Actor Bing Crosby used to famously play golf back in the 1950s, but in 2013 who plays golf but the last of retired male Baby Boomers? The sport is a ‘has been’ and most courses have been constructed necessitating broadscale habitat destruction, and arrogantly so.
Golf’s origins date back to 15th Century Scotland and to the exclusive pastime of its landed gentry – male gentry, one for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden. Along with croquet and lawn bowls, it dates to a bygone era – up there with duelling, archery practice and pheasant hunting.
This week we learn about the demise of another golf club struggling to attract new members as its 20th Century members ‘pass on’.
In the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, the Katoomba Golf Club as registered body formed just over a hundred years ago back in 1911. The land on which Katoomba Golf Club sited Katoomba Golf Course after the war in May 1923, had few previous owners in historic times.
A brief reflection on relevant colonial history
In the 18th Century, the island continent we now call Australia, was considered ‘undiscovered’ by the then dominant global European powers that be. In 1768, the then head of state of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King George III commissioned his Royal Navy to undertake a world expedition voyage under the command of Lieutenant James Cook (combined with Botanist Joseph Banks of the Royal Society) to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, which took place between 1768 to 1771. Amongst the voyage’s prescribed tasks were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun (3–4 June that year), and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or “undiscovered southern land”, plus other exploratory, naturalist and mapping duties.
In April 1770, the voyage famously became the first known European expedition to reach the east coast of Australia, mapping the coastline and making landfall near present-day Point Hicks, and then proceeding north to Botany Bay, naming the land New South Wales.
On 21st August 1770, Cook’s exploration party stepped ashore on an island in the Torres Strait situated 2km off now Cape York Peninsula (since called Possession Island) and declared possession of this “undiscovered southern land” to the British Crown. This was on the basis of unilateral possession – the land perceived as ‘terra nullius’, being Latin for ‘land belonging to no one’, because Cook and Banks considered there were few ‘natives’ along the coast and deduced that there would be fewer or none inland.
Subsequently, the British colonial First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay then Port Jackson in 1788 to establish a British convict settlement was set up in New South Wales.. The Proclamation of NSW Governor Richard Bourke in 1835 implemented the legal principle of terra nullius in Australian law as the basis for British settlement, 47 years later. Such were the powers that prevailed at the time. Various ‘frontier wars’ were waged sporadically between the Aboriginal peoples and the vastly out-weaponed British military and colonists for 46 years (1788-1934). By 1901, Australia was universally declared a unified federated nation state – The Commonwealth of Australia.
This island continent had been ‘legally owned’ (possessed) by the British Crown since Cook’s authorised declaration of possession in 1770. From 1788, the British penal colony of New South Wales was ruled by successive British military governors of the Colony of New South Wales. Until 1824, the military governors of New South Wales were absolute rulers with rights granted to them under an Act of the British Parliament of 1787. The only power superior to them being the British Parliament at Westminster in London, England.
History is history.
So, back to the land of Katoomba Golf Course – obtained historical written records show that the land site was then ‘legally owned’ by the London Chartered Bank of Australia from at least as far back as the 1870s. Katoomba was then not a settlement. Only a sandstone rock quarry ‘The Crushers‘ is historically documented to be in the area to supply ballast for the new railway line roll-out from the 1860s to 1874 when a railway siding was built. It appears that soon afterwards, English migrant (entrepreneurial merchant, miner then property developer) John Britty North acquired vast acreage around the south western area of The Crushers, which would become called the township of Katoomba.
Thus far, our research has not revealed how the local council happened to acquire the land of what would become granted to Katoomba Golf Club in 1920 to deforest the bushland for a golf course. In 1889, Blue Mountains Council did not exist, rather it was one of a number of smaller regional municipal councils across the central Blue Mountains, then it being termed the Katoomba Municipal Council Incorporated).
This is an historic legal document we have obtained that reveals the original deal dated 28th January 1920 between the Katoomba Golf Club and the then local council. At the time the deal was in fact legally between ‘The South Katoomba Land Company Limited‘ and ‘The Council of the Municipally of Katoomba‘. The former was the registered legal body that certain local business owners had established as a legal entity, and the then legally named local council.
Now this is a good revealing read. How’s these stated legal requirements for instance:
“Council at its own expense… (read Clause 1), (read Clause 2)”
(Clause 3) “THAT the said Council its successors and assign will not at any time erect on the said land any dwelling house or other building except a golf club house or a tennis court or croquet cloub house or a club house for any other purpose for recreation as allowed by paragraph (a) 2 and sheds outhouses stables and other buildings in connection herewith.”
The land was then owned by the then Katoomba Council (i.e. by the local community). The land was acquired from the local council for £1500 by property developers under the name of the South Katoomba Land Company. Was the escarpment land paid for, loaned or gifted? A nearby Gully was acquired a generation later from the Katoomba Council via a £27,000 loan to build a motor racing track, but the loan was never repaid.
So golf playing at the Katoomba Golf Club was in full swing from the 1920’s, and when Bing Crosby was playing during the post War 1950’s, golf was in its heyday. But by the end of the 1980s for reasons of waning interest, other competing interests for a four hour round of golf, busy lifestyles and basic economics; the Baby Boomer golf fad was fading. This was not just across Australia, but across America and elsewhere. Read the article at the end of this one by Nancy Keate, in The Wall Street Journal.
“Over the past week, we’ve been discussing the declining number of golfers, both in Canada and the United States, a topic sparked by this story (see below) by Gene Yasuda of Golfweek.
Of course, the U.S. numbers used by Yasuda were provided by the National Golf Foundation, but here in Canada, we have no recent official numbers to go by, so it could be argued that there’s no cause for alarm about the number of Canadian golfers.
Some might even be tempted to lean on the crutch that Canada is among the world leaders in golfers per capita. Even if that is still the case, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of golfer isn’t dwindling.
All golf operators need to do is look out on their fairways and compare the number of golfers out there today to what it was five or 10 years ago to come to a realistic conclusion on how the number of golfers is affecting their businesses and whether it’s up, down or stagnant.
Of course, that number may be affected by the number of golf courses in a saturated market, but the feeling I get from different regions of the country leads me to believe that the number of overall golfers in this country is stagnating at best. If only there were numbers to back that up.
The consensus in the Golfweek story is that the U.S. numbers are affected mainly by the struggling American economy more than a lack of interest in the game.
Here in Canada, however, we’ve come out of the economic downturn a lot quicker that the U.S., but economic factors such as the price of gas and other inflation and the possibility of rising interest rates may be playing a part.
On the other hand, Canadian golf may be feeling the competition from other entertainment and recreation sources, which could indicate a waning interest in the game. While economic pressures on golfers might be a temporary factor, waning interest is more long term.
Which of those two factors do you feel is affecting the number of golfers in Canada? That’s the subject of this week’s GNN Poll.”
U.S. golf participation falls for third consecutive year
May 9, 2011 [SOURCE: http://golfweek.com/news/2011/may/09/us-golf-participation-falls-third-consecutive-year/]
“For the third consecutive year, the number of golfers in the U.S. declined, falling 3.6 percent to 26.1 million in 2010, according to the National Golf Foundation.
The slide, from 27.1 million golfers in 2009, wasn’t unexpected in light of the heavy toll the recession has had on the sport and the economy in general.
The silver lining, if any, according to NGF officials, is that the participation falloff is more linked to financial pressures rather than golf losing popularity among consumers.
“Multiple NGF studies of golfers since 2008 would attribute the gradual decline in golfers and rounds primarily to the impact of lower job security and concern over personal finances, not waning appeal for the game,” said Joe Beditz, NGF president and CEO.
The NGF supported that conclusion by citing golf’s continuing ability to attract “new” participants – in 2010 a total of 3.6 million, including 1.5 million first-time beginners and 2.1 million returning former golfers.
That gain, however, was negated by the loss of 4.6 million golfers who played in 2009 but not in 2010. According to the NGF, the number of new golfers held steady while the number of those who left the game decreased significantly. In recent years, golf industry leaders have been emphasizing improving the retention of golfers.
For all their efforts, though, the downward trend of participation remains a major concern. By comparison, the number of golfers in the U.S. in 2000 and 2005 was 28.8 million and 30 million, respectively.
Among the other findings:
The number of “core” golfers (eight or more rounds annually) dropped to 14.8 million – down 3.6 percent from 15.3 million in 2009.
“Occasional” golfers suffered a similar decline: a drop of 3.7 percent to 11.3 million from 11.8 million in 2009.
The number of rounds played in 2010 was 475 million, down 2.3 percent from 486 million in the previous year. (By comparison, rounds played in 2000 and 2005 was 518 million and 500 million, respectively.)
The participation study defines a golfer as a person, age 6 or older, who plays at least one round of golf in a given year. Its results are “derived from a multi-sport study of 40,000 Americans, executed in conjunction with the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association,” the NGF stated.
Yet, despite this general waning interest in golf and despite specifically the falling membership at both Katoomba and nearby Leura golf clubs, some Baby Boomers in complete denial decided in the 1990s to expand the Katoomba golf course from 9 holes to 18. [Editor’s Corrigendum: Correspondence received from an informed reader after publication, has confirmed that the golf course was in fact expanded from 9 holes to 18 holes circa 1927 (^Source). The development works circa 1995 instead relate to expansion of the course acquiring 5.6 hectares of adjoining community zoned woodland alongside Narrow Neck Road in order to build 13 townhouses and a resort hotel. Also circa 2007, a fairway/green was extended into bushland near Stuarts Road.] Further, they had grandiose notions of building a dozen new dedicated golfing townhouses next to the clubhouse, so perpetuating the ‘has-been’ American trend of the 1980s.
Where did the millions in development finance come from and how much was put up by local Blue Mountains Council negotiated behind closed doors claiming a dubious excuse fo commercial in confidence” dealing with this being zoned ‘Community Land‘ ?
Of course, this development necessitated a considerable acquisition of more surrounding bushland to be logged, the vegetation slashed and bulldozed, the soils landscaped, grassed and fertilised. This has meant permanent destruction of the ecosystem just like open cut mining. All this occurred immediately above and upstream of the Jamison Valley wilderness, now part of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
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Juxtaposition of the Katoomba Golf Club (light green coloured fairways) replacing virgin habitat across the escarpment; all so that a few retiring Baby Boomer men can selfishly play golf at the expense of Ecology.
[Source: Google Earth, 2013]
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During the construction of the additional nine holes [Editor’s Corrigendum: The construction instead related to building 13 townhouses and a resort hotel], the development proposal submitted to the local Blue Mountains Council, specified a new track would be constructed through adjacent bushland to connect two fairways. It was deceptive, because that track became a new wide fairway, complete with soil replacement, landscape contouring, grass seeding and fertilizer.
Repeated instances of sediment run-off from the construction were formally reported to the local Blue Mountains Council by concerned local residents, yet no remediation action was undertaken and no punitive fines were issued.
