Forestry is logging, just as ‘forest rape’ is

September 24th, 2011

‘Leave No Trace’.. is an internationally-accepted way of minimising impacts on the places we visit, no matter how we choose to experience them. Applying the principles of Leave No Trace can help ensure the protection of Tasmania’s irreplaceable wilderness and heritage for the future.’

~ Leave No Trace Australia [^http://www.lnt.org.au/programs/7-principles.html]

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‘And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter’.

– Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV

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‘As you visit this special country, please take care to Leave No Trace!’

(Click this image, then allow the music to play, while you scroll through this article)

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‘Outdoor Ethics’?… do unto Nature as you would have Nature do unto you.

Recognise that loud supercilious tourists attract local repulsion, like raw sewage being pumped into a community’s drinking water.

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Then there is the Logging World…

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“I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to log except through me.”

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A “logger” logs
I am that “logger”
Therefore I log
Therefore I am.

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Logging Canada

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Logging British Columbia

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Logging Oregon ~ that’s a ‘single rider’

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Logging Tasmania like there’s no tomorrow..and they were right

Logging Borneo

~ a rearward perspective

(click to enlarge)

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Logging more of Borneo

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Logging Gabon, west African rainforest

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Get out of my bloody way!

It’s logging season and they could change the laws next week!

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Quality Control in Tasmanian Logging

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Triabunna’s Forest Death Camp

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Burnie’s Forest Death Camp

Woodchip Town

~ home of loggers…twenty eight generations at least!

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‘Ta Ann’: Forestry Tasmania’s Malaysian Veneer

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Desperate to find new buyers to justify logging Tasmanian native forests, Forestry Tasmania has sought its Malaysian Solution. The propaganda was that ‘the mills will process regrowth logs only’ and will create local jobs. But after investing tens of millions in two veneer mills, Malaysian logger, ‘Ta Ann’ is now pressuring the government to give them access to Tasmanian native forests to feed the mill monsters. So it was all a veneer of truth.

It all screams of the 1916 ‘Zinc Bargain‘ when the Tasmanian government approved a hydro bulk power contract for the Amalgamated Zinc smelter. By the 1930s, the smelter was swallowing up 3/4 of the Hydro Electric Departments electricity output. Dodgy government deals for big foreign corporates to exploit Tasmania’s native forests. Indeed, Newood mill in Huon built by John Holland the Huon Wood Centre Infrastructure

John Holland has reached practical completion of the stage 2 infrastructure works on the Huon wood centre site required the installation by Transend of a 110kV transmission spur to divert hydro-electrical power from Castle Forbes Bay to power Ta Ann’s Huon mill. .

‘In 2005, Forestry Tasmania was successful in securing the commitment of the Malaysian-based timber company, the Ta Ann Group, to develop two rotary veneer peeling mills in Tasmania at a cost of $65 million. The mills will process regrowth logs only [ed: famous last words] and are to be located ‘in the forest.’

“A rotary veneer mill is an efficient means of adding value to short logs that are not useable for higher-value purposes such as sawmilling,” ~ Bob Gordon (Managing Director of Forestry Tasmania)

In 2007, the first of the mills opened in the Huon district and the second, at Smithton in the North West is currently under construction. When fully operational, the two mills are expected to employ 120 Tasmanians. [ye ol’ jobs lure]

Now many regrowth logs that were previously classified as pulpwood are suitable for the manufacture of rotary veneer for construction grade products. Through Forestry Tasmania’s partnership with Ta Ann, up to 25% of wood that was previously chipped is now ‘peeled’ here in Tasmania for higher value veneer production.’ [Source: ^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/regional-dev]

Politicians froth at the prospect of launching anything in front of the media

..here Tasmanian then Premier David Bartlett launching ‘the veneer’ of the Veneer Mill in Smithton in 2008 – ‘plantations only’

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‘The company expects the mill will employ 50 people once it reaches full production. Construction on the $35 million rotary peel mill began in April and last month the company exported its first shipment of veneer to Malaysia.
Today’s symbolic opening was attended by the mill’s Malaysian backers, including the Ta Ann Chairman Datuk Hamed Sapawi, who says Tasmanian eucalypt veneer is particularly well regarded on international markets.

Ta Ann’s first Tasmanian mill in the state’s south began production last year, with the Smithton mill bringing the company’s total investment in Tasmania to $70 million.
Mr Bartlett says the two mills add significant value to timber that would have otherwise been exported as wood chips.’

[Source: ‘Veneer mill officially online’, ABC, 20081128, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-11-28/veneer-mill-officially-online/222334]

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Logging Mogul, Abdul Hamed Sepawi

Malaysian millionnaire boss man and logger pay master – owner of multinational logger ‘Ta Ann’

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Sepawi started Ta Ann as a trading firm and now it’s a timber conglomerate with more than 3,000 employees. Ta Ann invests in property development through listed Naim Holdings, which he chairs. Petrol giant Petronas awarded a Ta Ann subsidiary and partner a $780 million deal late last year to build an oil and gas terminal in Kimanis on Borneo.’

But ‘Australian activists are wondering how the Ta Ann Group managed to develop powerful political links in Tasmania. The multi-million-dollar Sarawakian business concern, Ta Ann Group, has managed to secure a grant from the Australian government to invest in a wood veneering factory in Tasmania. Astonished observers and environmentalists, however, are wondering why the Australian government would pay the Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud-linked company to strip their forest?

Ta Ann is run by Taib’s cousin and well-known proxy, Hamid Sepawi. Sepawi owns a third of the company. According to the Green Party, thus far no satisfactory answer has been provided.

When the project was awarded to Ta Ann, it was with the hope that it would breathe life into a struggling industry.

Ta Ann, when it opened the project, promised that the project would would rely on plantation forests and not extract wood from Tasmania’s remaining high conservation value forests.

Stihl logged – Tasmanian Native Forests

“Tasmanian eucalypt veneer is particularly well regarded on international markets” ~ Sapawi.

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Tasmania’s primary jungle has been classified as “high conservation value forests”. But recent developments have revealed otherwise. Ta Ann is now pressuring the government to give them access to primary jungle because the quality of plantation wood is not sufficient for their factory and they are demanding hardwood from the jungle.

Environmental group Huon Valley Environment Centre’ spokesman Jenny Weber said the Tasmanian government and Ta Ann were locked in logging the native Tasmanian forests.

“The Tasmanian government and Ta Ann are locking in the logging of native forests to meet a wood supply contract till 2027.

“High conservation value forests are being lost to feed Ta Ann’s mill, when they should be in a moratorium now,” she said.

Protests met with contempt

Weber and several activists yesterday boarded a Ta Ann boat laden with wood taken from Tasmania’s primary jungle. They climbed to the top of the boat’s crane tower and chained themselves to it in a bid to draw attention to Ta Ann’s greedy plunder of their own forest.

The protesters are not alone in their anti-logging stance. There has been similar protests and actions like this one in the past, especially in the port areas. These protests have been met with strong-armed tactics and contempt by the authorities.

Earlier this year, the Tasmanian Port Authority announced a 50-metre exclusion zone around all vessels exporting wood chip and veneer. The move is seen as an attempt to prevent protests from holding up Ta Ann’s exports.

There is an overwhelming view among Australians that all logging of primary jungles should be stopped.

