. They were large, and looking extremely well fed.
A few days earlier I had seen a very large feral cat stalking prey in the same area.
Question: whose brief is feral animal control in the Blue Mountains, and what to they actually do about the problem?”
[Source: ‘Who is responsible?’, (letter to the editor), by Gerry Binder, Hazelbrook, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20120627, p.4]
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Well, no one from the authorities responded to Gerry in the newspaper.
So who is responsible for fox control across the Blue Mountains? One would be inclined to consider the local Blue Mountains Council, or the regional National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) if the fox is in the National Park.
A phone call to Blue Mountains Council today revealed that the Council does not get involved in feral animal control. It has no policy or strategy to deal with the fox problem, or indeed with feral predation in the Blue Mountains local government area (LGA).
This area comprises two east-west human-settled corridors through the central region of the Blue Mountains: (1) along the Great Western Highway (including Hazelbrook) and (2) along the Bells Line of Road. Both corridors are surrounded and upstream of the UNESCO-listed Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
According to the Blue Mountains Council, feral animal control across the Blue Mountains, outside the World Heritage Area, is handled by the New South Wales Government Department, the Livestock Health and Pest Authority. So to answer Gerry’s question above, if anyone has an issue with foxes outside the World Heritage Area, don’t contact Blue Mountains Council, but instead contact the the Livestock Health and Pest Authority (LHPA).
The LHPA has geographically divided the Blue Mountains region into two serviced districts. From Bullaburra east back toward Sydney, the Cumberland Livestock Health and Pest Authority based at Camden takes an interest (Tel: 02-6331 1377). From Wentworth Falls west to Bathurst, the Bathurst Livestock Health and Pest Authority based at Bathurst takes an interest (Tel: 02-4655 9165).
The Livestock Health and Pest Authority (LHPA) is primarily tasked with safeguarding agriculture from threats – such as feral predation, insect control, livestock disease prevention and health. It has sixty offices across NSW and works with rural producers, government and industry to safeguard agriculture in NSW. The LHPA operates under the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 (NSW) and is ultimately accountable to the NSW Minister for Primary Industries.
Strangely enough, the LHPA has NOT listed foxes as ‘declared pests’ in NSW. It does list wild rabbits, wild dogs, feral pigs and locusts as declared pests. The reason is one of jurisdiction and legal delegation. The LHPA is primarily charged with safeguarding agriculture, not safeguarding native habitat and fauna. It classes foxes and mice merely as ‘nuisance animals’ throughout New South Wales and states that there is no legal obligation for a landholder in NSW to control foxes or mice. LHPA only provides control advice and assistance to rural property owners. So in relation to fox control, the LHPA is more token and lip service. Blue Mountains Council adopts a complete cop out approach to the fox problem across the Blue Mountains.
From its brochure on foxes, the control methods LHPA adopts for fox control are:
1080 poison (sodium monofluoroacetate) – a cruel and indiscriminate poison, that kills slowly (carnivores up to 21 hours) causes pain, suffering, trembling, convulsion and vomiting. It is banned in most countries because it is considered inhumane, but still used across Australia. [Read More: ^http://www.wlpa.org/1080_poison.htm]
Rubber jawed leg hold traps
Mesh cage traps, which seem the most humane option.
A week after Gerry’s letter, on the front page of the Blue Mountains Gazette ran the story of a Burns Road resident in nearby Springwood discovering that his cat Sam had been caught in a wild dog trap. Sam’s legs had been broken by the trap and he was euthanised as a result. The article in the paper stated that the Blue Mountains Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service were jointly undertaking a trapping programme in the Blaxland to Springwood area after receiving complaints about wild dogs. Traps has been set along a fire trail to catch the wild dogs. [Source: ‘Sad end for Sam’, by Damien Madigan, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20120704, p.1]
Rubber Jaw Leg-Hold Trap
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That the cat was roaming in the bushland down a fire trail, suggests that it may well have been preying on wildlife as well. What is the difference in wildlife impact between that of a targeted wild dog, and a companion cat that is roaming wild in bushland? That the trap broke the cat’s legs meant that the control method was not humane. It also means that trapping, like poisoning is an indiscriminate form of feral animal control. So herein lies a challenge of feral predator control.
Native Dingo caught in a rubber jaw leg-hold trapIt confirms that trapping is indiscriminate
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In May 2011, Paul from Winmalee in the Blue Mountains, with his stated background in wildlife conservation, wrote in his letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette that shooting feral animals as a conservation measure is a largely inefficient way to control foxes. “The National Parks and Wildlife Service has done studies showing that shooting/hunting feral animals has minimal affect (sic) on their numbers”, he said. [Source: ‘Not conservation’ (letter to the editor), by Paul Bailey, Winmalee, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20110511, p.8]
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Recreational shooting of feral animals can attract the wrong mentality
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Back in July 2011, a local Blue Mountains resident, ‘Don’, asked in his email to The Habitat Advocate “would you like to give some coverage to the lack of ongoing fox control around Katoomba?” Don clarified in his email:
“Quite a good effort was made about 3-4 years ago (2007-08) and for about 18 months afterwards there was no sign of foxes but, as happens all too often with the bureaucratic model of pest animal control, there was no ongoing effort and foxes are now back in serious numbers, as can be detected by direct sightings, tracks and scats.
We have noticed huge losses amongst wood duck especially (the ducklings are very vulnerable to fox predation) and the swamp wallaby population is no-where near what it should be. In fact, observable wallaby numbers are down on what they were ten or fifteen years ago.
The cost of control programmes is obviously an issue. Unfortunately, due to the parasitisation of the environmental movement by animal rights folk, self-sustaining control measures such as the commercial exploitation of foxes for their skins is no longer pursued. If that remains the case, can we realistically expect the politicians ever to find the money for ongoing effective fox control, given the competing environmental considerations, not to mention budgetary issues such as mental health, which is sorely languishing?”
Feral Foxes are healthy across the Blue Mountains
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Don’s request happened to be our very first request for onground action and so we shall stay by Don and see that his very legitimate request is pursued.