Golf courses not only necessitate absolute ecological destruction in such places, but the ongoing maintenance of the fairways and greens demands constant fresh water irrigation. Irrigation, as with farming, risks causing saline intrusion into the groundwater.
The keeping of golfing greens green to uphold the lush traditional image, necessitates that golf courses use extensive amounts of chemical fertilizers containing elevated levels of nitrogen (as sulphate of ammonia), potash , sulphur and phosphorus, as well as the application of pesticides and herbicides. All such chemicals are toxic to Australian native vegetation and to aquatic wildlife in the downstream watercourses. Effectively they are environmental pollutants and so next to and upstream of vital World Heritage, use of such chemicals needs to be legally banned.
The local Blue Mountains Council has failed to monitor run-off from the construction activity into the surrounding natural environment. The custodian of the World Heritage Area, National Parks and Wildlife Service, simply isn’t interested.
<< It’s big, blue and beautiful! Blue Mountains National Park is located just 60 kilometres west of Sydney. It is unique in it’s history, its wildlife and world famous scenery…includes the Grose Wilderness, dedicated for its wild unspoilt natural beauty. At Katoomba see the Three Sisters and Katoomba Falls… 300 kilometres of heritage walking tracks and hundreds of lookouts, most within easy reach of a string of train stations. It’s a wilderness made easy to get to! >>
[Source: NSW Government, ^http://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/blue-mountains/katoomba-area/blackheath/attractions/blue-mountains-national-park]
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[Ed: No mention of golf in the tourism promotion these days]
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Katoomba Golf Club R.I.P.
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<<..“the locksmith has been in” and the club is no longer trading.
Unfortunately the club has temporarily closed its doors to the public. They have appointed administrators to handle the business. We are no longer employed. We, the staff thank all of you for your patronage, your friendship, your laughs and your well wishes – it has been a wonderful and memorable time for all of us. A bit of a sad day for us, so thank you. >>
Escarpment Karma?Yet over 50 hectares of vital escarpment habitat has been lost to a Baby Boomer selfish pastime.
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Notice of First Meeting of Creditors of Company Under Administration
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Company: Katoomba Golf Club Ltd
ACN: 000 952 992
Status: Administrators Appointed
Appointed: 01 July 2013
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Meeting details:
Notice is given that a first meeting of the creditors of the Company, or a first meeting for each of the Companies, (for multiple companies), will be held:
Location: Katoomba Golf Club, Acacia Street, Katoomba New South Wales
Meeting date: 10 July 2013
Meeting time: 12:00PM
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[Source: ASIC Insolvency Notices].
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‘Fore Sale – Luxury golf communities have hit a rough patch’
<< After years of aggressive golf course expansion, interest in golf declined just as the market for luxury homes plunged. Now, once-pricey real estate is available at below-par prices. Selling a lot for $1.
Debbie Bowers and her husband, tired of life in their cold Ohio town, spent eight years looking for a home near a sunny luxury golf course in a Southern state. Everything they saw was too expensive. Then this past May, they got a call: A lot was available at South Carolina’s Colleton River Plantation, one of the country’s premiere golf communities—for free.
Prices at luxury private golf communities are crashing, done in by rampant overdevelopment, the economic downturn and waning national interest in the sport. Nancy Keates has details on Lunch Break.
The seller was even willing to pay the $15,000 club initiation fee and the first year of $17,000 annual membership dues at Colleton River, which includes three celebrity-designed courses (two by Jack Nicklaus, one by Pete Dye), a Stan Smith-designed tennis center and a new 6,000-square-foot fitness center. Mrs. Bowers, 55, met her husband that day at the site and signed the papers. They’re now building a 3,000-square-foot house that should be finished by November.
The past two decades saw an unprecedented boom in the building of high-end golf courses linked to luxury real-estate communities. Betting that aging Baby Boomers would embrace golf as their pastime of choice, the National Golf Foundation set a goal of building “A Course a Day” beginning in 1988. Real-estate developers teamed up with top-name golf-course architects, building exclusive communities adjacent to courses, and requiring homeowners to pay annual club dues—sometimes even if they didn’t play. Then, in a moment of spectacularly bad timing, both the golf industry and the real-estate market took a nose-dive at once.
Now, private golf communities are dealing with the fallout. Many sellers are dropping their prices radically, in some cases even paying people to take their land. Gated communities that once traded on their exclusivity are aiming to appeal to a wider swath of buyers, building family-friendly “village centers” with ice cream shops, hiking trails and bowling alleys. A few are even “repurposing” by reducing courses to nine holes from 18 and selling off the reclaimed land.
At golf communities near Bluffton, S.C., like Belfair Plantation, Colleton River Plantation and Berkeley Hall, several lots that initially sold for at least $150,000 are now on sale for $1 apiece. Investors who bought but never built on the sites are trying to unburden themselves of the thousands of dollars—typically $12,000 to $17,000—they still have to pay in annual club dues.
At the Mizner Country Club in Delray Beach, Fla., which has an Arnold Palmer golf course, a lakefront home with five bedrooms, a pool and a spa is asking $795,000. It sold for $1.6 million in 2007. A lot in Horseshoe Bay Resort, near Austin, Texas, that sold previously for $300,000, is on sale for $39,000.
In Bend, Ore., interior designer Ronda Fitton and her husband paid $500,000 for a lot at Pronghorn, a gated community with golf courses designed by Tom Fazio and Jack Nicklaus, in 2006. A similar-size lot sold for $10,000 earlier this year. Ms. Fitton is hopeful values will go up but she says the lot is “worth nothing now. It’s a real bummer.” (Lot prices exclude membership fees.) Lots at Rams Hill in Borrego Springs, Calif. are also selling for about $10,000, compared with $100,000 at the peak.
The housing downturn is partly responsible. But the crash in value has been exacerbated by a development binge that resulted in too many courses just as the sport of golf began to fade in popularity.
From 1990 to 2003, some 3,000 new courses were built in the U.S., swelling the total number of courses nationally by 19% and costing about $20 billion, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Many of these new courses were inextricably linked to the luxury-real-estate market. About 40% of the courses built during the 1990s were tied to real-estate communities—a shift from the previous decades, when that number was closer to 18% and the vast majority of golf courses didn’t have people living on them. The golf courses were the lure to get people to buy houses: The bigger the name of the architect who designed them, the greater the prestige and the more expensive the real estate.
Soon after, however, the sport started to lose its allure. The percentage of the overall population in the U.S. that plays golf is down over the past 10 years, from 11.1% in 2000 to 9.2% in 2010, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Last year the number of rounds played in the U.S. dropped to 463 million from 518 million in 2000. The number of golfers fell to 25.7 million in 2011 from 28.8 million in 2000. A net of more than 350 golf courses have been closed since 2005. In 2011, more than 150 courses closed, outpacing the 19 courses that debuted last year.
Compounding the problem: Real-estate developers didn’t think about the viability of the golf courses themselves, says Art West, founder of Golf Course Advisors, a golf-course consulting company. Many of these courses designed by brand-name golf-course architects were championship-level, too difficult for the average player. They took a long time to play and cost millions a year to maintain, pushing up annual dues.
“It was a perfect storm,” says David Hueber, former president and CEO of the National Golf Foundation, who wrote a paper called ” ‘Code Blue’ for U.S. Golf Course Real Estate Development” stemming from research for his Ph.D. in real-estate development at Clemson University.
Across the country, about 2,000 of the 16,000 golf courses are “financially distressed,” according to the National Golf Foundation. Mr. Hueber estimates that 4,000 to 5,000 golf courses will be in financial danger if they don’t change their model.
Membership fees for many clubs have tumbled. The initiation fee at Old Palm Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., which was as high as $250,000 in 2007, is now down to $175,000, while the fee at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla., is now at $50,000, compared with $145,000 at its peak.
In some parts of the country, the premium that home buyers are willing to pay for a house on a golf course versus a house that isn’t on a course has dropped to about 25%, from 50% in 2007, says Doug Schwartz, who runs the sales, marketing and homebuilding operations for WCI Communities, in Bonita Springs, Fla., which currently owns four golf communities. Lisa Treu, an agent with the Treu Group in Palm Beach County, says homes on golf courses in Southeast Florida could at one time command a 25% premium over non-golf-course homes; that premium has now dropped to about 10%, she says. (Some areas are still strong, like Palm Springs, Calif., where agents say the premiums are as much as 35%).
“There are a lot of people who would like to get out of here because of the economy,” says Don Davis, who with his wife bought a house in South Carolina’s Colleton River for $970,000 in 2001. The couple, who have loved living in the community but want to move back to Atlanta to be closer to their grandchildren, say it doesn’t make financial sense to move without selling their house because they’d still have to pay the community’s annual membership dues of some $17,000. Their house, listed at $775,000, hasn’t had any offers in its six months on the market.
Real-estate agent Dick Datz of Carolina Realty Group says Belfair and Colleton River are offering agents a $5,000 bonus when they sell a $1 lot; otherwise the commission would be pennies. Rob Norton, president of the Colleton River Plantation Board, says houses in the community are selling and there’s lots of new construction. It’s mostly the people who bought the land as an investment who are having a hard time, he says.
Some developers are recasting their golf communities to appeal to a broader swath of home buyers, including more families and young people. One example: Tuscany Reserve, a 450-plus-acre private golf community in Naples, Fla., which had about $200 million invested in its infrastructure, including a golf course designed by Pete Dye and Greg Norman, before it went bankrupt. Florida developer Syd Kitson recently bought the community for $30 million and changed the name to Talis Park, which he thought sounded more youthful. Instead of building a clubhouse as planned, Mr. Kitson, will build a “village center” with a cafe, a spa and walking paths. Homes are now expected to be in the $700,000-to-$2 million range instead of up to $6 million, as originally intended.
“The model of a country club in its current form is gone forever,” says Mr. Kitson.
After seeing sharp decreases in its sale prices, Pronghorn, the gated community in Bend, Ore., opened its gates, launching a 48-suite lodge in 2010 and inviting the public to use one of its two golf courses. The Resort Group, a resort operator based in Honolulu, Hawaii, took over in February and announced it will bring in Auberge Resorts to manage the property, turning it into a five-star resort with a spa, three restaurants, two pools, tennis courts and a kids club.
The Cliffs—a group of eight residential developments spread among 20,000 acres between Greenville, S.C., and Asheville, N.C., with golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Fazio—filed for U.S. Bankruptcy Court protection in February, with estimated liabilities between $100 million and $500 million. A planned golf course for the Cliffs, designed by Tiger Woods, hasn’t been started. According to a 2007 news release, the Cliffs sold 40 lots in the $500,000 price range, and lots at that time couldn’t be purchased below $200,000. Earlier this year a lot sold in one high-end community for less than $10,000, according to real-estate agent Justin Winter.
Owners at the Cliffs, who tried to bail it out earlier by putting up $64 million to keep the club operating, say they are optimistic and are in the midst of a reorganization with Carlile Group, a diversified company based in Marshall, Texas. Carlile is working with two other groups.