Much curiosity has risen as to how this Taib-linked company managed to develop such powerful political links in Tasmania, which is considered to be Australia’s remotest region.

The latest campaign in Tasmania against Ta Ann is a sign of the developing international awareness of Taib and how his greedy pacts with timber tycoons has stripped the Sarawak forest bare.

He and his cronies have spread their tentacles abroad, engaging in plunder across the world’s few remaining areas of virgin jungle.

Tasmania is developing a strong movement to prevent that from happening in its region.

Tasmanian environmentalists now join a legion of other activists across the globe who are against the logging of the world’s remaining forests and the injustices meted out to the indigenous communities in Sarawak and elsewhere.

[Source: ‘Why’s Australia ‘paying’ Taib-linked group?‘, 20110719, by Clare Rewcastle Brown, founder/editor of Sarawak Report,^http://hornbillunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/20969/]

[^http://www.huon.org/]

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Forestry Tasmania’s Chinese Solution

Tasmania’s Weedy Sea Dragon

… appropriated for Chinese gain over Tasmania and Tasmanians ~ wake up!

‘Forestry Tasmania is always seeking new markets for the Tasmanian forest industry.For example, it has established a new brand in China to promote ‘sustainably harvested‘ Tasmanian peeler logs. Eu Jia Li, (translation: strong and beautiful) is already well respected and it is hoped that it will become a vehicle for a robust trading relationship between Tasmania and China. The Tasmanian weedy sea dragon has been chosen as the brand logo because, like eucalypts, it is indigenous to Tasmania and in Chinese culture, the dragon represents strength and power…for China!

How appropriate a logo! Like Tasmania’s high conservation value native forests, Tasmania’s seadragons have become scarce and are under continual threat from poaching and pollution. The only reason the sea dragon is respected in Chinese culture is because it is killed for backward and superstitious Traditional Chinese Medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine prescribes seahorses are prescribed from ailments such as asthma, arteosclerosis, dizziness, joint pain, impotence and incontinence. Dried sea horses are consumed for virility.

What is wrong with Viagra? Seadragons in Australia are officially protected by the Federal Government of Australia, but try telling Forestry Tasmania that!

Here’s a logo to send back to the Chinese loggers!

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Forestry Tasmania’s ‘Biomass’ Solution

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Here’s the greenwash spin for biomass by Forestry Tasmania:

‘As governments around the world grapple with global warming, attention is turning to an age old solution – biomass.

Biomass – essentially organic material such as wood from forests or waste material like cattle dung – is one of the oldest sources of energy and is now undergoing a revival as countries look for alternatives to fossil fuels.

The world’s leading countries in renewable energy production, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the United States and others in Europe are using forest waste in particular to generate electricity.

Forestry Tasmania has been planning for a biomass plant in the south of the state for at least five years. When it developed the investment ready site at Southwood in the Huon Valley, Forestry Tasmania set aside an area for a biomass plant, to generate renewable energy from forestry debris that would otherwise be burnt.

Using our international contacts, we are seeking investors for this exciting project. If successful, we will not only produce more electricity for the state, but reduce greenhouse gases and the amount of smoke generated by forest fires.’

[Source: Press Release: ‘Biomass – a new form of renewable energy’, Forestry Tasmania, ^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/regional-dev, retrieved 20110924]

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But the historical veneer is that once the furnaces are built, like the veneer mills, the multinationals will pressure the Tasmanian government for more fuel and native forests will become fodder for yet another Forestry scheme. Forestry Tasmania knows this and will argue its age old justification of jobs, job, jobs.

Like all great loggers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

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[2] ‘Weedy Sea Dragon Protection – 12 April 2011’

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‘I want to talk this evening about an interesting marine species known as the weedy sea dragon. It is a charismatic mesofauna that members might be interested to know about! Importantly, it is endemic only to southern Australian waters. It is protected everywhere else in Australia from being taken. When I was involved in marine and coastal conservation, particularly with the establishment of the Cottesloe marine protected area, it came to my attention because weedy sea dragons have been seen in that area. One of the reasons for creating that fish habitat–protected area was to encourage that species, amongst others, to thrive in the area and to protect them from recreational activities. They are greatly admired by scuba and snorkel divers because they are very interesting animals to watch. The fact that they are protected elsewhere in Australia actually means that they are inadvertently more likely to be taken here in Western Australia, making them even more vulnerable. The Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 lists weedy sea dragons as a nationally threatened species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists weedy sea dragons as near-threatened species because of human impacts on the inshore habitat. They are vulnerable because of deteriorating conditions in the inshore habitat, but they are also vulnerable in other ways.

Australia is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The aim of CITES is to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. In 2002, all seahorse species—the weedy sea dragon is part of the same family—were CITES listed because of concerns over unsustainable exploitation. Members may be aware that they are highly sought after in the Chinese medicine market. There is international concern about how vulnerable this species is. Western Australia, however, still sells them and allows recreational fishers to take threatened weedy sea dragons. Unpublished genetic studies have been carried out on weedy sea dragons, and show that weedy sea dragons west of the Great Australian Bight are actually a separate species, warranting a new name and, in fact, making them even more special. The ones on our side of the southern part of Australia are genetically separate.

The number of weedy sea dragons collected by marine aquarium fishers has decreased in recent years but we are concerned that this may indicate that the population has substantially decreased. We cannot find out from the Department of Fisheries how many there are. It is interesting that collectors want to collect pregnant males for the aquarium industry. Pregnant males are especially sought after under the marine aquarium fishery licences because it is extremely rare for weedy sea dragons to breed in captivity. The fry born from captured pregnant males will sometimes survive in specialist aquaria.

There is great demand for weedies for aquariums, particularly from Sydney and several overseas countries. It is of concern that there are no population figures available for weedy sea dragons and no monitoring is done. Currently, WA has a recreational bag limit of 30 per day. That is of great concern. Weedy sea dragons are sparsely distributed and have very small territories. In fact, they are very territorial. Despite their cryptic nature, some experienced hunters can still find them. A lot of dive operators will not show people where weedy sea dragons are because they are worried that they will come back later and take them for the aquarium trade.

Interestingly, weedy sea dragons are monogamous. If a pregnant male is captured, the female may never breed again. Also, they are very poor swimmers, have specific dietary needs and have a low fecundity. It is a wonder they survive at all. Once these weedy sea dragons are protected, dive and snorkel businesses can develop around them, especially in country WA. As I say, dive operators are presently nervous about showing visitors any animals they find as there have been instances of people returning and collecting them after a guided dive. Owners of the Seahorse Sanctuary in Kalbarri, which members may be aware of, say there is a black market in syngnathids, which is the generic name for this family of animals. This is detrimental to their business. They breed seahorses, not weedy sea dragons. The breeding of seahorses can be done in captivity, but weedy sea dragons do not breed in captivity. Millions of seahorses are traded each year for the Chinese traditional medicine trade. As seahorses are disappearing worldwide because of over-collection, conservationists fear that sea dragons will be targeted for this very lucrative trade. This reason was cited by the South Australian fisheries minister, Rory McEwen, when he announced protected species status for seahorses, pipe fish and weedy sea dragons in South Australia. That was back in February 2006.