Our understanding is that across the Blue Mountains region, there are three categories of land ownership/control which would be impacted by fox predation:
The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
Council lands spread across 8 multiple Local Government Areas (LGAs) of:
Blue Mountains
Lithgow
Oberon
Wollondilly
Hawkesbury
Muswellbrook
Singleton
Mid-Western Regional (Mudgee)
Private land including urban, rural, farms and to a small extent, mining leasehold land
Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
(Source: New South Wales then Department of Environment and Climate Change, 2007)
(Click image to enlarge)
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The custodial responsibility for managing the natural values of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area is the Australian Government. The area totals roughly 10,000 square kilometres (1.03 million hectares) of sandstone plateaux, escarpments and gorges dominated by temperate eucalypt forest. It comprises eight protected areas:
Blue Mountains National Park
Kanangra-Boyd National Park
Wollemi National Park
Gardens of Stone National Park
Yengo National Park
Nattai National Park
Thirlmere Lakes National Park
Jenolan Caves Karst Conservation Reserve
‘Blue Mountains World Heritage Area’
Listed by UNESCO in 2000 for its unique and significant natural values
(Photo by the Rural Fire Service)
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Fauna of the Blue Mountains region classified as ‘threatened with extinction’ or ‘rare’ include the Tiger Quoll, the Koala, the Yellow-bellied Glider, the Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby and the Long-nosed Potoroo as well as rare reptiles and endangered amphibians such as the Green and Golden Bell Frog, the Blue Mountain Water Skink and the Broad-headed Snake and endangered birds like the Regent Honeyeater. The largest predator of the region is the Australian Dingo to which its natural prey in the region is the Grey Kangaroo and various subspecies of Wallaby, other macropods, small marsupials and reptiles.
Tiger Quoll (Dasyurus maculatus)
Also known as the spotted-tail quoll (which we consider a rather naff politically correct name)
An endangered carnivore, native to the Blue Mountains and competing with the Dingo and feral fox as the top order predator of the region
(Photo by OzTrek)
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The feral fox, being carnivorous, poses two types of threats to wildlife across the Blue Mountains region. It preys on small ground dwelling animals and reptiles. It also competes for prey with the Tiger Quoll and Dingo.
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Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area – significant natural values
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The Australian Government has outsourced and delegated its custodial responsibility for managing the natural values of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area to the New South Wales State Government, which has in turn delegated the responsibility to one of its departments, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW NPWS).
At the time of writing, the NSW NPWS, is part of the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), within the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. One has to check every four years or so, because the department changes its name that frequently. This is the current website, but that could change too: ^http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/about
The regional office of the NSW NPWS is located in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.
Conservation management of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, including feral animal control, is guided by a number of documents. Pertinent to the fox predation threat, the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area listing includes World Heritage natural values worth conserving and protecting under World Heritage Natural Criterion 44 (a)(iv):
“…contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation…”
Pertinent to fox predation threat, The Blue Mountains World Heritage Area meets World Heritage Natural Criterion 44 (a)(iv) by it including significant habitats for in situ conservation of biological diversity, taxa of conservation significance, exceptional diversity of habitats providing outstanding representation of the Australian fauna within a single place. These include endemic species, relict species, species with a restricted range, and rare or threatened species (40 vertebrate taxa – including 12 mammal species) and examples of species of global significance such as the Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and the Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus aculeatus).
In 1999, the Australian Government’s Department of Environment et al. published a threat abatement plan (TAP) which established a national framework to guide and coordinate Australia’s response to the impacts of European red foxes on biodiversity. It sought to comply with Australia’s Endangered Species Protection Act 1992 to promote the recovery of species and ecological communities that are endangered or vulnerable, and to prevent other species and ecological communities from becoming endangered.
In Schedule 3 of the Act, Predation by the European Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is listed as a key threatening process. The focus of this plan is on the actions required to reduce the threat posed by foxes to endangered or vulnerable species or ecological communities.
It concluded that ‘eradication of foxes on the mainland is not possible‘ and so settled for methods to reduce fox numbers and predation on wildlife in significant areas. The fox abatement plan aimed to reduce the impact of fox predation on native wildlife over a 5-year period by:
implementing fox control programs in specific areas of high conservation priority;
encouraging the development and use of innovative and humane control methods for fox management;
educating land managers and relevant organisations to improve their knowledge of fox impacts and ensure skilled and effective participation in control activities; and
collecting and disseminating information to improve our understanding of the ecology of foxes in Australia, their impacts and methods to control them.
The Australian Government’s funding to implement the plan was to be primarily through funding programmes of the Natural Heritage Trust.
The ideal of the Fox Threat Abatement Plan was to eradicate foxes, which seems fair enough. To achieve fox eradication it proposed:
The mortality rate for foxes must be greater than the replacement rate at all population densities
There must be no immigration
Sufficient foxes must be at risk from the control technique so that mortality from all causes results in a negative rate of population increase
All foxes must be detectable even at low densities
A discounted benefit-cost analysis must favour eradication over control
There must be a suitable socio-political environment (Ed: ‘political will’)
[Source: Bomford and O’Brien, 1995]
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However, because foxes had become so well established across a vast area, the plan pre-concluded that complete removal of foxes from Australia was well beyond the capacity of available techniques and resources. Saunders et al. (1995) reviewed current knowledge on techniques for suppressing fox populations including poison baiting, shooting, trapping, hunting with dogs and fumigating dens. The review concluded that, with the exception of broad-scale baiting, the existing control methods are expensive, labour intensive, require continuing management effort and can be effective in only limited areas.
[Ed: This reads as a self-fulfilling ‘too-hard basket’ prophecy by bureaucrats. Do nothing, and for sure, nothing will happen]
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Baiting
The fox abatement plan considered that in most situations, poison baiting (using 1080 poison) was the most effective method of reducing fox numbers and impact. However, it acknowledged the negative impact on non-target species. “A major drawback is that it may affect native carnivores and scavengers such as dingoes, quolls, goannas and some scavenging birds, and also domestic dogs.” Whoops.
“Aerial baiting of foxes has been demonstrated to be an effective method of control for covering large areas provided the risk of non-target bait uptake is minimal.”