Owners say the revamped club will have more options for membership. The initiation fee, which was $150,000, is now $50,000. “We are working diligently to find and deliver the best solution for all members and property owners at the Cliffs,” Steve Carlile of Carlile Group says in a statement.
Golf-course architect Bobby Weed of Bobby Weed Golf Design has been helping residential golf communities over the past few years “repurpose”—by compressing the properties. He is currently working on several proposals to shrink 18-hole courses to nine holes. At the Deltona Club in Deltona, Fla., he helped reduce the amount of land used by the clubhouse and the golf course to create a separate, 17-acre parcel for development.
The steep decline in prices is a boon for potential buyers, of course. “Now I’m getting worried I’m going to miss out if I don’t move quickly,” says Gordon Flach, 44, who has been looking for a golf resort home in Montana, Utah or Oregon for the past three years. Mr. Flach, who is part owner of a resort in the Bahamas, has his eye on a $425,000, 3,800-square-foot four-bedroom house in Pronghorn. A similar house was going for $1.1 million when he first started looking.
Ron Ruff, a 55-year-old semiretired anesthesiologist, got his lot at Pronghorn free about a year ago. The seller also kicked in part of the $115,000 reimbursement of his golf-club membership initiation fee he got back when he “sold” the land. Mr. Ruff says that he felt, despite the dire climate and other people thinking he was crazy, that Pronghorn has a “magical” feel and that the value would be realized again, just as he had seen happen in other areas before. His house is now complete.
John Reed, the original developer of Colleton River Plantation, Belfair Plantation and Berkeley Hall, concedes there are too many golf-course communities. “There’s a train wreck in the industry now,” he says. “We overbuilt and the market stopped.” He had Pete Dye and Tom Fazio design a golf course for his latest development, called Hampton Lakes, but decided to nix it in favor of a 165-acre freshwater fishing and boating lake.
“The best golf course we ever did is 9 feet underwater,” he jokes. >>
Get your facts straight. Katoomba Golf Club has been 18 holes for nearly 100 years. The houses that were built were constructed on land that was already part of the course. To say the club destroyed bushland so they could expand is totally incorrect.
You’re not the only one rather nit picking incidentals in this article; while we are somewhat disappointed that you have ignored its main messages.
Our source of the Katoomba Golf Club in fact being a 9 hole course comes from the club’s official website on its history page, which for your benefit we reproduce its text below. That history only extends up to 1923, 90 years ago. No history since is mentioned. So if yours or anyone else’s records are more accurate/subsequent than the official website, then raise this with club management.
We have received further material that relates to the bulldozing of surrounding bushland around the club since the early 1990s relating to The Escarpments townhouses development, but also the extension/creation of fairways and greens into the bush. We will publish a follow up article shortly, given the special interest.
Constructive feedback from readers is appreciated and we aim to be factual in what is published.
Thank you for your interest.
Ed.
“History
1911 The formation of the Municipal Golf Links came before Council in July.
1913 Land selected by South Katoomba Land Co. Permission sought to close certain roads for the construction of a 9 hole golf course.
1917 Approach was made to Council in May to take over the designated area. Offer was declined. Another approach was made in August and was again declined.
1918 Another approach was made in February and was declined yet again. Council finally accepted the proposal in October with ammended conditions.
1919 Council valued the land at £1500 and the transfer was made in August. The South Katoomba Land Co had expenses of £3300 for clearing and contouring the site.
1921 Interested citizens from the Municipality of Katoomba approached Council to form a Golf Club.
1922 Katoomba Golf Club was inaugrated in January with the promise by Council to back the club with £1 for every £1 raised.
1923 Council appointed a groundsman to work under the direction of the Golf Committee.
On May 5th, the Mayor of Katoomba, Alderman W.Rumble officially opened the 9 hole course.”
It is sad to say that people are nit picking when the writer’s main message are based on a faulty platform.
Whilst Katoomba Golf Club’s historian states a 9 hole course was opened in 1923, the fact that he does not document when the course became an 18 hole course does not excuse the writer from the sloppy research carried out for his/her article.
The writer bases his/her main messages on the the assumption that the course was converted to an 18 hole course in the 1990s. A little research would show how wrong this assumption is. The additional 9 holes were in place in the 1950s. (Source Documents – Katoomba Golf Club journals)
The golf club was re-developed during the early to mid 1990s. During this time some of the 9 holes were not used.
I am sure any member of Katoomba Golf Club would willingly show you the changes that were made to the course.
Could I refer you to the minutes of the Council’s Meeting held on 27 April 2012 (P62)? This will help clear up some of the faulty assumptions in the article.
We have since publication of this article received material showing that the golf course was expanded to 18 holes circa 1927. The development works commencing in the mid-1990s relate to expansion of the course acquiring 5.6 hectares of community zoned woodland alongside Narrow Neck Road in order to build 13 townhouses and a resort hotel. Also circa 2007, a fairway/green was extended into bushland near Stuarts Road.
We have now noted this as a corrigendum in the article’s text.
We have also received considerable details about the development and council involvement, which we shall collate as follow up articles.
I am pleased to see your modifications to the text as they clarify some of the issues that I saw as being clearly wrong.
The point that you raise regarding the acquisition of 5.6 hectares of community zoned land woodland surprises me. Would you be able to give me your source for this as I understood from my readings of Council documents and discussions with golf course members that existing fairways was proposed/used for the units.
I also thought that the resort was to be built on the golf course. Perhaps I am wrong there.
We shall be running subsequent articles on this issue in due course, including the background concerning The Escarpments development.
In the interim, according to our sources, you may obtain the development information from the delegated authority, Blue Mountains Council – the relevant DA being X98/0905, or X/905/198/E.
Your article continues to be misleading. It still reads as though the course was expanded to 18 holes in the 1990’s. And that is simply not true. Was any follow up article ever published on this topic?
An American elite squad of wildfire firefighters perished last Sunday 28th June 2013 while actively setting up containment barriers in front of an out-of-control wildfire front.
The 19 firefighters who tragically perrished in the blaze were members of the Prescott Fire Department’s Granite Mountain Hotshots. The fire concerned was termed the Yarnell Hill Wildfire, about 80 km northwest of the city of Phoenix, Arizona.
Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo, who sent the unit at the request of regional authorities, said he was told that one of the firefighters had radioed they were about to deploy their fire shelters, a sort of aluminum blanket that protects against the flames and heat — and a measure of last resort.
.Flawed Survival Strategy demands questions/ Class Action
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Yarnell Hill Wildfire
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Day 1
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The wildland fire is believed started by lighting at around 5:30 pm on Sunday 28th June 28, 2013 near the township of Yarnell (pop. 700) Arizona.
Medium winds at the time (up to 35 kph) whipped up the flames and pushed the fire out of control into a wildlife front through a tinder dry forest vegetation long subjected to an extended drought. By day’s end the wildfire has spread to over 2,000 acres (810 hectares).
A highest qualified, Type 1 elite squad of 19 wildfire firefighters (members of the Prescott Fire Department’s Granite Mountain Hotshots) were sent in ahead of the fire front to set up containment barriers to prevent the fire impacting the downwind township of Yardell. They were all overrun by the fire and perished. In the late afternoon, a Type 2 Incident Management Team (IMT) was in charge of the fire. A Type 2 fire-fighting team is a State-certified but has less training, staffing and experience than Type 1 IMTs, and is typically used on smaller scale national or state incidents.
Firefighting resources included 16 tank engines, eight water tenders, two crash/rescue vehicles, two structure protection vehicles, one bulldozer, one hotshot crew (that perished), seven type 2 handcrews and a camp crew.
On order were an additional four Type 2 crews, four Type 1 hotshot crews, one Very Large Airtanker (VLAT) and an air attack unit.
The nearby Arizona State Route 89 was shut down shortly after the fire started and the total evacuation of Yarnell and partial evacuation of Peeples Valley was ordered as well. Some 600 people were put under mandatory evacuation orders. An evacuation shelter was set up at Yavapai College in Prescott, with members of the Red Cross providing cots and blankets for overnight stays. Meals and medical assistance were also provided to residents.
A second evacuation shelter was set up at Wickenburg High School in nearby Wickenburg because the closure of State Route 89 made it impossible for some people to reach the first shelter. The two shelters are serving individuals, families and small animals; large animals were sheltered at the Hidden Springs Ranch in Peeples Valley.
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Day 2
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The Clay Templin’s Southwest Area Type 1 Incident Management Team assumed management of the fire. About 200 more firefighters arrived to the scorching mountains, doubling the number of firefighters battling the blaze.
By day end, half of Yarnell, about 200 to 250 homes, had been destroyed and the fire had grown to over 8,300 acres (3,360 ha).
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Day 3
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By the morning of July 2 the fire had grown another 798 acres to a total of 9,172 acres, as mapped by an infrared aircraft flight. The fire was still at zero containment. Resources included five Type 1 (hotshot) crews, seven Type 2 crews, three Type 1 (heavy) helicopters, two Type 2 (medium) helicopters, two Type 3 (light) helicopters, and 36 engines.
The fire was still completely uncontrolled, with more than 400 firefighters on the line.
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Questions of the U.S. Fire Administration
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Before the 19 deaths in Arizona, 43 firefighters had been killed so far in 2013, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. A total of 83 firefighters died last year while on duty.
This is unacceptable in 2013 in the wealthiest and most technologically advanced country on the planet.
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What is the cost-benefit of putting ANY firefighters (paid or otherwise) in the direct path of a firestorm? Benefit: nil? Cost: the ultimate cost?
What were the methods of wildfire detection used by the U.S. Fire Administration at this known high risk region under extreme wildlfire weather conditions 24/7?
Are infrared geostationary satellites in place to immediately detect wildfire ignitions in known high risk regions at known high risk weather conditions 24/7? If not, why not?
Are wildfire ignitions monitored by satellite immediately communicated to the U.S. Fire Administration and incident crews 24/7? If not, why not?
What was the elapsed time delay:
Between estimated actual ignition(s) and detection by the U.S. Fire Administration? Is this time lapse acceptable to communities vulnerable during such extreme risk conditions?
Between detection by the U.S. Fire Administration and actual onground firefighting response? Is this time lapse acceptable to communities vulnerable during such extreme risk conditions?
Between detection by the U.S. Fire Administration and airborne water dumping hitting the fire front? Two hours? Five hours?
Why was not multiple co-ordinated airborne response not immediately deployed within the first critically hour of the ignition to suppresss the fire while it was small and comparatively containable?
Would such a dedicated co-ordinated military strategy have saved the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots and the town of Yardell?
Is the massive cost of military-scale wildlife monitoring and readiness justified to avoid loss of life in future? This is a value decision for vulnerable communuties.
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In 1804, one William Clark recorded perhaps the first account of a wildland fire fatality in US history. “The Prarie was Set on fire (or cought by accident) by a young man of the Mandins, the fire went with such velocity that it burnt to death a man & woman, who Could not get to any place of Safty (sic).”Two hundred years hence, Americans have wised up some or have they?
The following article was initially published on ^CanDoBetter.net 20091218 by Tigerquoll.