Most people are no longer comfortable with creatures being in cages and bowls, especially when they die. This is the case with weedies in the domestic aquaria trade. Weedy sea dragons have become an iconic species, certainly in terms of the conservation sector and dive operators. My concern is that we do not know the population numbers of weedy sea dragons in Western Australia. We have received some conflicting figures from the Department of Fisheries on the estimated population. Weedy sea dragons are vulnerable to changes in their nearshore environment. They are also vulnerable in Western Australia because the taking of them is banned elsewhere in Australia. Therefore, those who have licences to take them in WA have an incentive to do so. What I am saying to the Minister for Fisheries—I am sure he will take note of this—is that there is a very strong case for weedy sea dragons to have protected status in Western Australia as well. I argue that the number of weedy sea dragons taken by the aquarium trade is so low that it is not a substantial economic trade. If we do not know how many of these animals are left, but they have been identified as being under threat, now is the time to prohibit the taking of them. It is much easier to monitor and police a protection order of that nature than to have some system of trying to control and monitor the number taken. That is a very good argument. People value seeing these animals, particularly in the marine protected areas in the metropolitan area, because they are quite extraordinary. It is really important that the minister says that there should be no more taking of these animals. That would be a great bonus for this iconic species that is dearly loved by not just conservationists but also people who enjoy recreational diving.’

[Source: ‘Weedy Sea Dragon Protection‘, Giz Watson MLC (Western Australia), 20110412, ^http://www.giz-watson.net/2011/http:/www.giz-watson.net/2011/archives/2011/04/19/weedy-sea-dragon-protection-12-april-2011/]

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Last Tree Standing

‘Exploitation of the foreground.
Identifying the wasteland.

The closest friend.
Promises to the end.

Everyone else is gone.
All possibilities, equal to none?

On one leg, standing.
An insight was landing.’

~ Henrik Malmborg.

[Source: ^http://www.redbubble.com/people/malmborgphoto/art/6969815-last-tree-standing]

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Tags: a single rider, Amalgamated Zinc, forest death camp, forest rape, Forestry Tasmania, Huon Wood Centre, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to log except through me, I log therefore I am, Last Tree Standing, Leave No Trace, logging Borneo, logging Canada, logging Gabon, logging Oregon, logging Tasmania, logging trucks, logging veneer, Newood, outdoor ethics, Smithton Veneer Mill, southwoodresources, Stairway to Heaven, Ta Ann Group, Tasmanian logging, Triabunna, veneer of truth, Woodchipping Tasmania, Zinc Bargain 1916
Posted in Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats to Wild Tasmania | No Comments »

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Stihl woodchipping Tasmania’s Western Front

September 22nd, 2011

Like a skin-burned landscape flaking, Tasmania’s disappearing wild forests are revealed on Google Maps. The 19th Century colonial timber-getting landscape around Hamilton in the lighter treeless region on the right of the image. In 2011 the colonial mentality pervades in burnt clearfelled coupes on the left side of the satellite image below. Tasmania’s tall Eucalypt forests and the ecosystems they support face a denuded Hamilton vision or at best a sterile silviculture.

Fourth generation Tasmanian loggers knowing no better, mindlessly scarring their rich timbered homeland for a pittance to feed the profits of multinationals, and knowingly deny their children the endless Tasmanian forests they knew as children. It is Thylacene Bigotry repeated down generations.

Satellite Map of Tasmania showing vast areas of clearfelled native forest scars.

(Click photo to enlarge)

(Simply go to Google and type in Tasmania Map in Google and zoom in)

The culprit, Forestry Tasmania (FT), has made it a cliche to hide its destruction from public roads, but can no longer hide from Google Maps.

Zooming in on the massive scaring of the Florentine Forest.

(click to enlarge image)

(Google Maps)

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Zooming in on the massive scaring of the Styx Valley Forest.

(Google Maps)

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‘This charred scene of forest devastation here in Southern Tasmania stands as a stark symbol of the industrial scale logging operations that are ripping apart Australia’s native forests every single day. Harvey Norman needs to stand up, show some genuine environmental leadership and stop selling native forest products to the Australian people’ said Ms Majewski. [^http://www.thelaststand.org.au/]

[Source: ‘Massive banner unfurled in Tasmania drawing attention to Harvey Norman forest destruction’, by anonymous 20010811, ^http://indymedia.org.au/2011/08/15/massive-banner-unfurled-in-tasmania-drawing-attention-to-harvey-norman-forest-destruction. Watch Video]

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So where does Harvey Norman’s EKO Wood ‘Jatoba’ come from?…

Jatobá (Hymenaea courbaril)

A tall rainforest hardwood tree common to the Caribbean, Central, and South America.

It is killed for hardwood furniture and flooring.

Go to hell Harvey Norman, go!

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The bastards are clear-felling Tasmania’s majestic Styx Valley in 2011!

Do they hate Tasmania that much?

(Source: ^http://www.thelaststand.org.au/)

(Photo: R. Blakers)

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Tools of the trade for Forestry Tasmania – Industrial Forestry Bondage – a CAT 553 fellerbuncher-

But then machines are more efficient than people, and unlike selective logging, with contract woodchipping you don’t have to think ~ ‘its all good’.

Shit Money. Shit Future. Pulping Tasmania’s Heritage so that Jap’s can sell their paper back to us mugs.

(click to enlarge photo)

Husqvarna – ‘taming the wild’ and selling their last chainsaws to a dying culture

– like the Japs killing dolphins at Taijin.

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Stihl Chainsawing Tasmania’s Western Front

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A FT holocaust survivor

(‘Holocaust’ comes from the Greek, holos meaning ‘completely’ and kaustos ‘burnt’

~ to burn away, leaving no trace of what was previously there. (A. Krien, 2010, p.122)

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Tags: CAT 553 Fellerbuncher, EKO Wood, Forestry Tasmania, FT, Google Maps Tasmania Map, Harvey Norman, Husqvarna, Hymenaea courbaril, Industrial Forestry Bondage, Jatoba, Rob Blakers Photography, Stihl, Styx Valley, taming the wild, Tasmania's tall Eucalypt forests, Tasmania's Western Front, The Last Stand, Thylacene Bigotry, Upper Florentine Forest, woodchipping - it's all good, Woodchipping Tasmania
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Lake Pedder – the victim of an ignorant time

September 17th, 2011

Play music, then click back to this site, zoom in to make the photos larger and scroll through this article and appreciate the magic of what was Lake Pedder.

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The pristine glacial lake it once was.

The jewel of Tasmania’s primeval sacred ecology.

Lake Pedder

(Photo by Olegas Truchanas (1923-1972)

This photo currently appropriated on the website of Tasmanian Resource Planning and Development Commission,

which as the ‘Hydro-Electric Commission’ flooded the lake in 1972 and which oddly uses the word ‘justice’ in its web address.

^http://soer.justice.tas.gov.au/2003/image/544/index.php

New Book Release:

‘Pedder Dreaming: Olegas Truchanas and a lost Tasmanian Wilderness’

‘In 1972 Lake Pedder in Tasmania’s untamed south-west was flooded to build a dam.

Wilderness photographer Olegas Truchanas, who had spent years campaigning passionately to save the magnificent fresh water lake, had finally lost.

The campaign, the first of its kind in Australia, paved the way for later conservation successes, and turned Truchanas into a Tasmanian legend. Pedder Dreaming quietly evokes the man, the time and the place.