Sounds the kind of spiel akin to the CIA about its collateral damage in Vietnam with its Agent Orange sorties. Well Western Australia is happy to use aerial baiting of 1080 over large areas (up to three million hectares) and has been shown to dramatically reduce fox numbers. Apparently, it has had minimal impact on populations of rare species because the native fauna somehow have a higher resistance to the naturally occurring 1080 poison found in native plants. Mmm, where is the proof?
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Biological Control
This was more conceptual a strategy, since no current pathogen yet exists that is virulent, humane and specific to foxes and not transferable to other species. The idea is that by targeting fox fertility, an effective long-term approach to reducing their numbers can be achieved. Fertility control is still at an experimental stage of development. It has not been successfully applied to a free-ranging population of wild vertebrates over a large area nor has it been attempted as a method of reducing the impacts of predation on an endangered or vulnerable species. Methods of fertility control include hormone treatment and sterility (immunocontraceptive technology). However, some scientists and wildlife managers remain sceptical about the likely success and effectiveness of this approach (Carter, 1995). The obstacles to achieving a workable method are formidable and include:
difficulty of isolating an infectious virus specific to foxes;
difficulty of developing a contraceptive vaccine;
difficulty of combining the two into a treatment that causes permanent sterility and no other significant disorders in an infected fox;
the possibility that in the field, natural selection and elements of fox ecology may overcome or compensate for any attack on the species’ reproductive capacity;
social concerns that the methods may not be controllable once released; and
the need to be cost-effective relative to other methods.
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Barriers to Fox Invasion
Fences have been proposed as a component in conservation management programs to protect endangered species from predators such as foxes and cats. A large range of fence designs has been used to exclude foxes from particular areas but there is little information on the effectiveness of particular designs.
A recent review of predator-proof fencing in Australia (Coman and McCutchan, 1994) found that although fences can be a significant barrier to foxes, even the most elaborate can be breached. Frequent monitoring for the presence of foxes inside the fence is an essential precaution as considerable damage can be caused by a single fox breaching the fence.
Shortcomings of fences include posing a hazard to non-target wildlife, restricting the natural ability of native animals to disperse, the high cost of predator-proof fencing and the necessary maintenance costs for it to be effective. However, recent studies at Shark Bay, Western Australia have found that a combination strategy of fencing, baiting, trapping along with a combination of natural water barriers, can be effective fencing on peninsulas (Department of Conservation and Land Management, 1994).
[Ed: Question is did it adversely affect non-target native species? One could incinerate the entire landscape, defoliate it, concrete it so there may be not foxes left, but then no wildlife as well. This seems consistent with West Australia’s simplistic blanket one-size-fits-all approach to environmental control].
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Habitat Management
In environments with dense vegetation, steep topography, rocky crevices or extensive wetlands, prey are less likely to be caught by foxes (Saunders et al.et. al. 1995). [Ed: This would seem to describe the Blue Mountains landscape with its many impassable escarpments]
The foraging efficiency of foxes seems to be maximal in open habitats where they are able to range widely and freely. They readily use roads, tracks and other cleared access ways through denser vegetation or complex topography. [Ed: This has been encouraged by the frequent fire regime of the Rural Fires Service and NPWS to remove thick vegetation labelled as ‘fuel’].
Arboreal marsupials become vulnerable when they descend to the ground to move between trees. A continuous canopy and a thick understorey of shrubs enable them to move about in the trees where they are not at risk from fox predation. An important conservation strategy for some situations will be to minimise habitat fragmentation and to investigate options for fire, grazing or other management practices which do not destroy ground habitat.
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Fox Bounties
Reviews of the history of fox management in particular (Braysher, 1993; Saunders et al.et. al. 1995), concluded that fox bounties have rarely been effective. There is little evidence, except occasionally and in small areas, that hunting of foxes has a significant or lasting impact on fox numbers or the damage they cause. Where private land adjoins or contains important wildlife habitat, assistance or encouragement to landholders and the development of incentives to promote fox control on private land may be appropriate, especially if the property forms part of a buffer zone to protect threatened species populations.
[Ed: This is a scientific lesson for the current NSW OFarrell Government in light of its recent decision to counter legislate for hunting in 79 National Parks across the State for supposed feral animals like foxes]
Then in 2003, the NPWS along with the Blue Mountains Council and other government agencies commissioned a public survey using a questionnaire method to gauge public perception about the impact of foxes across the Blue Mountains. An external consultant as engaged and a committee formed, the Blue Mountains Urban Fox Steering Committee‘.
The survey found that foxes were indeed considered a problem in the Blue Mountains. In January 2004, published in the survey results included was that 64% of those surveyed considered foxes to be a major problem. The impact of foxes was 30% domestic animal impacts, 12% wildlife impacts, and 6% property damage impacts. 53% of respondents felt that not enough was being done to manage foxes in the Blue Mountains townships and surrounding natural areas.
And so the assembled committee prepared a strategy document on the management of ‘urban foxes’ and some education material. But it wasn’t to control foxes…
“The top two priorities of this strategy are for:
community education
local research on foxes and their impacts.
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It was a bureaucratic waste of time so that Blue Mountains NPWS could be politically seen to be thinking about doing something about foxes. The gain was corp0rate-political for NPWS Blue Mountains Senior Ranger, Chris Banffy, to be seen to be doing something on paper, but nothing on the ground, financial gain for the engaged Pest Management Consultant, Nicola Mason.
True to consultant form there was the big survey, survey advertising, data collation, published results in January 2004 and a follow up community workshop on 26th March 2004.
Yes, there was community education published in May 2004. It took the form of another two page A4 brochure. Here it is, as two scanned pages.
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Community Education Page 1:
Click image to enlarge and read
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Community Education Page 2:
Click image to enlarge and read
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And of course, NPWS did nothing about the Blue Mountains confirmed fox problem. It just built a bigger library of reports.
Was it due to lack of funding or lack of direction from Environment ministers. Or perhaps it always just a token public servant ‘look busy’ project to be seen to be thinking about doing something to justify one’s cosy job perpetuation? Certainly to the foxes of the Blue Mountains, it was business-as-usual and they saw nothing from the entire exercise.
And still the fox threat continues unabated
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The whole project was a steaming scat, perhaps one of the better construed abuses of taxpayer and ratepayer funds of the Blue Mountains in living memory.