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Copenhagen was a deadline without a plan.
Like Vikings, they rushed in. Too many issues, too many causes, too many delegates, too much reading, too many options and yet forced to deliver a global consensus solution in just 2 weeks!
Copenhagen’s approach ought to have been pragmatic. It needed to come down from the stratosphere in idealistic thinking to have focused on what could be the fastest means to offer the greatest reduction in greenhouse gases commencing in 2010.
Money is the obvious facilitator. The G11 response to the Global Financial Crisis ‘Mark I’ demonstrated the sheer scale of quick cash available from developed nations. Since developing nations need the cash, therein lies an obvious negotiating connector.
Try this scenario… rank countries on the basis of their aggregate carbon emissions and also carbon emissions per capita. The size of reduction responses and the amount of funding for carbon reduction programmes should be proportional on both bases. That is, the worst emitting developed nations pay more, and the worst emitting/deforesting developing nations get compensated more not to log.
Pay compensation to countries to stop deforestation is simply a matter of money and there is certainly enough of that around it seems. This should start by Christmas – calculate the forest area, calculate the compensation value, sign the agreement, developing countries contribute to a trust account, transfer the funds electronically to the host country of the forests, send in UN monitors to enforce the agreement to make sure no trees fall. If Copenhagen just did that, it would have achieve a significant inroad – 20% reduction in one year or something in that order.
News of the pledge by US based Climate Progress of US$1 billion over three years towards decreasing deforestation is an excellent outcome. The funding will go to developing countries that develop REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) programs.
But horse trading in emissions is pure problem avoidance. Perhaps a less patriarchal culture may have helped too. Perhaps less Viking patriarchal culture and perhaps a more matriarchal approach to negotiation would have achieved better. The alpha male approach has clearly failed.
‘COP15’ was also a silly name. It just meant the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference. Rather than the meaningless ‘COP15’ (‘Conference of Parties’ #15) , such a vital global forum series deserves a more accessible and meaningful name in order to better engage with ordinary folk.
Perhaps instead a better name should be ‘Greenhouse 2009’, then work towards ‘Greenhouse 2010’, ‘Greenhouse 2011’ – for each year, setting and achieving a distinct global reduction outcome by legal treaty. Such numbering and annual frequency would better convey the sense of urgency.
.This is MalaysiaDon’t holiday in Malaysia. Don’t fly Malaysian Airlines.
Toxic liquid chemicals being trucked through the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area
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The New South Wales Government decision in the late 1990s to permit 19-metre B-doubles to operate along the Great Western Highway was recognised by many informed Blue Mountains residents as the thin end of the wedge to encourage bigger and faster trucks and to extend Sydney sprawl.
Its planning minister in 2008, Frank Sartor, famously heralded:
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“Few understand how much transport influences land use patterns. Transport leads land use. Once an expressway or railway is built, it is easy to change the zoning and development laws to increase the population along the corridor.”
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~ Frank Sartor, NSW Planning Minister, Sydney Morning Herald, 20080929, p11.
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The Greater Blue Mountains is a vast forested wilderness covering over one million hectares, characterised by ancient sandstone tablelands and escarpments, ancient temperate eucalypt forest types, rainforests, heathlands and swamps containing rare and endemic flora and ecological communities. It was formally inscribed on the World Heritage List on 29 November 2000 and constitutes one of the largest and most intact tracts of protected bushland in Australia.
Along the headwaters of the Jamison Valley above Wentworth Falls, the Jamison Creek flows as a stormwater drain underneath the Great Western Highway.
On or about 7th July 2012, a large quantity of toxic pyrethrin, used as a fumigation pesticide, was dumped into the creek resulting in extermination of all aquatic wildlife downstream and into the World Heritage below. [Source: ‘Health risk posed by Wentworth Falls creek, 20120711, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/273589/health-risk-posed-by-wentworth-falls-creek/]
A year on and still no prosecution has been made against the culprit known by both the local council and the EPA. The contamination could easily have come from the overturning of one of the many trucks that ply the highway now carting toxic chemicals, nudging 90kph.
The Great Western Highway winds its way over the central plateau ridgeline of the Blue Mountains east to west from Sydney. In every respect, the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area is juxtaposed downstream of this highway.
Increasingly, the Great Western Highway is becoming dominated by larger trucks and an increasing frequency of B-Double Trucks carting sand and soil, containers, palletised freight, heavy machinery and bulk liquids. Transport companies are not delivering to the Blue Mountains; they are transiting through the Blue Mountains for destinations far beyond including Perth and Darwin.
However, local Blue Mountains supporters of this website have informed us that recently the trend is worse, with chemical tank containers now being sighted. The company transporting these bulk chemicals is Chemtrans, a subsidiary of corporate trucker, Scott Corporation, based in Sydney’s west industrial suburb of Padstow.
The tanks display hazardous warnings on the sides.
What chemicals are being trucked over the Blue Mountains anyway?
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Sulphuric Acid?
Phosphoric Acid?
Anhydrous Ammonia?
Vinyl Chloride Monimor?
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Kills Nature
How can this be? What if there is a crash and a spill?
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With substandard toxic containment infrastructure, World Heritage dies.
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The Great Western Highway is not designed to contain large flash runoff from storms, let alone contain chemical spills toxic to ecology from entering the downstream headwaters and water courses that flow from the ridgeline down into the surrounding Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
So when did the NSW Government give permission for bulk toxic chemicals to be transported through the Blue Mountains? What community consultation did the government not engage in? What legislative safety and governance restrictions were not enacted?
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She’ll Be Right, eh Barry O’Farrell?
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..Just like when in May this year, a FULLY-LADEN DOUBLE FUEL TANKERoverturned in a short, straight, three-laned section of the highway between Katoomba and Medlow Bath in the early hours of Sunday, May 12. The giant rig owned by Orange-based Ron Finemores Transport was being driven west when it veered onto the road shoulder and overturned down an embankment, coming to rest with the twin tankers upside down.
She’ll Be Right, eh Barry O’Farrell?
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The scene at Sunday morning’s truck crash near Medlow Bath. Driver fatigue is suspected as a possible cause of the smash.
[Source: Photo: Len Ashworth, Lithgow Mercury, in article ‘Lucky escape for truck driver, 20130515, by Len Ashworth, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1500162/lucky-escape-for-truck-driver/]
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The tanker overturned in bushland just upstream from the Cascade Water Catchment that stores drinking water for the region and in which fines for tresspass are $44,000.
But Ron Finemores Transport was not fined the $44,000. Why not?
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Sydney Water ‘Special Areas’ prohibit public entry in order to protect water quality.
This benefits the community by:
Protecting water quality
Protecting large areas of bushland and plant and animal habitats
Protecting threatened plants and animal species
Preserving evidence of Aboriginal occupation dating back many thousands of years, and
Preserving evidence of non-Aboriginal exploration, early settlement and phases of development such as forestry, mining and dam building.
What Next? Trucking nuclear waste through the Blue Mountains?
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Don’t put it past them. There are plans afoot to truck radioactive waste and parts of Australia’s old 1960s nuclear reactor out of Sydney under plans to clean up the Lucas Heights nuclear facility and develop a national hazardous-waste dump in the outback.
The trucks will necessarily pass by residential homes carrying a radioactive high-flux reactor’ and spent fuel rods.
The Sources of Radioactive Waste
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The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which manages the Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor, has been given $28.7 million to prepare for the move. The four-year funding package will pay for ‘pre-disposal conditioning of existing radioactive waste in preparation for long-term underground storage, including radioactive contaminated buildings and infrastructure at Lucas Heights.
Also planned to be trucked is nuclear contaminated soil waste from the former uranium smelter site at Hunters Hill.
Also planned to be trucked is spent fuel rods after they were reprocessed at a nuclear facility in France.
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The target waste disposal site is on remote Aboriginal land near Muckaty, 800 km south of Darwin (specifically 100 km north of Tennant Creek) in the Northern Territory. The most direct trucking route, some 2,387 km from Lucas Heights, is via the Great Western Highway through the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
The only other feasible trucking route is via the Pacific Highway to Newcastle and then north-west along the Golden Highway, which is unlikely because it would pass through more densely populated communities.
The Australian Government approved its Radioactive Waste Dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory under the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010, passed through the Senate on 13 March, 2012.
This was in blatant contradiction to years of resistance and opposition from from the remote and marginalised Muckaty indigenous community and supportive environmental groups. Traditonal Owners maintain that both the Northern Land Council and the Commonwealth failed to accurately identify, consult with and receive their consent and are seeking to reverse the decision.
What’s new?
Responsible radioactive waste management needs an approach based on:
Non-imposition
Community consent
Scientific and procedural rigour.
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None of the approaches was observed during the opaque transition of this proposal into law.
The Australian Government’s preferred site for Nuclear Waste is Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek,trucked from Lucas Heights, Botany and Hunters Hill through the Blue Mountains.
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In 1997, a train carrying 180 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste derailed in France. In 2004, a truck spilled strontium-90 onto Highway 95 in Roane County, Tennessee.
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She’ll be Right!
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America 2011:
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<< With the passage of Senate Bill 1504 in the Texas Senate (Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact) , radioactive waste could soon be barreling down Texas highways and through our neighborhoods by way of Interstate 10 through Houston, San Antonio and El Paso; Interstate-20 and Interstate-30 though Dallas and Forth Worth, Midland and Odessa ; and Interstate-27 though Lubbock and Amarillo.
The greatest risk we face is having an accident with vehicles containing waste. Cleanup estimates range from $100 to a billion dollars or more according to the U.S. Department of Energy, but the state of Texas has set aside only $500,000. Taxpayers would pay the rest.
And what if an accident happens next to a school, playground or hospital? Don’t we want to make sure that our local emergency responders have the training and equipment needed to handle an accident where a truck is leaking radioactive waste?
Thanks to Senator Seliger’s leadership, there have been some important protections added in, but a number of loopholes remain that dramatically increases the risk and liability assumed by Texas taxpayers. There is still a chance to close these loopholes. This bill goes to the Texas House floor next week and Texans should ask their legislators to make sure that there is an immediate thorough analysis of transportation risks, costs of cleaning up contamination from accidents or leaks, and waste capacity at the site.
As the Japanese nuclear disaster has taught us, cleaning up after radioactive waste can be a costly and dangerous process. We urge the house to make sure we have protective measures in place before an accident. >>
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[Ed: The Texas Senate Bill 1504 was made effective 9th January 2011]
‘Taxing Air : Facts & Fallacies about Climate Change’
A new book by leading environmental scientist Professor Bob Carter
and political cartoonist John Spooner, with Bill Kininmonth, Martin Feil, Stewart Franks, Bryan Leyland.
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Book released in June 2013:
<< In this accessible and beautifully produced full colour book, The Age (newspaper’s) brilliant political cartoonist John Spooner and leading environmental scientist Professor Bob Carter combine with colleagues to answer a series of critical and highly controversial questions about the politics and science of climate change.
Are human industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming?