Truchanas, a Lithuanian émigré, is a stalwart adventurer, loving family man, activist, thinker, survivor and artist. Australia on the cusp of environmental awareness is the time, and Lake Pedder and the south-west of Tasmania, the place – wild, pristine, wondrous.

Through those who were closest to him, Truchanas emerges, as does his influence on early conservation in Tasmania, and the small group of landscape artists, the Sunday Group, who admired his passion for the lake and were inspired by it. Stunningly illustrated with original Truchanas photographs from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, and artwork from the Sunday Group, Pedder Dreaming captures the brutality, raw beauty and vulnerability of the Tasmanian wilderness and the legacy of one man who had the vision to fight for it.’

What we destroyed… Olegas Truchanas’ children playing in Lake Pedder in Tasmania’s Southwest in 1971. Less that 12 months later it was flooded.

In 1974 the head of the Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, Edward St John QC would famously claim “The day will come when our children will undo what we so foolishly have done.”

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Fake Pedder ~ today’s drowned lake

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About Olegas Truchanas

Olegas Truchanas, a Lithuanian born in 1923, emigrated to Tasmania after World War II, during which he fought with the Lithuanian resistance and spent time in displaced persons’ camps in Allied-occupied Germany.
From the 1950s, Olegas photographed Tasmania’s remote south-west wilderness, frequently travelling solo and risking his life in order to do so. He also met and married a Tasmanian, Melva, and together they built a house and had three children.

Through his photography, Olegas established a salon-style connection with a circle of Tasmanian photographers and watercolour painters known as the Sunday Group, and he worked with them to save a remote glacial lake with pale pink sands – Lake Pedder – from inundation by a hydroelectric scheme.

This was Australia’s “first globally noticed environmental battle, and later produced the world’s “first greens party. The campaign failed and the lake was lost. Soon afer, in early 1972, Olegas drowned while on a photographic expedition to one of Tasmania’s wildest rivers.

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Remembering Lake Pedder

Play two rare videos of Lake Pedder by ABC Television just before the flooding:

Turn up your computer volume, then click one image at a time.

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‘What Lake Pedder taught me’

by Brian Holden, 20081023, ^http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8057&page=2

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‘It has gone, and after thousands of years of being, I was one of the last to absorb its magnificence. I still find it hard to believe that I was so fortunate. Lake Pedder February 1972 has become my dreamtime. It was for me a feeling of timelessness and a feeling of being in the type of place we were all meant to be.’

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What Lake Pedder taught me

‘Boneheaded politicians will only do what we let them get away with. One of our crown jewels was able to be destroyed for almost no gain because the public at large have become alien to the planet. It is normal to consume and pollute. It is normal to be stressed and in a spiritual void. We are lemmings racing towards the cliff edge – and there can be no turning back.’

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‘Hydro Past Constrains Future’

by Peter Fagan, 20091027, Tasmanian Times newspaper, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/professor-west-reminds-tasmania-that-hydro-past-constrains-future/

‘Whatever else Tasmanians agree or disagree with in Professor West’s report, they should be grateful for this timely reminder that hydro-industrialisation continues to impose heavy costs on their state. In dollar terms alone, the sale of electricity to these industrial users below cost and way below potential value is costing the State Government up to $220 million in revenue every year.

If two-thirds of Tasmania’s annual electricity generation was to be freed up for purposes other than powering these old and highly energy-intensive plants, a range of options and opportunities would be available.

For example:

A great deal more of the hydro electricity generated could be sold at peak times and peak tariffs via Basslink to mainland Australia
Electricity production could be reduced whenever the hydro storage reservoirs were depleted by drought, restoring some degree of energy security to the system
The ability of the hydro system to make electricity availabile instantly could enable integration of substantially more eco-friendly wind power into the Tasmanian and national grids – if this one isn’t clear to you the problem space is outlined in these Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_power_source

The most intriguing possibility that gaining control of its electrical energy resource would afford Tasmania is the opportunity to revisit the restoration of Lake Pedder. Draining all or part of the Huon-Serpentine impoundment (the “new” Lake Pedder) need cost less than 20% of the electricity generation capacity of the Middle Gordon Scheme.

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Restoration of the Lake would bring enormous benefits to Tasmania

Remember – less than 60 air miles from Hobart, one of the natural wonders of the world lies under less than 40 feet of water. It is submerged in a massive diversion pond (NOT a storage) whose sole purpose is to transfer water to a hydro power station, two thirds of whose output is gifted, below cost and way below potential value, to old-tech secondary industry.

Professor West’s recommendation serves to remind Tasmanians that what had become the political, social, economic and environmental nightmare of hydro-industrialisation did not end when the High Court ruled out the construction of the Gordon-below Franklin dam in July 1983. More than 25 years later, Tasmania – Australia’s poorest state – a rich island full of relatively poor people – continues to bleed revenue and incur household and business energy costs, social costs, environmental costs and opportunity costs resulting from the excesses of hydro-industrialisation.’

The case for restoration of Lake Pedder and a wealth of other resources are available from the Lake Pedder Restoration Committee web site: www.lakepedder.org

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‘Lake Pedder: the beginning of a movement’

by Natasha Simons, Green Left, 19920930, ^http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/2943

‘On September 8, 1972, Brenda Hean and Max Price, members of the Lake Pedder Action Group, waved goodbye to friends and relatives as their Tiger Moth plane taxied down the airstrip just outside Hobart. Their mission was to fly to Canberra and skywrite the message “Save Lake Pedder” to the federal government in an effort to stop the flooding of the lake. They have been missing ever since.

Twenty years ago the campaign to save Lake Pedder was lost, but its lessons were well learned by the new green movement. The fight to save Lake Pedder laid the foundations for the overwhelming success of the Franklin “no dams!” campaign in the early 1980s, and it inspired many environmental activists — some of whom, such as Bob Brown, hold seats in Parliament today.

Lake Pedder, in Tasmania’s wild south-west, is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful regions in the world. By 1946 Pedder had become a base for expeditions into all parts of the south-west. In 1955, 24 000 hectares were set aside as the Lake Pedder National Park. Bushwalkers, tourists and nature lovers came from afar to experience the beauty of Lake Pedder.

In 1967 the Hydro-Electric Commission proposed to build a power scheme in the Middle Gordon. This meant that Lake Pedder would be drowned by the damming of the Huon and Serpentine Rivers, which lay to the east and west of the lake.

In May 1967, the proposal was tabled in the state parliament. There was an immediate public outcry. Lake Pedder supporters began a petition to stop the proposal and collected 10,000 signatures, the largest number that had ever been collected in Tasmania. As the pressure mounted, the Labor government of “Electric Eric” Reece was forced to establish a select committee to determine the viability of the HEC proposal, and to look at alternatives.

However, the committee merely rubber-stamped the proposal. Two days later, on August 24, 1967, the enabling legislation was passed. Then the campaign to save Lake Pedder really began.

In 1969 the Reece government lost office in the wake of public discontent over the issue and the new government, a coalition of the Liberal and Centre parties headed by Angus Bethune, found itself in a difficult situation.

In March 1971 Brenda Hean and Louis Shoobridge, two prominent campaigners for Lake Pedder, organised a public meeting which packed the Hobart Town Hall.

Public opinion on the issue had polarised.