In 2006, the NPWS then umbrella department called the ‘Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) in its ‘State of the Environment Report 2006′, Chapter 6 on Biodiversity, reported on ‘ Terrestrial Invasive Species (Section 6.4). It acknowledged the feral predation problem, combining it with the weed problem:
“Invasive species remain one of the greatest threats to biodiversity in New South Wales. Over half of all the key threatening processes listed relate to invasive species. Once invasive species become widely established, few can ever be eradicated, and controlling them must focus on strategically limiting their impacts on biodiversity. The main vertebrate pests in NSW have been present for the last century, with many widespread across the State.
Predation by foxes and cats is implicated in the decline or extinction of numerous small- to medium-sized animals. Herbivores, particularly rabbits and feral goats, are responsible for overgrazing of native vegetation and land degradation. Some 1350 exotic plant species have become established in NSW, more than 300 of which are significant environmental weeds. New pest species continue to become established in the environment. Combining prevention, early detection and eradication is the most cost-effective way to minimise the impacts of new pests.”
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DECC listed ‘Introduced Terrestrial Species’ (Ed: a fancy name for feral foxes and cats, etc) as a key bio-indicator of National Park health, with pest animals having a devastating impact on biodiversity. Predation by feral cats and red foxes had contributed to regional declines and the extinction of a range of native species, particularly among small-to medium-sized ground-dwelling and semi-arboreal mammals, ground-nesting birds, and freshwater turtles (Dickman 1996).
DECC recommended better coordination efforts across jurisdictions to target control efforts for species listed as key threatening processes, and research into more effective and target-specific control methods, such as biological control. It prepared a NSW Threat Abatement Plan (TAP). It prioritised feral cat control based on a review of the evidence of cat impacts, and little mention of foxes. The threat abatement strategy was “Research…Develop and trial a cat-specific bait that will ensure non-target species are not impacted.”
Then three years hence in 2007, the NPWS fox survey report was getting a tad stale, so NPWS did another survey and another report. The Katoomba NPWS regional office this time was aggregation feral animals with weeds, and calling the lot ‘pests’. It was drafting its ‘regional pest strategy’ and foxes were now grouped with weeds. It asked for community input, but like most government strategies, they stopped short of funded action to do anything except generate another report confirming a problem that needed to be addressed. This is the report:
Ed: Another year another plan, nothing done, ongoing fox predation, less wildlife.
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We end here as we began, with a last word from a concerned reader, which succinctly tells it as it is:
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‘Act now to save native wildlife or it’ll be too late‘
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“This letter is an appeal on behalf of all our endangered native creatures being destroyed by the ever-increasing numbers of feral animals.
The Federal Government estimates there are 18 million feral cats roaming our countryside killing our unique marsupials and birds in numbers that equate to a massacre. There are also countless numbers of foxes doing their best to wipe out our wildlife. And those are only two of the dreadful “invasive” animals, as the Government calls them. There are also cane toads, carp, pigs and goats.
Unfortunately for our native creatures there is not a politician in Australia who seems to be interested in this matter. They will jump up and down about whales, but ask them to show some interest in our native wildlife and they are struck dumb. If you ask the political parties they will say they have policies to solve these problems but that is empty rhetoric. No one is doing anything constructive to address this problem.
In the case of feral cats, I am advised that governments have access to a number of viruses that could be used with some success but I can only surmise these brave politicians are afraid of a backlash from the “domestic cat lobby”, even though there are vaccines available to protect pet cats.
The only party that I thought might show an interest in this problem, the Greens, hides behinds a screen of policy statements that means absolutely nothing unless implemented with some positive action.
Perhaps someone with some interest in this terrible problem and who has the clout to do something about it might start the ball rolling to protect our native wildlife. Otherwise future generations of Australians may see our brilliant birds and fascinating marsupials only in zoos.
[Source: ‘Act now to save native wildlife or it’ll be too late‘, (letter to the editor) by Neville Ridge, Bowral, Sydney Morning Herald, 20090110, p.24]
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…well perhaps not the last word…
Fox Predation – unequivocal results
Roland Van Zelst, left, Rene Mooejkind and Darren Bain with their night’s haul.
(Photo by Lee Griffith)
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Hundreds of foxes and other feral animals have been culled in agricultural regions across WA to protect livestock and native animals from the destructive pests.
At the weekend, hundreds of farmers and scores of volunteers took part in the annual Red Card for Red Fox drive which encourages rural communities to bait and shoot foxes.
The cull will resume on the March 20-21 weekend.
Now in its eighth year, the Red Fox Drive aims to reduce Australia’s seven million-strong fox population. During the cull weekends, agricultural communities also target feral pigs, cats and rabbits. In the community of Wandering, 120km south-east of Perth, locals culled 140 foxes, nine feral pigs, 12 feral cats and 43 rabbits.
Co-ordinator Lisa Turton said the aim was to keep the fox population at a manageable level.
“We will never be able to eradicate the foxes,” Ms Turton said. “But we need to ensure that their populations are low because they do get to the young lambs and they target the native birds and marsupials.” Foxes eat an average of 136kg of food a year, including lambs, mice, rabbits and many species of native animals.
Ms Turton said those participating in the drive were not “cowboys” with guns but instead followed strict guidelines. “Everybody who takes part must do so on their own land,” she said. “We don’t just go out on the road and start shooting. We do this to protect the native species.”
Last year, 5000 foxes, 230 feral cats and 2500 rabbits were shot over the four weekends throughout WA.
Response from the Livestock Health and Pest Authority 20120914:
Livestock Health and Pest Authorities (LHPAs) are responsible for administering and enforcing the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 (RLP Act), which governs the control of declared pest animals in New South Wales (NSW). Animals declared as pests include; feral pigs, wild dogs and European wild rabbits. The declaration of the species as pests requires landholders to control them. Other animals such as foxes, goats and deer are feral and considered pests by many people but the legislation doesn’t require landholders to continually control them.