If it is so then climate change surely is one of the great moral challenges of our time.
But is it possible that the so-called consensus science around global warming produced by lavishly funded research institutes and with its own international political lobby organization – the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – is wrong?
Could it be that the emperor has no clothes?
Climate Change AlarmismContinues to invoke taxpayer billions to be wasted without stopping the culprit, Pollution – notably worst from coal power, road traffic, petro/chemical industry, landfill into oceans…
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<< Accessible, clearly written and illustrated with simple scientific illustrations, and accompanied by Spooner’s brilliantly wry and telling cartoons, Taxing Air answers – without the spin, evasions or propaganda that pollutes most official writing on climate change – every question you have about global warming but have been too intimidated by the oppressive ‘consensus’ to ask. >>
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..Did You Know?
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• Just 8,000 years ago, there was virtually no summer sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean.
• Sea-level rise is natural, and declining in rate.
• Australian rainfall has not decreased over the last 100 years.
• A previous Australian drought lasted 69 years.
• By catchment management, the Murray-Darling Basin now contains almost 3 times as much water as it held naturally.
• Global air temperature has not increased for the last 16 years, despite an 8% increase in CO2.
• Global ocean temperature is also steady or cooling slightly.
• Australian territory absorbs up to 20 times the amount of CO2 that we emit.
• The CO2 tax will cost about $1,000/person/year; and rising.
• The result of reducing Australian CO2 emissions by 5% by 2020 will be a theoretical (and unmeasurable) cooling of between 0.0007 O and 0.00007 O C by 2100.
• No scientist can tell you whether the world will be warmer or cooler than today in 2020.
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Just a selection of the fascinating facts provided in answer to more than 100 basic questions about global warming and climate change that are covered in the book. >>
James Cook University caves in to Climate Change Evangelism and Bullying
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So much for “higher” education.
James Cook University (in Townsville, Far North Queensland, Australia) has blackballed Professor Bob Carter, not because of any flaw in his scientific reasoning, but because he speaks outside the permitted doctrine. His views on climate science do not fit with the dominant meme (or the grant applications). And then there were pesky complaints and emails from disgruntled fans of the prophets-of-doom. (Quite a drain on the office.)
They took his office a while back, then they took the title. Carter was still supervising a student, and another professor hired him for an hour a week with his own budget. It meant Carter could continue supervising and keep his library access. But that wouldn’t do. Professor Jeffrey Loughran blocked that as well. The library pass and the email was shut off on June 21. It takes an active kind of malice to be this petty.
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Professor Bob Carter
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In years to come when everyone admits that the Great Global Warming Scare was hyped, James Cook University (JCU) could have been seen as one of the rare beacons of academic honour and principle. Instead, apparently, it’s as spineless as any other bureucratic collective. The irony for James Cook University, is that Bob Carter has been working there for 31 years, and they only had to put up with him for a little bit longer in order to claim their glory (albeit post hoc) and then pretend that really they had supported him all along.
The dominant meme is collapsing, thousands of respected scientists are speaking out and skeptic blogs are storming the awards. The evidence has turned, the carbon market has sunk to junk status, and assertive daring articles are appearing in mainstream media in places they would never have been seen a few years ago, like the New York Times, and the Economist. The climate scientists themselves are admitting they don’t know why the world isn’t warming. But the man who was right about that all along is persona non-gratis.
Professor Bob Carter has been a key figure in the Global Warming debate, doing exactly what good professors ought to do, challenging paradigms, speaking internationally, writing books, newspaper articles, and being invited to give special briefings with Ministers in Parliament.
He’d started work at James Cook University in 1981 and served as Head of the Geology Department until 1998. [UPDATE: to clarify, sometime after that he retired]. Since then he’s been an honorary Adjunct Professor.
All James Cook University had to do was to approve an extension of this arrangement, giving him library and email access, at little cost to them, and he could have continued to help students and staff, provide a foil, a counterpoint, and keep alive the spirit of true scientific enquiry. (Not to mention his continued speaking, books, and influence on the National debate).
Instead every person in the chain of command tacitly, or in at least one case, actively endorsed the blackballing. Each one failed to stand for free speech and rigorous debate. In the end, James Cook University didn’t even make any effort to disguise the motive. The only reasons given were that the staff of the School of Earth and Environmental Studies had discussed the issue (without any consultation with Carter) and decided that his views on climate change did not fit well within the School’s own teaching and research activities.
Apparently it took up too much time to defend Carter against outside complaints about his public writings and lectures on climate change. (Busy executives don’t have time to say “Why don’t you ask Carter yourself?” or “We value vigorous debate here.” Presumably they are too busy practising their lines and learning the litany? )
Each of these eminent professors, no doubt, is certain that they are independent minded, tolerant of other views, and have exacting ethical standards. I gather any one of them could have risen above the lap-dog obedience to the dogma of the day.
1. Australia is the world’s #1 Developed Nation polluter
Consulting the US Energy Information Administration database (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/ ) we obtain the following information on “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” in “tonnes (t) per person per year” for Australia and other major polluters (2004 data): 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh).
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2. Germanwatch index places Australia #54 in the list of the worst polluters (#56 being worst)
Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate impact. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ), takes other parameters into account in ranking. In this ranking of 56 top CO2 emitting nations, Sweden and Germany are #1 and #2 for greenhouse responsibility, while shale-oil-rich Canada (a US ally), coal-rich Australia (a US ally), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (US-linked) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ).
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3. In 2004 Australia (0.3% world population) gave 3% total fossil fuel
Consulting the US Energy Information Administration database (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/ ), in 2004 Australia (0.3% world’s population) yielded 1.4% of world’s fossil fuel-derived CO2 (3% including coal exports). The World’s 27,043 Mt fossil fuel-derived CO2 (2004) comprised 10,850 Mt (petroleum), 5602 Mt (gas), and 10,592 Mt (coal) with the Australia breakdown being 810 Mt (total), 117 Mt (petroleum), 52 Mt (gas), 217 Mt (coal, domestic), 424 Mt (coal exports).
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4. Australia world’s largest coal exporter (30% total world coal exports)
From Australian Coal Association (see: http://www.australiancoal.com.au/exports.htm ) Australia maintained its position as the world’s largest coal exporter with exports of 233 Mt in 2005-06 ($A24.5 billion) or 30% of the world total (777 Mt) (M, G, T = million, billion, trillion).
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5. Australia produces about 6% of world hard coal (black coal)
From World Coal Institute (see:
http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=188 ) total World: hard coal consumption 5339 Mt (2006); coal production 5370 Mt (2006); World brown coal 914 Mt ; Australia 309 Mt hard coal (5.8% of World production; used for thermal electricity and as coking coal for steel production).
Australian brown coal production for 2005/06 was 67.7 Mt (valued at $849 million) – all was from Victoria and used to generate electricity. Australia has about 24% of World recoverable brown coal and is ranked first. However, Australia produces about 8% of the World’s brown coal and is ranked fifth largest producer after Germany (22%), Russia (10%), USA (9%) and Greece (8%).
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7. Australian coal reserves
Australia has about 77 billion tonnes of coal resources
Carbon (C, atomic weight 12) to carbon dioxide (CO2, molecular weight 44 ) conversion involves a stoichiometry of 12 g C -> 44 g CO2 i.e. 1 g C to 3.7 g CO2. 1 g coal yields about 1.9 g CO2 (depends on coal type). Thus the US Energy Information Agency estimates World total CO2 from energy-related coal burning at 12,898 Mt in 2008 (see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/environment_faqs.asp#source_by_fuel ) and the World Coal Institute estimates 2008 coal production at 5,845 Mt hard coal and 951 Mt brown coal/lignite (see: http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/ ), this yielding 12,898 Mt CO2/6,796 Mt coal = 1.9 Mt CO2/Mt coal, the specific values for different kinds of coal being 2.85 Mt CO2/Mt coal (anthracite), 2.47 Mt CO2/Mt coal (bituminous), 1.86 Mt CO2/Mt coal (sub-bituminous) and 1.40 Mt CO2/Mt coal (lignite, brown coal) (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html ). In a coal-fired power station 0.327 kg coal yields 1 kWh (kilowatt hour) of energy.
Greenlivingpedia (see: http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Australian_coal_exports ) estimates that in 2008 Australia exported 288 Mt CO2/120 Mt thermal coal (2.4 Mt/Mt thermal coal) and 238 Mt CO2/140 Mt coking coal ( 1.7 Mt CO2/Mt coking coal) for an average value of 526 Mt CO2/260 Mt coal (and an average value of 2.0 Mt CO2/Mt coalexported from Australia).
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A further estimate comes from 12,064 Mr CO2 from coal in 2006 (see US EIA: http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html ) and World production of 6779 million short tons of coal (6779 x 0.9072 = 6,150 Mt of coal) in 2006 (see US EIA: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb1114.html ) – 12,064 Mt CO2 /6,150 Mt coal = 1.96 or about 2.0 Mt CO2 per Mt coal (this includes brown coal and low quality sub-bituminous coal in the denominator and would thus would underestimate the CO2 from the burning of exported Australian coal).
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9. Australia gets 77% of its electricity from coal, 92% from fossil fuels
According ot the Australian Uranium Association (see: http://www.uic.com.au/nip37.htm ) electricity generation in Australia involves about 51 billion W (51 GW) capacity; the price varies during the day etc at about 4 c /kWh; in 2006 Australia’s power stations produced 255 billion kilowatt hours (trillion Wh = TWh) of electricity; the energy source breakdown was 92.2% Carbon-based (black coal 54.8% , brown coal 21.9%, oil 1.3%, gas 14.2%, hydro 6.8%. and renewables 1%; 77% is coal-based electricity.
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10. The true cost of coal energy is 4 times the market cost (Ontario Government study) – 4,860 Australians killed by coal annually @ $1.6 million each?
In Ontario (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836) the cost/kWh jumped from $0.04 to $0.164 with environmental and human impacts added; pollution from coal plants producing 27 TWh/year (20% of supply) kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12.2 million) suggesting coal plants producing 77% of Australia’s annual 255 TWh of electricity (see: http://www.uic.com.au/nip37.htm) i.e. 0.77 x 255 = 196.4 TWh/year might kill about 196.4 TWh x 668/27 TWh = 4,859 people annually in Australia (population 21 million); in Australia 255 bn kWh x $0.04/kWh = $10.2 bn; 0.77 (coal-based) x $10.2 bn = $7.85 billion; $7.85 bn /4,859 deaths i.e. Australian electricity consumers pay for electricity @$1.6 million per fellow Australian killed by coal. >>
<< Over the past 10 years black coal exports have increased by more than 50%.
Japan takes 39.3% of Australia’s black coal exports – the largest share, with a total of 115.3 million tonnes exported last financial year.
China is our second largest market with 42.4 million tonnes in 2009-2010, almost double the previous year.
The Republic of Korea accounts for 40.7 million tonnes, India for 31.92 million tonnes and Taiwan for 26.53 million tonnes, rounding out the top five destinations for coal from Australia.