The public meeting proposed to call a referendum on the issue, but the “Shoobridge proposal”, as it became known, was defeated by a government wholeheartedly backing the HEC.

The grassroots activists refused to give up. They formed the Lake Pedder Action Group (LPAG), which took the issue to the federal government. As a result, Prime Minister William McMahon directed his unsympathetic environment minister, Peter Howsden, to raise an alternative scheme with Bethune. The Tasmanian premier responded with a resounding “No”.

Just as it seemed things were lost, the Bethune government was forced to the polls, and the environmentalists seized the opportunity. Again a public meeting was called in the Hobart Town Hall. Out of it the first green party, the United Tasmania Group (UTG), was formed. The UTG fielded candidates, among them Brenda Hean, with very diverse backgrounds but who were united in their desire to save Lake Pedder from the HEC.

The UTG polled well and, despite HEC attempts to discredit the campaign, Lake Pedder gained international attention, including support from organisations such as UNESCO. On July 24, 1972, 17,500 signatures reached the new premier, and the LPAG mounted a national campaign.

A few days before Brenda Hean and Max Price set off for Canberra, Hean had received an anonymous phone call from someone pressuring her to give up the campaign or “go for a swim”. The plane hangar was found to have been broken into and the safety beacon, normally stored on the plane, had been removed. There was never a proper inquiry into the case and no wreckage was ever found.

The Pedder campaigners now put their hopes on the newly elected federal Labor government, which mounted a federal-state inquiry. The Tasmanian government refused to participate, but the committee in June 1973 reported the area was too important to destroy. The inquiry recommended a moratorium on flooding so that the feasibility of saving the lake could be addressed. It adopted LPAG’s recommendations to pay the costs of the moratorium and any costs of modifying the scheme to save the lake. The weary LPAG activists could sense victory.

But the premier ignored the inquiry and gave the HEC the go-ahead. In March 1973 the vigil camp to save wildlife threatened by the rising waters was abandoned, and Lake Pedder was drowned. Tasmanian environmentalists had suffered their first great defeat.

In 1979, the HEC released details of another proposal, this time to flood the Franklin River, one of the last great wilderness areas in the world. This time it was met by a much tougher, more unified and stronger opposition.

The Franklin activists, headed by figures like Bob Brown, had learned how to run a campaign. They didn’t only argue that the Franklin should be saved, as the Pedder campaigners had done; they also presented a range of alternative and well thought-out proposals to the HEC. They gained national and international support for their campaign and employed direct action tactics as well. The Franklin was one of the biggest actions of civil disobedience the country had ever witnessed, with 1217 people arrested.

The Franklin blockade polarised the community on the West Coast. The issue tore the Tasmanian ALP apart, and it has never fully recovered from the blow.

The Franklin campaign was won, and in 1986 Bob Brown was elected to state parliament on a wave of green consciousness. Three years later, during which time the campaign for Wesley Vale was fought and won, he was joined by four other Green Independents.

“The failure of Lake Pedder was needed in a way”, says Green Independent Christine Milne, “to allow the fights for the Franklin and Wesley Vale to succeed. When the lake went under, there was a wide sense of guilt that made people feel they would never again allow that to happen without doing something.”

The momentum built up during the Lake Pedder and Franklin campaigns has been lost to the green movement in recent times. The electoral strategy of some sections has changed the focus from mobilising people to making changes through parliament. Lobbying the ALP has also proven largely ineffective for, while the federal Labor government has espoused green rhetoric, it has for the most part ignored environmental issues.

The recession has pushed the issue of living standards and jobs to the forefront. Big business, the government and the media all counterpose jobs to saving the environment, trying to drive a wedge between environmental and social justice issues.

The creation of jobs and defence of living standards need to be at the forefront of the green agenda, with the emphasis on environmentally sustainable jobs. By taking up more of the social justice agenda, the green movement may link up with others fighting for social change and revive the grassroots activity that can challenge the powers that be.’

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Tags: Brenda Hean, Eric Reece, fake pedder, green movement, HEC, Hydro-Electric Commission, Lake Pedder, Lake Pedder Action Group (LPAG), Lake Pedder Restoration Committee, Louis Shoobridge, Middle Gordon Scheme, Olegas Truchanas, Pedder Dreaming, Tasmania, the jewel of Tasmania's sacred primeval ecology, the victim of an ignorant time
Posted in 04. + Ecological Jurisprudence, 32 Ecosystem Rehabilitation!, Tasmania (AU), Threats from Hydro and Dams, Threats to Wild Tasmania | Comments Off on Lake Pedder – the victim of an ignorant time

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Ted Baillieu commissioning wildlife murder?

September 15th, 2011

The following article was published on CanDoBetter.net today (20110915) by wildlife ecologist and biologist, Hans Brunner, under the title: ‘A planned slaughter of endangered wildlife’

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The Victorian Government plans to drop 1080 poison bait from an aircraft into forests could result in the extinction of the already critically endangered Spotted-tailed Quoll.

The purpose of this antiquated and vandalistic method is to poison wild dogs. Why is the Victorian Government using old, dangerous methods? This is like re-introducing the use of DDT. It is now a double disaster; all Ted Baillieu has to do now is to aerial bait to kill wild dogs in order to protect the cattle he allowed to go back into the mountains! Spot-tailed quolls and other dasyurids are meat eaters as well as some species of possums, reptiles, bandicoots and birds. They would be all at a serious risk of being poisoned. Further more, most of this bait would be wasted because of the dogs not being able to find them and this is where non-target animals will rather find and eat them. Baits have therefore to be placed only in places which dogs frequently use, along forest tracks.

More effective methods

There is a well researched and efficient method for the poisoning of wild dogs and foxes. It is a target specific bait station system which is successfully used throughout Victoria. Bait stations are placed along forest tracks where activities of dogs are observed.
A bait station consists of a mound of soil about 20 cm high and one meter in diameter. An un poisoned bait (free feed) is buried in the center of the mound about 10cm deep with some SFE lure placed on top. When the bait has been dug up and eaten, a check is made, with some experience, to assess whether a dog or fox took the bait. If satisfied that a target species took the bait it can be replaced with a poison bait. If it appears that a quoll or an other non-target animal may have taken the free feed bait, continue free feeding that station to keep the quoll and others away from a poison station (about 2 km away) or eliminate that station.

This is the only responsible way to poison dogs and foxes. Even better, it will be of great benefit to not only the quolls by removing the competition by dogs and foxes of their natural prey species, but also for the survival of Kangaroos, wallabies, bandicoots, possums, echidnas etc.

Biologist’s experience of alternatives

I have researched and tested this system in 700 square km of forest between Gembrook and Neerim and found it most effective and efficient. I have also introduced it in NSW National Parks where it was recognized as “The dog baiting stations proposed by Hans are the best practical suggestion to date. With the implementation of the bait stations, properly maintained and serviced at the appropriate times, there would appear to be NO reason to allow the continued use of aerial baiting” and, “Poisoning using the buried bait technique is still proving extremely target specific, with dogs and foxes being the only species killed”.