There are many reasons why these other species of feral animals are not declared pests such as, restricted control options (in the case of fox control), public perception, potential financial value and even recreational value. Therefore the control of these species essentially lies with the landholder to determine whether they need to control them based on impacts caused by the species not because the landholder is legally required to. For example, foxes preying on lambs on an agricultural property, or foxes preying on an endangered species in a National Park.
LHPAs are a statutory authority funded via a rating system whereby landholders with 10 hectares or more pay compulsory rates to the LHPA. LHPAs provide assistance to these landholders in relation to livestock health and pest animal control. LHPAs also provide much greater benefit to the general community through livestock disease surveillance and disease control, and the coordination of pest and feral animal control programs on LHPA rateable and non rateable land.
LHPAs cannot simply declare animal species as pests under the RLP Act. This decision is made by government and LHPAs enforce the legislation set by government. Despite this, LHPAs are involved in coordinating numerous fox control programs around NSW for both agricultural and environmental benefits.
Legal restrictions on pesticide use and restrictions on other control techniques present challenges for landholders in implementing effective fox control. There are restrictions on the distance baits must be laid from houses, a requirement to notify all people who are within 1km of bait sites, and those laying the bait require a training qualification to use and store the pesticide known as 1080. This presents a problem with implementing fox control along the urban and peri-urban corridor along the Great Western Highway in the Blue Mountains.
LHPAs do not set these restrictions. These are set in Pesticide legislation and regulated by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), and are in place for valid reasons such as reducing the likely impact to animals like domestic dogs which are very susceptible to 1080. LHPAs must however ensure that the restrictions can be observed and applied by the person laying baits to ensure that it is used safely and effectively whilst minimising risks.
1080 is a very effective poison to control carnivores and is very target specific contrary to what many people are led to believe. It is a naturally occurring chemical in Australia and as a result of this many of our native species, particularly birds and reptiles have high natural tolerances to 1080.
Rubber jaw leg hold traps for foxes and wild dogs is effective but generally very labour intensive and require specialised skills. Cage trapping is considered ineffective and only occasionally results in success. Baiting is generally used to reduce populations significantly and trapping is utilised as a secondary technique which aims at maintaining populations at a low level.
The Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (BMWHA) is an enormous area much of which is completely inaccessible. Despite a history of control programs, pest and feral animals are still present, even if in low densities due to the success of control programs. On mainland Australia, despite developments in control techniques, research and understanding of feral and pest animal biology, we are yet to eradicate an introduced vertebrate pest species.
Due to budgetary constraints pest and feral animal control has become much more strategic over the last decade. Pest control is being prioritised based on impacts caused by a particular species whether it is a feral or a declared pest and programs have become highly coordinated to get the most effective results with the available resources. Coordination has involved the establishment of working groups, one such example is the Oberon feral pig and wild dog working group which largely covers most of the BMWHA and includes representatives from various government departments and private landholders who work together to coordinate and implement programs which provide joint benefit to agriculture and the environment.
Pest control can be a sensitive issue and although it may seem little is being achieved, there are a number of programs being implemented particularly in the BMWHA which is a significant conservation area with unique values. The urban corridor through the middle of it adds to its uniqueness but also presents many challenges one of which is pest management. Urban fringe areas generally support higher densities of some pest animals, namely foxes, as we provide them with ideal opportunities to prosper such as food and harbour which are the fundamentals for their survival. We do this without even realising for example, leaving food out for dogs or keeping poultry in our backyards. These are simple examples that are highly attractive to foxes and they can’t resist and won’t refuse them.
Community education and responsible domestic animal keeping is the key to eliminating most of the problem. Pest and feral animal control is a landscape issue and therefore everyone’s problem, not just government. LHPAs will continue to assist landholders and coordinate control programs working within the legislation to ensure that pest control is target specific and effective in providing benefits to agriculture and the environment.’
Steve ParkerRangerCumberland Livestock Health and Pest Authority
Tourism on Queensland’s Fraser Island is worse than ‘uncontrolled’, it is out of control.
Any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a permit for their 4WD online and take it across on one of the barges to Fraser Island so they can speed along the beaches and hoon over the dunes at their leisure. The hoons know that there is a police station near Kingfisher Resort, but manned by only a few and to the hoons Fraser Island is a free-for-all hoot by day and piss-up by night.
Where are the statistics on tourists fined, evicted, loss of licence for hooning on Fraser Island? After all, the allowed speed limit on the Seventy-Mile Beach is 80kph! Where else in Australia can hoons, hoon along the beach at 80kph? Who’s to stop them going faster?
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Fraser Island is alcohol fueled
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And before a hoon party even arrives on Fraser Island, they have plenty of choices where to stock up on booze. Driving north from Brisbane into Maryborough, there’s the Carriers Arms Hotel, White Lion Hotel, Westside Cellars, Dan Murphy’s and Liquor Stax.
Unlimited drinking anywhere on Fraser Island
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At the 4WD Barge ramp at River Heads there is ‘Cellarbrations’ or at Hervey Bay there is the Kondari Hotel, and a choice of two Liquorwise outlets (odd name) plus another Dan Murphy’s. But fear not, if once on Fraser Island, hoons have run dry, then without having to leave the island, they can restock on booze at the general store at Eurong Beach Resort or at Kingfisher Bay Resort.
Chrysler’s Jeep Australia brand currently promotes its 4WD vehicles for beach usage
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In January 2012, Fraser Island Police charged a 48-year-old Australian Capital Territory man, seated in the front passenger seat, with drink driving (in charge of a motor vehicle) after he allegedly registered a blood alcohol reading of 0.113 percent. The same month Fraser Island Police stopped a 4WD on Eastern Beach, Eurong when they allegedly noticed a 12-year-old boy driving the vehicle, with a 14-year-old boy in the rear passenger seat unrestrained.
Australia Day long weekend and Easter tend to be the main lure for hoons to Fraser Island. Fraser Island’s hoon tourism has such a reputation that Queensland Police regularly hold traffic enforcement operations on Fraser Island for the end of school holidays and Australia Day.
In April 2012, a police blitz on Fraser Island led to more than 100 tickets being issued over the Easter holiday period. Maryborough Superintendent Mark Stiles said speeding and failing to wear a seatbelt contributed to the bulk of offences..