Together these five countries accounted for 88% of all black coal exports with a further 28 countries taking the remaining 12%.
Demand for coal in China and India is expected to increase dramatically over the next decade in line with these countries’ projected need for coal for energy and manufacturing.
Australia was the only one of the world’s 33 advanced economies to grow in 2009 during the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
The principal reason for this was our continued coal exports. The importance of coal in the economy is also evident in its growing share of Gross Domestic Product.
This share has more than doubled, from 1.7 % in 2006-07 to 3.5 % in 2008-09, making it the largest contributor to the mining sector.
In 2011, Australia’s thermal coal exports grew by four %, relative to 2010, to total 148 million tonnes. Projections for 2012 see an increase of 10% in 2012 to 162 million tonnes, then growing at an average annual rate of 11 % between 2013 and 2017, to total 271 million tonnes by the end of the period.
Australia’s exports of metallurgical coal are forecast to increase at an average annual rate of eight %, reaching 218 million tonnes in 2017, with total earnings forecast at $40 billion in current Australian dollars..
Looking to purchase coal?
Please contact our members for further information. >>
Miranda GibsonTree-sitting for 457 days in defence of Tasmanian ancient forests
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The World Heritage Committee meeting in Phnom Penh today has just approved a 170,000 hectare extension of Tasmania’s world heritage wilderness, taking in the wild eucalypt forests fringing its eastern boundary.
The 21 nation committee accepted the nomination without dissent, despite a recommendation from an advisory body to refer the case back to Australia for more work on the extension’s cultural values.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature had been making repeated recommendations in support of protecting these forests.
Committee members Germany, Malaysia, India, Serbia, Albania and Estonia all spoke in strong support of the extension.
Old growth native forests in the Upper Florentine, the Styx, Huon, Picton and Counsel River Valley have been afforded the highest level of environmental protection, World Heritage Listing!
The decision today by the World Heritage Committee to approve the extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is testament to the power of the community, after decades of action to defend these forests.
The Observer Tree and the forest surrounding it as well as the site of Camp Florentine blockade are now World Heritage listed.
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Miranda GibsonHolds the world record for Tree Sit activism in her personal defence of Tasmanian ancient forests
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Miranda Gibson (Still Wild Still Threatened):
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<< “On December 14th 2011 I climbed to the top of a tree in a threatened forest and said I would stay until the forest was protected. That forest is now World Heritage. It is thanks to the support from people right around the world that the forest is still standing and is now protected.
For 14 months I watched over the forest every day with the hope that we, as a community, could defend those trees for future generations. Today, for that forest, we have achieved that” said Ms Gibson.
Today I think of the wedge tailed eagle that I watched fly above my tree, whose habitat was once under threat and is now protected and of the Tasmanian devils who lived in the forest 60 meters below my platform who can now raise their young in peace.”
Today we celebrate the protection of some of Tasmania’s most significant forests including the Tyenna, Weld and Upper Florentine. For six years the Upper Florentine Valley has been defended by Tasmania’s longest running forest blockade. This forest is still standing because the community took action and halted logging to protect the values of this ecosystem, that are now officially World Heritage. This Sunday the community will return to site of Camp Florentine to celebrate our success in ensuring these forests will be standing for future generations.”
“Thousands of people across the globe have been part of this global movement to protect Tasmania’s ancient forests as World Heritage. Right around the world people today are celebrating the power of community action and what we have achieved for Tasmania’s forests.” >>
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Actively defending Tasmania’s ancient forests since before 2009
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Australia’s Environment Minister Tony Burke:
“If you look at the Styx in particular, there are trees that are the length of a football field going straight up. This decision today means those extraordinary giants of the forest are added to the World Heritage list. For the first time the listing happened through negotiations with the forestry industry and conservation movement, rather than by politicians drawing arbitrary boundaries. That provides a path forward for Tasmania different to the conflict model that those opposite are completely wedded to.”
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Jenny Webber (Huon Valley Environment Centre, Tasmania):
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“After eleven years of campaigning for the globally significant forests of the Weld, Middle Huon and wild forests in the Esperance and Far South (in Tasmania) we have achieved an awesome milestone here…
Today, thousands of hectares of contiguous tall eucalyptus wild forests, endangered species habitat, wild rivers and ancient karst systems have finally had their globally significant values recognised. This is the first time Huon Valley Environment Centre has witnessed the protection of forests.”
We have walked thousands of people through these forests, stood on the front-line to defend them as they have been wantonly destroyed with large scale logging and burning. At last, some of these forests have been saved, and we thank the artists, activists and community members who have participated in our campaign all this time.
This is truly the people’s achievement. For decades people have struggled to protect these particular forests and finally we can say, despite shortsighted and wasteful governments, inept land resource management and failed efforts to undermine and marginalise conservationists, we did it!”
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Campaigners for TasmaniaMiranda Gibson, Jenny Weber and Jasmine Wills
(and many dedicated people behind the scenes)
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.The special spirit of Tasmania, its people, its island
Bushfire ends Miranda Gibson’s record 457 day tree protest near Hobart
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Anti-treelogging activist, Miranda Gibson in the Styx ValleyPicture: Miranda Gibson
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A deliberately lit bushfire by loggers has ensured an activist’s record tree-sitting protest has gone up in smoke.
The fire in the Styx Valley, about 100km north-west of Hobart, has ended Miranda Gibson’s epic tree sit-in, which lasted 457 days.
The 31-year-old has been living at the top of a 60 metre eucalypt tree since December 2011 in a bid to stop logging in high conservation value forests. She has been urging the federal government to seek world heritage listing for the Styx Valley, the Florentine and Weld forests.
When she got down, she said that her campaign will continue – for the short term at least – on the ground.
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Miranda Gibson has spent a year up a tree.
“I’ll be assessing the situation as it goes in terms of the fire risk and in terms of the campaign and what I can effectively achieve on the ground or in the tree,” she told AAP.
“As time goes on I’ll be able to make a decision about how I approach that.”
An emotional Ms Gibson abseiled to the ground to be embraced by former Greens leader Bob Brown.
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Miranda Gibson had vowed to stay up the tree until the Tasmanian forest is protected from logging.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re our hero of the forests.”
Since taking up residence on a platform suspended at the top of a 400-year-old eucalyptus tree, she has blogged about the experience, on Observer Tree.
Ms Gibson’s campaign has attracted worldwide attention, with the former teacher appearing on news shows around the world.
She’s also used satellite technology to speak at a number of environmental conferences and acted as a spokeswoman for the Still Wild Still Threatened conservation group.
Ms Gibson broke the record for the longest Australian tree-sit last July, topping the 208 days Manfred Stephens spent atop a tree near Cairns in 1995.
Isolation and solitude were the biggest challenges she faced in living in a tree, as well as coping with Tasmania’s harsh winter weather.
One of the hardest things was the uncertainty about how long she would be in the tree.
Common Wombat
(Vombatus ursinus)
A legally protected native animal throughout Australia
[Source: Healesville Sanctuary, Victoria, Zoos Victoria,
^http://www.zoo.org.au/healesville/animals/wombat]
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June 2013:
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Tragically, a native Wombat has been deliberately poisoned this month in Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains, and so the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is appealing for information from the local community.
Ranger Neil Stone of the NPWS Blue Mountains Region:
“A Wombat was recently found at Mount Wilson village (population 220), suffering from what a local veterinarian thinks was poisoning and sadly the animal had to be euthanized.
“Wombats become unpopular with landholders when they damage fences and infrastructure or trample on gardens. But there are methods, including installing Wombat Gates, that enable Wombats to pass through properties without damaging them.”
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An example of a purpose-built Wombat Gate
If one can afford property at exclusive Mount Wilson with average prices currently $750,000 [^Source]
then one can afford to contribute a few purpose-built Wombat Gates across their property,
constructed by wildlife experts who know what they are doing!
[Photo Source: Rocklily Wildlife Refuge, Taralga, NSW, ^ http://rocklilywombats.com/blog/rocklily-history/]
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NPWS Ranger Neil Stone:
“Wombats are extremely strong and determined, constructing their burrows (often under homes) to escape from the heat and to hide from predators (typically domestic and feral dogs nowadays). The burrows can be up to 30 metres long which can cause conflict between Wombats and humans.”
“Wombats and all other native animals are protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 and Regulations and it is illegal to harm them without a licence. There are fines and possible imprisonment for people found to have intentionally harmed native wildlife.”
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[Source: ‘Not so divine: Wombat dies in suspected poisoning’, 20130612, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper (print only), p.15]
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Wildlife Poisoning is Animal Harm
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Wombats being mammals are sentient animals, meaning that they feel emotion and pain. An animal is ‘sentient‘ if it is capable of being aware of its surroundings, its relationships with other animals and humans, and of sensations in its own body, including pain, hunger, heat or cold.
Individuals who harm animals including the harming of wildlife such as by poisoning, tend to harbour a personality disorder. Statistically, animal abusers are five times more likely to go on to commit violent crimes against people.
Deviant behaviors like animal abuse generally originate from a traumatic childhood. The American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty as one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.
The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) defines conduct disorder as “a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age appropriate societal norms or rules are violated.” Conduct disorder is found in those who abuse animals and abuse people.
Clinical evidence indicates that animal cruelty is one of the symptoms usually seen at the earliest stages of conduct disorder, often by the age of eight. This information has only recently been included in the DSM so some psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers are just now becoming aware of it. Many psychological, sociological and criminology studies in recent decades have clearly shown that violent offenders have adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty.
Director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia, Jason Baker, has said, “We believe that cruelty to animals is not inherent, but learned. That being said, teaching kindness and respect for animals – in our schools and homes – will foster empathy, the ability to understand what someone else feels.” He added, “Incorporating the simple concepts of kindness and respect into our daily lives and teaching our children to respect and protect even the smallest and most despised among us will help kids value one another.”
The link between animal abuse and interpersonal violence is becoming so well established that many U.S. communities now cross-train social-service and animal-control agencies in how to recognize signs of animal abuse as possible indicators of other abusive behaviors. >>
Martin Bryant as a teenager nursing a juvenile Wombat
Bryant reportedly tortured animals as a child.
In 1996, at age 29 Bryant murdered 35 people and injured 21 others
at Port Arthur Tasmania
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Penalties in NSW for Harming protected Fauna
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Sect 98 ‘Harming protected fauna, other than threatened species, endangered populations or endangered ecological communities’
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(Ed: i.e. Wombats)
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(1) In this section, protected fauna does not include threatened interstate fauna, threatened species, endangered populations, endangered ecological communities, or locally unprotected fauna under section 96.
(2) A person shall not:
(a) harm any protected fauna, or (a1) harm for sporting or recreational purposes game birds that are locally unprotected fauna, or
(b) use any substance, animal, firearm, explosive, net, trap, hunting device or instrument or means whatever for the purpose of harming any protected fauna.