Do it the right way and wildlife return

Barbara Triggs, an eminent naturalist stated after poisoning wild dogs and foxes and using the bait station system on her property in Croajingolong National Park, East Gippsland:

“At no time has there been any evidence that a bait has been taken by a non-target animal. In the past year the numbers of native animals seen on the property have increased startlingly. The Red-necked Wallabies, who’s group was here in low numbers, have increased markedly from five individuals to now at least fourteen. The most surprising increase has been in the population of Long-nosed Bandicoots. The Dusky Antechinus, Swamp Rats, Water Rats, Sugar Gliders and several species of ground-nesting birds and also species of owls are much more in evidence than ever before.”

With all this evidence, this non specific and irresponsible aerial baiting must be immediately stopped.’

Hans Brunner
Wildlife biologist
Sept 2011

Tags: 1080 poison, spotted-tailed quoll, Ted Ballieu, tigerquoll, Victoria, wild dog poisoning
Posted in Gippsland (AU), Quolls, Threats from Poaching and Poisoning | No Comments »

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The Blue Mountains have native wildlife?

September 13th, 2011

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper on page 12 of 10th August 2011, written by Rose and Brett Everingham of Lapstone, Blue Mountains, Australia.

‘Native Wildlife Alert’

‘On the evening of Tuesday July 29 a beautiful Echidna was unfortunately hit by a car outside our house.

We would like to publicly thank the three lovely young gentlemen who stopped to assist us as we moved it off the road, and then rang WIRES.

It was a particularly upsetting experience, no one wants to see any creature hit by a car, especially our native wildlife. The young gentleman who hit the Echidna was understandably distressed, as it is not something you would usually expect to see, and we reassured him that it was simply an accident.

It is a timely reminder though to take care when driving at night, particularly on Governors Drive which is often used as a race track for some drivers. Unfortunately the Echidna could not be saved. Once again a thanks to the young gentleman who stayed with my husband and son whilst they buried it.

Whilst a sad experience, it brought relief to know that Lapstone still has such beautiful native wildlife existing amongst us in the bush.’
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Editor’s Comments:

1. The killing of a native echidna by a driver of a car is an horrific tragedy for the echidna and its likely dependent mate and offspring, which were not mentioned. Each killing of adult native wildlife harms the viability of the local population of that species in the area.

2. Rose and Brett are right to have done what they did and it is valuable to the local community that Rose has taken the trouble to share this tragic event via her letter in the local paper.

3. The cause of the Echidna’s death was that the car driver was driving too fast to prevent killing it on the road. Most drivers drive too fast and are not competently trained to drive for the conditions.

It could have been a child killed while running on to the road. I am sure the local paper would have had more than allowing Rose’s letter, which reflects our culture that human life holds selfishly somehow higher values than wildlife. One may call this ‘speciesism’, a term few are aware.

4. Echidna habitat was there many thousands of years before European colonists destroyed its environment and selfishly carved a road through its habitat, with no care for any native wildlife values.

5. Such roads as Governors Drive, whether constructed by local Blue Mountains Council or larger ones by the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), not only destroy native vegetation and wildlife habitat in their construction, as well as allowing sediment pollution of downhill watercourses; no respect is paid to the inevitable road death consequences caused by vehicles using the road. The underlying reason is that human values for wildlife are so low across the community that there is hardly any call for wildlife protection from the threats of road making and its consequential traffic menace. Worse is that perverted attitudes toward wildlife and deviant behaviour prevail to the extent that the killing of wildlife on our roads is disparagingly dismissed as ‘roadkill’. If the same term were applied to pedestrian deaths on our roads, there would be an uproar by extreme humanists.

6. No attempt is made by road builders (local council or the RTA) to facilitate separation of ground dwelling native wildlife from the inevitable risk of death from introduced road traffic. Some roads across Australia have wildlife fencing to prevent native animals such as wallabies, wombat and Echidnas from accessing the road. Others factor wildlife corridors into the design of roads that destroy wildlife habitat. It is an indictment on both the Blue Mountains Council and the RTA that there are no wildlife fences or wildlife corridors throughout the Blue Mountains.

7. That Rose wrote “it is not something you would usually expect to see” is a sad indictment on the demise of wildlife populations across the Blue Mountains since colonial conquest, such that now people living in the Blue Mountains do not expect to see wildlife any longer. Villages like Lapstone have become so urbanised that they are all but outer suburbs of Sydney. The natural bush environment has been lost to a sterile parkland to suit the needs of humans. The values of native wildlife and their habitat continue to be ignored by humans who live and drive through the Blue Mountains and by custodial government authorities – Blue Mountains Council, NSW Department of Environment (etc), Australian Department of Environment (etc).

Yet, despite the arrogant disregard for wildlife values across the Blue Mountains, especially at the human interface, other regions take a more proactive view, such as in Sydney’s Northern Beaches region.

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Uncontrolled speeding on Australian roads

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‘Wallaby becomes roadkill after fence holed’

by Brenton Cherry, 20110112, Many Daily, ^http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/wallaby-becomes-roadkill-after-fence-holed/

Eira Battaglia, Mandy Beaumont, Niamh Kenny,

Cassie Thompson and Elvira Lanham at the damaged fence.

(Photo by Virginia Young)

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‘A hole has been cut in the wildlife-proof fence along Wakehurst Parkway at Oxford Falls, leading to at least one wallaby being killed. The death – discovered by Jacqui Marlow from the Northern Beaches Roadkill Prevention Group – was the first along the stretch of road since the fence was installed.

“Why would anyone cut a hole in the fence?” she said. “I found the hole after seeing a dead wallaby in the fence area.

“It’s the first one killed in the fence area since it was installed, which shows that it works.”

Ms Marlow said she had become disenchanted by the actions of some people.

“At the moment my opinion of humans is not very good, especially when it comes to their attitude to nature,” she said. “I’m really tired of dealing with it, the deaths are starting to get me down.”

Fellow group member Eira Battaglia said now more than ever motorists had to be aware of wildlife on our roads.

“Wallabies are around after the recent burn-off,” she said.

“Eight have been killed in the past week so please drive carefully, especially at dusk when the wallabies may be out searching for food.”

A spokesman for the RTA said a maintenance crew would permanently fix the hole as soon as possible. “A temporary repair has already been carried out,” he said.

RTA representatives yesterday met with the roadkill prevention group for a tour of local hot spots and potential sites for additional fauna fencing.’

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‘Peering down the corridor’

Source: ^http://www.coolmelbourne.org/articles/2009/07/peering-down-the-corridor/

Wildlife Corridors do exist and are effective where human communities

care enough to insist on them.

But don’t expect road designers and engineers in Australia to suggest the concept.

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‘Conservationists have long recognised the value of using wildlife corridors to connect wilderness areas, and there is mounting evidence to show that these corridors help many species, from the big to the small to the airborne to the aquatic.

But now ‘megacorridors’ are taking the wildlife corridor concept to a whole new level. Australia’s Great Eastern Ranges Initiative (GERI) is Australia’s answer to the megacorridor.

Aiming to create a 2800km wilderness megacorridor from North Queensland to Victoria, the initiative is about halfway towards completion of the first and most critical stage.saving-wilderness-geri-map-new-scientist.jpg

It is an extremely important move in the conservation of Australia’s biodiversity: after more than 200 years of development, the landscape of eastern Australia has changed significantly.

Fences, roads, dams, industrial and agricultural lands, powerlines, towns and cities cut across the country, isolating natural areas which have become ‘islands’ on which plants and animals have become isolated.