Jeep Australia’s current advertising message ‘Don’t Hold Back’ showing beach fun with their Jeep 4WDs
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In December 2010, Fraser Island Hoon Tourism’s reputation saw a drunk 32-year old American tourist tragically drowned. He was taking a midnight dip after drinking heavily near the Cornwalls Camping Ground, on the eastern side of the island, six kilometres north of Eurong at about 4.30am. Some responsible tour group! The American man from Nevada in the United States was travelling with a backpacking tour group and had been drinking heavily before he decided to go for a swim about midnight..
Jeep Australia advertising advocating the hoon element in the mud
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In December 2009, a 4WD ‘troop carrier’ hired by Japanese tourists rolled on Fraser Island’s Eastern Beach near Dundabara killing one Japanese tourist and injuring seven others aged between 20 and 30 years of age. The crash site was close to the location where two British backpackers died in April 2009 when their 4WD also rolled on the beach.
On Thursday and Friday, Transport Department safety inspectors were forced to turn around almost half of the hire vehicles making their way to Fraser Island from River Heads at Hervey Bay and from Inskip Point.
Of the 50 vehicles inspected, 17 were refused because of faulty brakes, faulty tyres, nine vehicles were overloaded and too heavy, while a further nine were ruled out completely because they were “defective”.
The 4WD Hire Industry for Fraser Island is clearly also out of control.
Hoon Tourism is out of control. Between 2004-2009 there were 106 casualties on Fraser Island from 4WD hooning..
[Source: ‘One dead, seven injured in Fraser Island 4WD rollover‘, by Tony Moore, Brisbane Times, ^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/one-dead-seven-injured-in-fraser-island-4wd-rollover-20091213-kq2t.html]
The Australian Government is supposed to be the custodian for the World Heritage Area that is ‘Fraser Island‘.
Yet in it’s laziness, it has delegated that custodial responsibility to the Queensland Government, and like most state governments in Australia, the Queensland Govermnment is under-funded to be able to adequately execute its management responsibilities to properly protect Fraser Island’s World Heritage values.
Fraser Island was inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1992 in recognition of its natural values – the island’s “exceptional natural beauty“. The two criteria upon which the island was listed were World Heritage Natural Criteria (ii) and ( iii ).
Fraser Island’s long beaches and dune heathlands, its majestic tall Turpentine rainforests and many freshwater lakes and swamps provide vital habitat for over 230 species of birds including migratory wading birds and the endangered ground parrot. It is home to frogs, bats and flying foxes and the top order predator is the Dingo. The dingo population on the island is regarded as the most pure strain of dingoes remaining in eastern Australia.
Fraser Island’s Seventy-Mile Beach – An encouraged Hoon Mecca!
(Photo by Tourism Queensland)
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The whole of the island is part of Great Sandy National Park and is supposed to protected under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and the Recreation Areas Management Act 2006 to the low water mark. But that is on paper perhaps to keep UNESCO appeased in its Paris headquarters on the other side of the planet. Whereas the onground reality is that the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) is more focused on exploiting the island for its tourism potential and revenue.
The Recreation Areas Management Act 2006 is useless in respect to 4WD users. Clause 109 ‘Unlawful use of motor vehicles’ states: ‘A person must not take a motor vehicle into a recreation area or drive or ride a motor vehicle in a recreation area unless the taking, driving or riding is authorised by a vehicle access permit, commercial activity permit or commercial activity agreement.’ Any licenced driver can get a vehicle access permit for Fraser Island.
Permits to drive on Fraser Island are unlimited and cost around just $40 per vehicle and can be booked online. So with four yobs on board, $40 is equivalent to the cost of just two beer cans each, which clearly has not proven to be a serious hoon hurdle.
There is no shortage of barges servicing Fraser Island from the mainland mainly by Fraser Island Barges, three times a day from two locations – Inskip Point and River Heads.
Camping permits are similarly cheap. So Fraser Island has become a free-for-all, encouraged by Labor Government visitation maximising policy and facilitated by commercial tourism operators, such as the ones hiring out the 4WD’s. And so the hoons are attracted in groups to party hard on the island.
Ever since 1992, when Fraser Island was first inscribed on the World Heritage List, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the IUCN at the time summarised:
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“The Effects of heavy 4WD traffic on the beaches have unknown impacts on littoral (shoreline) fauna and control measures may soon be needed. The legal status of the portion of Fraser Island that is not a national park is under review and many changes in favour of conservation are anticipated.”
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Since then the only changes have been more tourists under successive predominantly Queensland Labor Governments -under the premierships of Wayne Goss, Peter Beatie and Anna Bligh.
4WD Tourism out of control
This young Dingo mother of seven pups, her tagged right ear permanently flopped over, searches the beach and tourist vehicles for fish offal.
(Photo by Nick Alexander)
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Tourism and Dingoes don’t mix
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Last Saturday (20120728), a group of tourists got drunk on at the K’Gari Education Centre, north of Happy Valley near Eli Creek on Fraser Island. One of them, a drunk German 23-year old man stumbling inebriated way from a tour group about 2am Saturday. As he slept it off on a track, he was attacked by at least two wild Dingoes, native to the island.
July 2012: A German tourist is in hospital being treated for serious injuries after being attacked by a dingo.
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What was the response by the DERM Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) Regional Manager, Ross Belcher?
“Patrols will be increased…The attack would not bring changes to the way dingoes were managed, although a current review might lead to safer interactions.”
In contrast, Island World Heritage Area community advisory committee member Mike West said the dingoes were probably just messing around.
“If they weren’t messing around, he’d be dead,” he said. K’Gari was a problem because the local pack had substantial interaction with humans and appeared tame to many backpackers.
“As long as dingoes feel comfortable with people, there’ll always will be trouble,” Mr West said. “This only happens on Fraser where lots of people interact with dingoes. It appears rangers are going to have to try harder to get the message across.”.
In the past 12 months to June, ten people have been reported bitten by Dingoes. DERM has seen fit to then kill three Dingoes, like a linch mob. So much for protected World heritage. The World Heritage management culture in Queensland is that World Heritage is a brand designed to lure tourists, so it is all about maximising visitation tourists come first; whereas wildlife are fair game.