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Maximum penalty:
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(a) 100 penalty units and, in a case where protected fauna is harmed an additional 10 penalty units in respect of each animal that is harmed, or
(b) imprisonment for 6 months, or both. >>
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Note: As at 2013, 1 penalty unit in NSW equates to $110. So 100 +10 penalty units incurs a fine of $12,100 per protected Wombat harmed [Calculation: (100 + 10) x $110]
It is likely that Mount Wilson’s Wombat was poisoned by an ignorant and frustrated local landholder. He is one of just a few hundred residents living at remote Mount Wilson village, and probably he is some arrogant newcomer with no respect for the natural environment or its resident wildlife who were there first. It is extremely rare for a female to commit wildlife poisoning.
The perpetrator is likely to be someone holding an Anglicised mindset toward rural property, desiring the exotic deciduous garden and with a phobia towards the natural Australian bush. Whereas the more established residents tend to be respectful towards the special environment in which they live and have become more accommodating towards the place’s resident wildlife.
Mount Wilson lies in a remote forested wilderness region of the Blue Mountains
And the native Wombats have lived there thousands of years before
Colonial DeforestationHousing DevelopmentAnglicised Garden Romanticism
[Source: Google Earth]
(click image to enlarge)
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Mount Wilson Best described as a remote hilltop residential hamlet Situated on an ancient volcanic hill Since the 1870s, logged, burned and settled by English colonists amongst the ‘Wombat Holes’
[Source: Google Earth]
(click image to enlarge)
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Hillcrest Lane (right), Mount Wilson
[Source: Google Maps, 2013]
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Mount Wilson before the Anglicising
[Source: Mt Wilson/Mt Irvine Historical Society, ^http://www.mtwilson.com.au/]
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Consistent with the profile of the typical member of the Game Council NSW, the perpetrator is likely to be a middle-aged or older male Babyboomer approaching 65, having an anthropocentric worldview of Nature, and an evangelistic belief that economic growth and personal wealth accumulation is a right – Wombats being collateral damage in rural housing development.
Mount Wilson bushland
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The perpetrator has not yet been confirmed, and anyone with information about this harmful offence is asked to contact the closest NPWS base at the Blue Mountains Heritage Centre in nearby Blackheath.
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NPWS Blue Mountains Heritage Centre
Located towards the eastern end of Govetts Leap Road
outside the nearby township of Blackheath
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The ‘Common‘ Wombat?
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The Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) is also known as the Coarse-Haired Wombat or Bare-Nosed Wombat. In the case of the Bare-Nosed Wombat, this reference to its nose, distinguishes it from its other two subspecies, the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) and the endangered Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii).
The ‘Common Wombat‘ is a nocturnal marsupial native to south eastern Australia and is found in small sections of southeast tip of Queensland, eastern New South Wales, eastern and southern Victoria, and south-east South Australia. They are common throughout Tasmania and also on Flinders Island in Bass Strait.
The head of the Common Wombat is more rounded than that of the hairy-nosed subspecies. Their short ears are triangular and slightly rounded. Their nose is large, shiny black and furless. Their fur is coarser, thicker and longer than that of the Hairy-nosed Wombats, better suited to a colder, wetter habitat. Fur colour varies from sandy to brownish black or even grey, sometimes flecked.
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Bare-Nosed Wombat
a more respectful naming than ‘Common’
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Wombats have short legs, and the second and third toes of the hind feet are fused, with a double claw used in grooming. Wombats are solid and stocky, with short legs and tail. Their front legs and shoulders are powerful. Their front feet are large, with bear-like long claws. They use their front legs for digging burrows. The dirt is pushed to one side and the Wombat backs out, moving loose dirt with front or back paws. It grows to an average of 98 cm long and up to a healthy weight of 26 kg.
Wombats are stilll classed as ‘least concern’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (on the IUCN ‘red list’). [Ed: So were the Koala and Tasmanian Devil until recently].
At Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria, more than 2,000 sick and injured native animals treated each year including Wombats at its Australian Wildlife Health Centre.
Situated on Badgers Creek
A place of inspiration to this Editor,
when visited as a child.
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Although Wombats have been named by European Australians as the ‘Common Wombat‘, their numbers and their existence value does not translate to anyone treating them as commonplace.
Common Wombats were once widespread from south-eastern Queensland, through NSW along the Great Dividing Range and most of Victoria. Now they have a fragmented distribution in NSW, being most abundant in the south-eastern parts of the state. Remaining populations are under continued pressure from land clearing, road mortality, disease and illegal shooting. These pressures may be acute for some local populations.
While the word ‘Wombat’ is derived from the Aboriginal name for the animal, ‘common’ was added at a time when these animals were plentiful and the Australian bush landscape relatively less destroyed by colonial settlement. Wombats were likened to European Badgers by the early colonists.
We prefer the more respectful name, ‘Bare-Nosed Wombat‘.
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In 2010, university student Nikki Selles, from the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Western Sydney, undertook a field fauna study on Wombats in the Mt Wilson and Mt Irvine area. Due to the behaviour of slow moving, ground-dwelling Wombats being sensibly shy and noctural, Selles used camera-trap data to identify their habitat and distribution in the urban-bush interface.
Results ought to be obtainable from the university.
While the Bare-Nosed Wombat is not yet threatened with extinction, the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat is endangered. This is mainly due to overgrazing by sheep and cattle destorying their fragile semi-arid habitat across more central Australia, as well as the culture of broadscale hazard reduction and uncontrolled bushfires.
Mount Wilson also provides vital native habitat for fauna species that are recognised as endangered. These include the Sooty Owl (Tyto tenebricosa), the Eastern Bent Wing Bat (Miniopterus schreibersii oceanensis), the Large eared pied bat (Chalinolobus dwyeri), Little John’s Tree Frog (Litoria littlejohni), and the Eastern False Pipistrelle (Falsistrellus tasmaniensis).
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Living with Resident Wombats
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Wombats are locally territorial, like HumansTry to relocate them, and they will stubbornly resist – even after repeated flood, drought, bushfire and earthquakeAsk any Human who has endured such tempest.
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<<Wombats are an iconic part of the protected fauna of NSW. They are extremely strong and determined animals.
They can build their burrows under Human-introduced houses, driveways and cattle stock routes. This may cause Humans inconvenience and conflict between Wombats and non-Indigenous Humans.
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But Newcomer Humans need to respect that Wombats were there first.
Who likes Invasion or Displacement?
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Human-Wombat conflicts can be respectfully resolved and accommodated by wisdom – by learning about the behaviour of Wombats and understanding their habitat needs.
The Bare-Nosed Wombat is the species most frequently found in NSW. They prefer temperate forested areas of the coast, ranges and western slopes. Slopes above creeks and gullies are favoured sites for burrows and they like to feed in grassy clearings, including farm paddocks.
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Wombat Habitat Needs
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Wombats construct burrows to escape the heat and hide from predators. They prefer areas where it is easy for them to dig. The burrows can be up to 30 metres long and several metres deep and are usually situated above creeks and gullies and may have multiple entrances. Active burrows are often characterised by fresh cube-shaped droppings and scratch marks as well as freshly dug soil at the burrow entrance. Wombats will often build more than one burrow within their home range of 5 to 25 hectares.
Wombats are mostly solitary animals, but overlapping home ranges can occasionally result in a number of Wombats using the same burrow. Wombats are possessive about their particular feeding grounds and they will mark out these areas by leaving scent trails and droppings. These markings are prominently placed on rocks and logs around the boundaries. If an intruding Wombat encroaches on another’s territory it will be discouraged through a series of snorts and screeches and at times physical aggression.
Breeding occurs year-round with each female typically producing one young. In some areas, however, Wombats are seasonal breeders and may have dependent young in burrows from April to June. Young Wombats take up to 21 months to reach full independence and two years to become sexually mature.
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Wombat Behaviour
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Wombats become unpopular with landholders when they damage fences and infrastructure or trample upon gardens. Undetected burrows can be a hazard to livestock as they may trip or fall into burrows and injure themselves.
Many of the problems caused by Wombats can be resolved with some patience and innovation. Landholders willing to share their property with Wombats may find that there are simple solutions to most problems. For example, a post or small strand fence can be used to mark burrows in paddocks or driveways to keep stock away from burrow entrances.
Wombats use the same trails to get to and from their preferred feeding areas. Instead of going around an obstacle, such as a fence, a determined Wombat will try to go through, or under it instead. Installing purpose-built ‘Wombat Gates’ at known Wombat breech points along a fence will allow them to pass through a fence without damaging it. The fence needs to continue to exclude other animals such as wallabies, rabbits and foxes.
Removing the lowest fencing wire (15 cm above ground level) will also allow Wombats to move through an area without damaging the fence. This is a much cheaper option than excluding them completely.
Check first with a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
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Excluding wombats from Rural Property
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It is possible to exclude Wombats from continuing to use a burrow that is under a building but this requires intervention by a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
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Increasing Native Vegetation
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Wombats prefer to burrow in areas of vegetation and rocky debris. Land clearing has forced Wombats to build burrows along creeks and drainage lines where vegetation still exists. Wombats are also often incorrectly blamed for causing erosion, which is more likely due to poor land management practices.
Planting trees and revegetating areas away from creeks can play a vital role in reducing Wombat burrowing activity along creek beds. Retaining existing trees, logs and rocks, and establishing new areas of native vegetation encourages Wombats to construct burrows in less fragile areas and reduces the risk of erosion.
Check first with a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
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Trapping or Relocating Wombats Prohibited
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The trapping and relocation of Wombats is prohibited and attracts heavy fines.
Wombats are territorial animals and if relocated, they are likely to be harassed or even killed by resident Wombats. Wombats are classified as protected fauna under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
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Can I bulldoze or infill a Wombat burrow?
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No! Only inactive Wombat burrows may be destroyed, but each one needs to be first validated by a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
Bulldozing an active burrow can lead to wombats being buried alive and suffering a slow and painful death. Even if you have located an apparently vacant burrow, you must not fill it in without confirming that it is inactive. Burrow activity can be confirmed by placing sticks across each entrance and checking (every day for at least a week) if these are disturbed.
Remember that if you think you have an inactive burrow, check first with a Certified National Parks Wildlife Ranger.
contact your local National Parks office for expert verification before any action.
<< In Australia native animals are “the property of the Crown”. This means that no-one owns wombats, they can’t be kept as pets and to do anything with them you have to be licensed by government departments.
Government Departments do little to protect or help wombats. Most research and all welfare (rescuing injured wombats, raising the joeys of mothers killed in collisions with vehicles, removing wombats from unsuitable places) is undertaken by voluntary organizations. While penalties exist if someone is found to hurt or kill a wombat, the same government departments charged with wombat care issue permits to farmers to cull wombats. Sadly, there is often no check whether this is necessary, whether it is done humanely or any insistence that alternative options be employed before issuing such permits.