This means that many ecosystems have been fragmented, that the landscape’s capacity to maintain our unique plants, animals and Aboriginal cultural heritage has been reduced. It also means that remaining ecosystems are finding it harder to filter and clean our air, maintain the health of our soils, and produce unpolluted fresh water for the 93% of the Australian population that lives along Australia’s eastern seaboard.

This is no quick fix project however: climate change and the migration of human populations means it could take as long as 100 years before the project’s success can be measured.’

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‘Wildlife corridor from far south to far north’

by Mat Churchill, 20100716, ^ http://www.tourismportdouglas.com.au/Wildlife-corridor-from-far-south-to-far.4317.0.html

The Great Eastern Ranges Initiative, a proposed 2,800km long conservation corridor

Patches of state and national parks around the country just aren’t sufficient to protect Australia’s native plants and animals.

According to a report commissioned by the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, a wildlife corridor 2,800km long stretching from Melbourne to the Atherton Tablelands would allow species to migrate when their habitat changes due to climate change.

”One of the impacts of climate change is that species will have to move around to find suitable habitat resources. We need to make the whole landscape more biodiversity friendly.” said Brendan Mackey, an environmental scientist who wrote the report.

Dubbed the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative, the corridor would be made up of public and privately owned land.

Ian Pulsford, from the Department of Climate Change and Water, said areas earmarked to become part of the corridor would see a person acting as a broker visit the private landholder to discuss the program.

”The corridor is voluntary but there has been a good response from private landholders, and there are incentives to make your land part of the conservation area,” said Mr Pulsford.

The corridor concept is a new way of thinking when it comes to conservation. And a change in the way we do things in Australia is clearly needed when nearly half of the world’s mammal extinctions in the last 200 years have happened here, along with 61 species of flowering plants among others. The world’s current extinction rate is 1,000 higher than nature intended.

”The conventional thinking is wait until things are really bad and then desperately try to save things at the last minute,” said Professor Mackey.

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‘Freshly sworn in NSW Premier Nathan Rees MP back on 5th September 2008, recognising people are annoyed and frustrated with the State Government and proclaiming to have a ‘red hot go’ at fixing NSW. Rees says he recognises people are annoyed and frustrated with the State Government. [SOURCE: ABC 5-Sep-08]

Why do we tolerate it?

Why do politicians, as soon as they taste power, think they have rights akin to the kings of old, to splurge on personal fettishes and pet hobbies using taxpayers’ money and abuse the rights of local citizens?

In less than four weeks safter Rees took office, on Monday 29th September 2008, Rees’ personal passion for V8 racing saw him personally approve the unprecedented introduction of V8 Supercar racing at Sydney Olympic Park (Homebush) for five years despite strong local community opposition. Hardly a decision to address the people’s annoyance and frustration with the NSW Government.

Accompanied by a howl of boos from a small group of protesters, Rees overruled Homebush locals concerns about the required removal of 700 trees, significant noise and air pollution impacts, contamination of parklands waterways & habitat (including Green & Golden Bell Frog habitat) from fuel & oil spills, disturbance to native fauna from noise impacts & crowd movements and the unfair impost on local urban amenity & public open space. Our naive Nathan has been sold on hollow promises of “attracting 15,000 visitors and attracting $100 million to a desperate NSW economy. So desperate and naiive Nathan has grabbed the hype to get quick political wins. It is these ‘quick political wins’ that have shaped his tenure and that will shape his legacy. Long term State investment, that is investment beyond the next election cycle is not a mandate the NSW Labor Party has granted him.

[SOURCE: ^http://www.tec.org.au/index.php?Itemid=291&id=693&option=com_content&task=view]

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The motor racing event is being promoted by Events NSW (an arm of the Rees NSW Government) and is set to be an annual event every December. The main sponsor is Telstra, which at the same time hypocritically declares on its corporate website that its “concern for the community and resolve to address environmental issues will only serve to improve Telstra’s future.”

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In 2009 Repco imposed is car rally on the rural shires of Tweed and Kyogle

Then we see another motor racing event for NSW, the Repco Rally, relocated from where is has been staged for two decades outside Perth to the NSW in the Tweed and Kyogle shires in September. It is set to be staged every two years at least until 2017. Of course Rees has given it his red hot support and again his Events NSW is plugging it hard.

Again, NSW taxpayers are paying up to $8 million to the rally organizers and the Tweed Shire Council has promised to fund the rally organisers an extra $120,000 every two years out of local rates revenue. This funding comes at a time when the Rees government says it can’t afford to provide adequate local policing or health services to the people of the Tweed Shire.

Layla Gain-Hill with residents of Barkers Vale and Wadevale who are concerned the Repco Rally with endanger Hanging Rock Creek. Photo courtesy of Mel McMillan and Northern Star newspaper 21st January 2009.

Many locals at both events have strongly and unanimously voiced their objections to these events respectively, but ‘king’ Rees likes his car racing and has proclaimed it’s all going ahead. It’s not too dissimilar to the English aristocracy of old pursuing fox hunts through farmers properties, thumbing their noses at the locals. Auburn, Parramatta and Ryde Councils all unanimously passed resolutions opposing the proposed V8 Supercar race at Homebush.

Both races will mean senseless environmental vandalism and are a blatant denial of local communities of their Common Law rights to quiet enjoyment and amenity. If the history of both races is any guide, Rees’ red hot go at promoting his car racing fetish is set to cost NSW more than the exaggerated hype of making money for NSW.

At a time when peak oil has been and gone and the motor car industry is in decline, Rees’ petrol head fetish can only be a selfish desire and an abuse of privilege and power to doggedly pursue an unsustainable 20th century motor racing culture. This is set to be Rees’ legacy of his red hot term in power.

Repco Rally a high speed reckless route through tropical rainforest tracks

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Rees fetish for V8s should be tempered. The V8 race could more suitably staged at the existing dedicated motor racing circuit just down the road at Eastern Creek. Rees’ fetish for rally driving could be fed by him flying over to Perth where it used to be staged.’

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‘Rees supporting Mad Max 4 – says it all!’

October 24th, 2009 Tigerquoll says:

‘Petrol head Nathan Rees was behind the Repco Rally and sorted political legislation to make it happen, same with V8 Supercars ripping through Homebush. So somehow I expected to see him supporting the forth Mad Max film being announced today for New South Wales. The original Mad Max was screened back in 1979.

As Rees sees it – simple – more jobs for mechanics, spray painters nd tourism – jobs, jobs, jobs. But film making is a one off. So like mining companies than come and go sacking workers as hey move on so will this film. Boom and bust mentality perpetuates like the 19th Century gold rush.

Now there digging up the 1970s for a remake. It’s like Bowie’s Life on Mars remastered. But I wish “Fury Road” every success for Australia’s struggling film industry, although can’t we find a new subject? How about a file called ‘Franklin’ with Australia’s best actors and emerging actors retelling the iconic environmental and social battle of Australia’s recent history? It would be new, fresh and topical.

Anyway, may be Mel s Max 4 may wish to do a Silvester Stalone come back. The NSW Film & Television Office is now part of Rees mega department Industry & Investment NSW. It all sounds energetic, but can someone name just one project out of it that is fully funded, approved and underway with a 5 year life or longer let alone beyond the NSW election cycle.