In 1980, when a dingo was reported having taken baby Azaria Chamberlain from a tourist campers tent near Uluru, a self-righteous testosterone-fueled media went into a frenzy. Dingos were demonised and persecuted, until the media turned their persecution on to the mother for the next 30 years. At the time, as a public gesture, the Northern Territory Government went on a kneejerk dingo linching crusade, culling 31 dingoes around Uluru. Chief Ranger at Uluru between 1968 and 1985, Derek Roff, had previously warned of the treat of dingoes to tourists. Roff had also advocated culling dingoes, but that was 1980, a tourist-centric 1980.
Azaria Chamberlain’s revised death Certificate 32 years laterAustralia in denial for 32 years that a Dingo could have killed a baby
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In 1994, after a young child was mauled by a dingo on Fraser Island, the media called for dingo linching. The Queensland Government, championing tourism safety on the island ordered the linching. During the following six years 103 dingoes were culled.
In 2001, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Clinton Gage, was fatally mauled by a dingo on Fraser Island. Predictably there was another media outcry, and a further 32 dingoes were culled within a matter of a few weeks.
The dingo was demonised as if a feral pig or a wild feral dog. DERM’s baby-boomer management perpetuated a tourist-centric mindset, adopting standard management practice to kill any ‘aggressive’ dingo or a dingo that ‘shows no fear of humans’. And this organisation is the custodian of Fraser Island World Heritage and its fauna and flora? Some parts of Australian society remain quite backward.
The way the Island is being loosely managed by DERM, it is only a matter of time before there is an other Dingo attack, and with all the children and infants brought on to the island, it is only a matter of time before there is another Azaria Episode. The only ethical sympathy warranted will be for the Dingo.
Earlier this month, Environment Minister Andrew Powell appointed noted University of Queensland ecologist Hugh Possingham to oversee a review of the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy by consultancy EcoSure. Let’s hope that Powell recognises that wild animals and tourists don’t mix.
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“No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous and only attack if provoked.”
Queensland Government only interested in Fraser Island tourism values
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Under the previous Bligh Labor Government, the attitude towards National Parks like Fraser Island was all about tourism. Under Bligh Labor’s strategic plan labelled ‘Q2: Tomorrow’s Queensland‘, national parks across Queensland were not afforded protection under a conservation strategy, but relegated instead under Bligh Labor’s ‘Queensland Outdoor Recreation Strategic Framework 2010‘. And who better to give the job of running DERM to, but one’s husband. In Queensland, like paraochial Tasmania, political nepotism is rife. Premier Anna Bligh’s husband, Greg Withers was in charge of DERM’s Office of Climate Change since its inception four years ago.
So DERM is allowing free-for-all tourism across Fraser Island. It is estimated that around half a million visitors, many from overseas, visit Fraser Island each year.
How can this be sustainable? It simply isn’t – certainly not for the native Dingoes. Apparently, one of Fraser Island’s promoted attractions besides the beaches and sand dunes is the thrill of seeing a dingo ‘in the wild’. So the Fraser Island tourism marketing message is to see dingos. How bloody sad that colonial persecution has created rarety that is has become a tourism attraction? It is comparable to the Tasmanian warped fascination with the Thylacene that last century their forefathers were only too happy to cull into extinction.
Fraser Island residents, tour operators and animal welfare groups have reported the rapidly shrinking dingo population to DERM in 2009.
Eigh years prior, in 2001, DERM had compiled its Dingo Management Strategy. The document may have well been written by the New South Wales Game Council itching for target practice. DERM’s Dingo Management Strategy was anathema to the World Heritage protection. The strategy had a mindset of ‘Pest Control’ with the prescribed culling of dingoes, where tourist could do no wrong and travel freely. If the dingo caused a problem its was shot. The only human controls were token ‘public education’. Dingoes were trapped, relocated and fenced away from free-roaming tourists.
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DERM: “..when authorised, the trapping and destruction of problem dingoes.”
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In 2009, an authority on the Dingo and former CSIRO researcher, Dr Laurie Corbett, was called in to review the current strategy and respond to the public concerns about falling dingo numbers on Fraser Island.
Those concerned about the fate of Fraser Island dingoes – including researcher Dr Luke Leung from Queensland University – now fear the population has been reduced to around 100 animals and their genetic viability over the long term is being compromised.
At Eurong village (Fraser Island) tourists wilfully disregard DERM signs and walk across an electrified grid which has filled with sand.
(Photo by Nick Alexander)
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DERM’s Dingo Management Strategy with its prescribed kneejerk response to any dingo ‘identified as dangerous’ by killing it, simply chose to ignore known dingo pack behaviour. Killing an adult dingo can dislocate the dingo pack structure. The pack relies on these elders to maintain the social order, and help teach the younger animals how to hunt.
Tim Rivers, a tour operator who has been involved with visitors to the area for more than 30 years, is alarmed at the now low levels of dingo sightings on the island, and suggests that the official figures of dingo numbers are overstated. He believes many more dingoes have been culled than the DERM Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service are prepared to admit, and is concerned the kills have not always been clean and humane. Rivers claims having seen ‘animals with gunshot wounds in shoulders, hindquarters and even facial wounds’.
Part of the management strategy is to keep dingoes off the beach and away from tourist areas by means of ‘hazing’. This involves attempting to scare dingoes away by shanghai-ing them with pellets. Opponents of the management plan feel this practice is cruel, and consider that it can only add to the dingoes’ mistrust of humans and heighten their antagonism.
Another contentious issue is that of ear-tagging dingoes on the island. Dingo pups as young as four months have been trapped and marked with a tag in their ear. Opponents of this practice consider it cruel and debilitating. The ear sometimes becomes infected and the tag may cause the pup’s ear to flop over. This impedes its ability to discriminate the direction from which a sound is coming – something critical when the pup is learning to hunt for food. In some cases the trapping of an animal in order to tag it has also led to a leg being damaged or broken, further limiting its ability to survive ‘in the wild’.
It is hard to reconcile the ear-tagging and ‘hazing’ of dingoes with the QP&WS’s ‘cardinal principle’ of park management: ‘to provide, to the greatest possible extent, for the permanent preservation of the area’s natural condition and the protection of the area’s cultural resources and values’. The activities, apart from their potentially inhumane aspects, are seemingly at odds with the principle of regarding dingoes as wild, native animals and interfering with them as little as possible.