On the other hand although penalties exist for the illegal killing of wombats, such killing occurs every night where on a farms they are shot, buried alive and gassed and on the highways of Australia vehicles indiscriminately drive directly at wombats without penalty. Live joeys left in their dead mother’s pouches die slowly and a lack of public education means few Australians understand how to rescue a joey still living after its mother falls victim to road kill. >>
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The Crown
Disinterested in protecting Australian wildlife
The kangaroo and emu images are but token symbolism
<<The Wombat Foundation is a charitable organisation set up to support activities that aim to bring the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat back from the brink of extinction.
The Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat is one of the world’s most endangered species – it is more endangered that the Panda.
In the 1980s, there were as few as 35 wombats remaining on the planet – all at Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland. A second population was established at Richard Underwood Nature Refuge in southern Queensland in 2009. At last count, in 2010, there were a total of 176 wombats across the two sites. Since then, the population has continued to grow: in 2012, the combined population at the two sites was estimated at 200 wombats. >>
<<We are a charity established to help save the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) from extinction.
The wombat is an Aussie icon but few people are aware of the peril these gorgeous little animals face: drought, floods, climate change, disease, vehicular incidents and culling – both legal and illegal. It’s not rocket science to see these animals are in trouble but thanks to the work of WAO volunteers, there is hope!
Currently, the wombats are being affected by an unidentified disease outbreak. The visual symptoms are hair loss and emaciation, internally the wombats are anemic and in some cases there is liver damage and heart disease. The direct cause is unknown however it is suspected that due to an increase in weeds there is a decrease in food availability therefore the wombats are forced to eat what they can most of which unfortunately is toxic. >>
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[7] WIRES
NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service Inc.
<<This website is about Rocklily Wildlife Refuge, and a few other wildlife carers we know in Australia too. Providing a safe place for our native flora and fauna and the various wildlife projects we are undertaking can be an expensive business, so we sell reasonably priced, quality Australian-made gifts and artisan products to raise money for our wildlife projects.
..This website has come about with our move to Rocklily Wildlife Refuge: a safe place for wild native animals just inside the SW border of the Greater Blue Mountains National Park, and within the locked gate of the Sydney Water Catchment. >>
<<Healesville Sanctuary, or the Sir Colin MacKenzie Fauna Park, is a zoo specializing in native Australian animals. It is located at Healesville in rural Victoria, Australia (east of Melbourne), and has a rare history of successfully breeding Australia’s native animals.
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[9] People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
‘The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness’, 20120707, by Philip Low, Paper presented at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-Human Animals, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, England, ^http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
<< In 2012, an international group of eminent neuroscientists signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which confirmed that many animals, including all mammals and birds, possess the “neurological substrates that generate consciousness.” >>
Ed: This article was submitted by E. R. Bendall 20130614.
Likewise, we encourage genuine environmentalists to contact us at The Habitat Advocate about submitting articles to us concerning impacts and threats upon wildlife and wildlife habitat.
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Ed: Exploitative 19th C timbergetters still prevail across New South WalesThey kill and steal the last Old Growth trees.They deny endangered wildlife the last fragmented vestiges of temperate forest habitatAcross New South Wales, they are the Forestry Corporation of NSWAnd their Forest Annihilation is being funded by state taxpayers.
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<<Several large tree specimens, remnants from a time long past, remain standing in New South Wales, Australia.
They are often trees that were spared from logging due to being of a shape not suitable or impractical to remove. They are often surrounded by secondary forest that is State owned and is still being logged.
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The magnificent Blue Gum (Eucalyptus saligna)These native trees can reach up to 65 metres (213 feet) in height
Valued and protected in the Myall Lakes NP, but logged for flooring in the nearby Myall River State Forest
(click image to enlarge)
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Due to the destructive and unsightly nature of logging in native forests, incentives given to the public by the State to visit them are often not exciting, their facilities rudimentary and their roads difficult to navigate and/or impassable. The general public is blissfully unaware of what happens in NSW State Forests.
It is not an accident that our most valuable timber and productive forests are not protected and are located adjacent to our National Parks, giving the illusion that something has been done to conserve nature.
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“I’m not sure if NSW Forestry (Corporation) gives licences to contractors to log areas, but I would say it’s possible given that they ran over their own signage (Myall River State Forest).
It is a state owned ‘State Forest’ squashed between a section of Myall Lakes National Park and Ghin Doo-Ee National Park, about 40 mins drive (north east) from (the township of) Bulahdelah. Easily accessible with a 4WD along Cabbage Tree Road, although the other entrances to the area from the west and north are impossible due to missing bridges/road, etc.”
~ E. R. Bendall
.Bulahdelah Location Map
(Click image to enlarge)
[Source: Google Maps]
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While Australians point the finger at our overseas neighbours over the logging of their ancient forests, time slips by and nobody notices what is happening in our own backyard.
Each day we lose another piece of our Primary Forest (less than 8% of pre-European level remains), yet no one in an office block thinks twice about the printing of that paper or where it may have come from.
Where exactly does it come from?
Ask yourself that question in every regard and every aspect of your life. Don’t ignore anything.
Are you willing to go out there and have a look for yourself what is happening in our own bush?
The Wild still exists! >>
.Myall River State Forest currently being logged Bulahdelah NSW
A continuous canopy 50-75m high, 400-500 year old eucalyptus trees, with dense rainforest understorey, critical habitat for the Tiger Quoll and the Sooty Owl,
in the process of being stripped and logged, with nearly all remaining trees marked for logging (2012).
Katoomba Golf Club this week has been placed into administration – about time!
[Photo by Editor, 20130507, Photo © under ^Creative Commons]
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Juxtaposition of the Katoomba Golf Club (light green coloured fairways) replacing virgin habitat across the escarpment; all so that a few retiring Baby Boomer men can selfishly play golf at the expense of Ecology.
[Source: Google Earth, 2013]
Native bushland along the Blue Mountains escarpment slashed and woodchipped to expand the Katoomba Golf Club out to 18 holes
[Editor’s Corrigendum: The construction instead related to building 13 townhouses and a resort hotel]
[Photo by Editor, 20071110, Photo © under ^Creative Commons]
Native bushland bulldozed to make way for golfing townhouses adjacent to the Katoomba Golf Club
Erosion and sediment run-off has been rife for years
[Photo by Editor, 20071110, Photo © under ^Creative Commons]
White Elephant golfing townhouses adjacent to the Katoomba Golf Club that have since stood vacant for years
<< It’s big, blue and beautiful! Blue Mountains National Park is located just 60 kilometres west of Sydney. It is unique in it’s history, its wildlife and world famous scenery…includes the Grose Wilderness, dedicated for its wild unspoilt natural beauty. At Katoomba see the Three Sisters and Katoomba Falls… 300 kilometres of heritage walking tracks and hundreds of lookouts, most within easy reach of a string of train stations. It’s a wilderness made easy to get to! >>
Escarpment Karma?
Yet over 50 hectares of vital escarpment habitat has been lost
to a Baby Boomer selfish pastime.
Photo Illustration: Jeff Huang
An example of a purpose-built Wombat Gate
If one can afford property at exclusive Mount Wilson with average prices currently $750,000 [^
Get your facts straight. Katoomba Golf Club has been 18 holes for nearly 100 years. The houses that were built were constructed on land that was already part of the course. To say the club destroyed bushland so they could expand is totally incorrect.
Jim,
You’re not the only one rather nit picking incidentals in this article; while we are somewhat disappointed that you have ignored its main messages.
Our source of the Katoomba Golf Club in fact being a 9 hole course comes from the club’s official website on its history page, which for your benefit we reproduce its text below. That history only extends up to 1923, 90 years ago. No history since is mentioned. So if yours or anyone else’s records are more accurate/subsequent than the official website, then raise this with club management.
We have received further material that relates to the bulldozing of surrounding bushland around the club since the early 1990s relating to The Escarpments townhouses development, but also the extension/creation of fairways and greens into the bush. We will publish a follow up article shortly, given the special interest.
Constructive feedback from readers is appreciated and we aim to be factual in what is published.
Thank you for your interest.
Ed.
“History
1911 The formation of the Municipal Golf Links came before Council in July.
1913 Land selected by South Katoomba Land Co. Permission sought to close certain roads for the construction of a 9 hole golf course.
1917 Approach was made to Council in May to take over the designated area. Offer was declined. Another approach was made in August and was again declined.
1918 Another approach was made in February and was declined yet again. Council finally accepted the proposal in October with ammended conditions.
1919 Council valued the land at £1500 and the transfer was made in August. The South Katoomba Land Co had expenses of £3300 for clearing and contouring the site.
1921 Interested citizens from the Municipality of Katoomba approached Council to form a Golf Club.
1922 Katoomba Golf Club was inaugrated in January with the promise by Council to back the club with £1 for every £1 raised.
1923 Council appointed a groundsman to work under the direction of the Golf Committee.
On May 5th, the Mayor of Katoomba, Alderman W.Rumble officially opened the 9 hole course.”
[Source: http://www.katoombagolf.com.au/members/history/%5D
It is sad to say that people are nit picking when the writer’s main message are based on a faulty platform.
Whilst Katoomba Golf Club’s historian states a 9 hole course was opened in 1923, the fact that he does not document when the course became an 18 hole course does not excuse the writer from the sloppy research carried out for his/her article.
The writer bases his/her main messages on the the assumption that the course was converted to an 18 hole course in the 1990s. A little research would show how wrong this assumption is. The additional 9 holes were in place in the 1950s. (Source Documents – Katoomba Golf Club journals)
The golf club was re-developed during the early to mid 1990s. During this time some of the 9 holes were not used.
I am sure any member of Katoomba Golf Club would willingly show you the changes that were made to the course.
Could I refer you to the minutes of the Council’s Meeting held on 27 April 2012 (P62)? This will help clear up some of the faulty assumptions in the article.
John and Jim,
We have since publication of this article received material showing that the golf course was expanded to 18 holes circa 1927. The development works commencing in the mid-1990s relate to expansion of the course acquiring 5.6 hectares of community zoned woodland alongside Narrow Neck Road in order to build 13 townhouses and a resort hotel. Also circa 2007, a fairway/green was extended into bushland near Stuarts Road.
We have now noted this as a corrigendum in the article’s text.
We have also received considerable details about the development and council involvement, which we shall collate as follow up articles.
Ed.
Hi
Ed.
I am pleased to see your modifications to the text as they clarify some of the issues that I saw as being clearly wrong.
The point that you raise regarding the acquisition of 5.6 hectares of community zoned land woodland surprises me. Would you be able to give me your source for this as I understood from my readings of Council documents and discussions with golf course members that existing fairways was proposed/used for the units.
I also thought that the resort was to be built on the golf course. Perhaps I am wrong there.
Thanks
John C.
Hello John,
We shall be running subsequent articles on this issue in due course, including the background concerning The Escarpments development.
In the interim, according to our sources, you may obtain the development information from the delegated authority, Blue Mountains Council – the relevant DA being X98/0905, or X/905/198/E.
Ed.
Your article continues to be misleading. It still reads as though the course was expanded to 18 holes in the 1990’s. And that is simply not true. Was any follow up article ever published on this topic?
We have all the history of the dodgy deals over the years between council and the developer. It will be published in its entirety in due course.