In his 2009 audit of the dingo management strategy, Dr Laurie Corbett defends the issue of tagging so that rangers can identify a ‘problem’ animal easily. He recommends the continued use of slingshots and ‘rat-guns’ as the most effective ‘hazing’ methods, despite the fact many dingoes now recognise the rangers’ vehicles and will flee from them on sight.
Some of the long-term residents of the island point out that there were few dingo problems during the time of Forest Department control. For years, the dingoes were allowed to roam freely through the resorts and small settlements and the feeding of food scraps was actually encouraged. Now the QP&WS has erected a ‘dingo-proof’ fence with electrified ‘cattle grids’ around some of the settlements. The one surrounding the community of Eurong cost $1 million, requires constant maintenance and is still not 100 per cent effective in keeping dingoes out.
The real problem, according to long-time resident Judi Daniel, is the visitors’ lack of common sense. Many of the dingo ‘incidents’ that have led to the destruction of the dingoes involve unsupervised children. ‘Why must a dingo die due to visitors’ stupidity?’ she asks.
Tourist children out of control on Fraser Island
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Despite the efforts of the pro-dingo alliance, there are still many in the community who consider that ‘the only good dingo is a dead dingo’. The spectre of another attack on a child led one former Queensland postman, writing to the Fraser Coast Chronicle, to argue that: ‘One child’s life is worth more than 100 dingoes.’
This dingo, with a bullet wound in its neck, was discovered by a tour operator in January last year at Lake Mckenzie.
(Photo by Caroline Hanger)
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With feelings like this common in the wider community, those who are striving to achieve a better deal for the Fraser Island dingo are facing an uphill battle. Terry Harper, the government’s Senior Director, Marine Parks, has just announced another ‘population dynamics’ study, but this is still in its ‘planning and scoping’ stage, with no time-frame set for its completion.
Researcher Dr Luke Leung believes that, with only six or seven packs left on the island, the time has come for a more ethical and humane approach. For instance, he says, ‘problem’ animals could be relocated from the island to a breeding facility in order to maintain the gene pool of this relatively pure strain of dingo.
In the meantime, Humane Society International has called for an immediate end to the culling of dingoes on Fraser Island and for better education of tourists visiting the island on how to interact with the dingoes.’
World Heritage is primarily about recognition and respect for the natural world, not about tourism branding, exploitation and maximisiing visitation.
In the two decades that the Queensland Government has held the custodian reigns of Fraser Island, it has failed its custodial responsibilities utterly. State Governments cannot be trusted with National Park custodianship.
World Heritage and National Park management can only be entrusted at a national level. Fraser Island’s World Heritage needs to be managed at national jurisdiction where it can be effected properly to the spirit of World Heritage protection and conservation principles and supported with national resources – skills, and funding. Fraser Island Dingoes should be allowed to remain free to roam in the wild in their natural habitat without the incursion of tourists – hoons o otherwise. Tourism on Fraser Island has proven to be exploitative and a key threatening process to the future survival of Fraser Island’s top order predactor. Dingoes should not suffer because of the intervention of humans.
Australia’s remnant pure Dingos deserve humanity’s respect before they befall the same extinction fate as the Thylcene.
It is time to ban all tourism from Fraser Island and to dedicate the island as the world’s only surviving sanctuary for the Pure Dingo.
Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
Click image to enlarge
Inscribed on the asset register of World Heritage sites in 1994…but how much has been wiped out by October’s bushfires?
[Photo Source: New South Wales Government,
^http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/oxley-wild-rivers-national-park/travel-info]
Location of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
Click image to enlarge – note the patchy dark green of remnant forests
Macleay River Bushfire October 2012
– left to burn for a week from 12th Oct 2012 because not a threat to private property
..then the wind picked up…unbelievable!
Putting this 60,000ha bushfire into a Sydney urban perspective
Professional urban fire fighting would not allow 60,000 hectares of private property and human lives to burn
– such would historically dwarf the Great Fire of London.
Satellite infrared image of the fire called Georges Junction inside the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
Having already burnt out a massive 14,000 hectares and is likely to join up with the Freds Creek fire.
The active edge of the fire shows up bright yellow; the red areas are the burnt areas.
(Photo by New England RFS)
Properties between Georges Junction and Five Day Creek were at threat from fire yesterday
(Photo: The Armidale Express)
Macleay River Bushfire
(Photo by Sean Bremmer)
World Heritage Listing because local people thought it was so important to save before it was gone
Trying to save the surviving remnant patches of Gondwana Rainforest ecosystems
(Ed: These few green shades are emblematic of Australian ransacking)
Read: >Large Map
[Source: ^http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/gondwana/pubs/gondwana-map.pdf]
Enormous Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus moorei)
At Cobark Park, Barrington Tops, 50 metres tall
Hoop Pine
(Araucaria cunninghamii)
Found naturally in the dry rainforests of New South Wales and Queensland and in Papua New Guinea.
The trees can live up to 450 years and grow to a height of 60 m.
Parma Wallaby (Macropus parma)
Endemic to rainforests and sclerophyll forests in New South Wales from the Watagan Mountains in the South to the Gibraltar Range in the North.
Parma wallabies were thought to have become extinct a century ago until being discovered again in the 1970s.
OxleyWild Rivers National Park – location map
[Source: Google Maps]
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Aspley Falls in flood
Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
Australian Red Cedar Forest
Tamborine National Park, Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland
(such trees have long been logged through the Oxley Rivers region)
Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
This species is listed in New South Wales as ‘Vulnerable to extinction’, but that was by the NSW Scientific Committee in 2003, nine years ago
There have been two major bushfires through since then – one in 2009 and now in 2012
How many viable individuals have been lost to the Macleay River Bushfire – does the NSW NPWS know or care?
Brush-tailed Phascogale
[Source: Animal Hospital, ^http://www.chidlowmarsupialhospital.org.au/page-17-1-identification.html]
1927 ‘Black August’
When 600,000 Koalas were shot and skinned across Queensland