Nathan relishes any business announcement especially one that involves cars. Pity Bridgestone has suddenly announced closing up shop in South Australia with no thought to redeploying its 600 Australian employees.
Executive director of the Australian Institute for Social Research, Associate Professor John Spoehr, says “”We know from the past that around about one-third of manufacturing workers that lose their jobs during downturns go on to be long-term unemployed.”

[SOURCE: ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/24/2723176.htm]

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The writing is on the wall for the automotive industry in Australia, but some petrol heads just can’t give up the addiction and keep tuning into Top Gear ‘to keep the dream alive’.

Rees says ‘keep it simple stupid’! Well simple ideas for simple minds as other say. NSW has become the meat head state! May be I should change my number plate.’

Petrol Head Inculcation

~ like irresponsible father, like pre-P-plating son.

Another irresponsible P-plater after high speed in the rain

Albion (northern Brisbane, 2010)

[Read More]

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Intergovernmental Forests Agreement, 2011

In October 2010, the major breakthrough in the almost century long dispute over Tasmania’s forests was reported secured in principle between the key parties, Tasmanian timber communities, forest unions, and industry, Gunns, Environment Tasmania, the Conservation Council, The Wilderness Society, Australian Conservation Foundation. Credit is due to the two instrumental negotiators, Gunns chief executive Greg L’Estrange and forest facilitator Bill Kelty.

Tasmanian History in the making

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The aim was to find an agreement develop a more sustainable timber industry and to end logging Tasmania’s remaining valuable native forests. It will mean an end to logging of native forests will also protect critical habitats for Tasmanian devils and other threatened species. A moratorium on the logging of high native forests will be phased in over three months, while maintaining essential supplies for necessary timber mill operations.

The “Tasmanian Forests Statement of Principles” were agreed to set Tasmania’s timber industry on a new path to economic opportunities through plantation-based forestry, protecting timber worker’s jobs and native forests.

>Read Tasmanian Forests Statement of Principles

“The forestry industry, unions and environment groups have found common ground in the interests of all Tasmanians. This will pave the way for a sustainable timber industry that protects jobs and also protects the state’s remaining unique native forests,” said Environment Tasmania’s Phill Pullinger..

[Source: ‘Forests: Peace in our time?’, by Andrew Darby, The Age, newspaper, 20101019, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/article/peace-in-our-time]

>Read Tasmanian Forests Agreement – August 2011

>Read Larger Detailed Map

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Tasmanian Transition from High Volume/Low to Low Volume/ High Value Add Timber – public debate recommended

While not advocating industrial logging of Tasmania’s native myrtle, a refocus from high volume/low margin woodchips toward low volume / high value specialised timbercraft is a Tasmanian industry that has potential to be both commercially viable while being ecologically sustainable, if excluding old growth and so long as it is appropriately tightly controlled and monitored.

A public debate on this potential is recommended.

High value-add Electric Guitar in Tasmanian Myrtle

[Source: ^http://tasmaniantonewoods.com/guitars]

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‘Gunns rejects crucial financial offer’

[by Andrew Darby, The Age newspaper, 20110906, ^http://www.theage.com.au/national/gunns-rejects-crucial-financial-offer-20110905-1ju9j.html]

‘Troubled forestry company Gunns has rejected a financial offer from the Tasmanian government seen as key to the future of the state’s timber industry. The settlement for exiting native forest logging was critical both to Gunns’s future operations and to a landmark forests peace settlement.

”The state government has been formally advised by Gunns Limited of their decision to reject our offer of commercial settlement,” a spokesman for Premier Lara Giddings said yesterday.

The settlement was needed to unlock funding for contractors squeezed by the exit from native forests in a $276 million federal-state package. Rejection comes with Gunns into the fifth week of a stock exchange trading halt, called for the settlement negotiations, with its share price at an all-time low of 20.5¢. The settlement, covering tens of millions of dollars, was meant to extinguish Gunns’s legal rights over native forest contracts with Forestry Tasmania.

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‘Tasmanian Forests Agreement (official announcement)’

[Source: The Australian Government, 2011, ^http://australia.gov.au/content/tasmanian-forests-agreement]

‘The Prime Minister and the Tasmanian Premier have announced a $276 million funding package to support the adjustment of the Tasmanian forestry industry, and to create a significant conservation benefit by reserving and protecting High Conservation Value native forest areas. The Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement is designed to support the forest industry to progressively transition to a more sustainable and diversified footing and to build regional economic diversity and community resilience.

The agreement includes:

Support for workers, contractors and communities

Up to $25 million to provide immediate employment and training support for redundant forest workers
Intensive support through Job Services Australia and other providers relocation support for redundant forestry workers
$15 million for transition support payments (through ForestWorks)
$1 million over two years for mental health counselling and community well-being services (through Rural Alive and Well)
$45 million for voluntary exits from public native forest operations for haulage, harvest and silvicultural contractors.

Tasmanian forest industry workers can call the Tasmanian Forest Support Information Line on 1800 648 075 for more information about the services and payments that may be available to them.

Protecting high conservation value forests and ensuring sustainable wood supply

Guaranteed annual sustainable timber supply of at least 155,000 cubic metres of high quality sawlog per year and 265,000 cubic metres of peeler billets each year
Provision for speciality timber, noting that the industry claim is 12,500 cubic metres per year, subject to verification funding to support an independent verification process
Funding for a voluntary sawlog contract buy-back program for sawmillers wishing to exit the industry
430,000 hectares of native forest immediately placed into Informal Reserves
Legislation no later than 30 June 2012 to formally protect the areas of reserve determined by the independent verification
$43 million to implement this Agreement (including at least $5 million to support provision of information and consultation with affected communities)
$7 million per year to support management of additional reserves.

Economic diversification

$120 million over 15 years to fund regional development projects
Development of a process to identify by mid 2012:
- the impacts of forestry adjustment on affected regions, including the scope for
- alternative sectors and jobs to support regional adjustment
- progress in implementing Commonwealth and Tasmanian adjustment measures
- the need for further regional development assistance
A major research and analytical project to underpin this process.

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‘Giddings acts to avert budget crisis’

[Source: Brand Tasmania Newsletter, March, 2011, Issue 114, ^http://www.brandtasmania.com/newsletter.php?ACT=story&issue=114&story=1]

Tasmanian Premier and Treasurer, Lara Giddings

Photo courtesy of The Hobart Mercury

As unemployment figures for January showed a monthly rise from 5.0 to 5.6 %, the Premier and Treasurer, Lara Giddings, foreshadowed a 3 % cut in public sector spending and warned Tasmanians to expect three tough Budgets as the State’s balance sheet is shifted back into the black.

Releasing the Mid Year Financial Report on 10 February, Ms Giddings said several 2010 elections promises would have to be scrapped in the drive to off-set an $800 million loss of revenue. She outlined the following immediate savings:

$97.5m cancellation of equity transfers to GBEs;
$30.9m scrapping of planned Helicopter Emergency Medical Service;
$18.0m shelving of proposed Cosgrove Specialist Sports School;
$ 3.8m dropping of the Events Attraction Program;
$ 2.0m closing down the Renewable Energy Loan Fund
$ 3.9m deferring IT projects over two years; and
$ 2.5m cutting ministerial and parliamentary office expenditure.

“These savings will improve the Government’s financial position in the short term while longer-term structural changes are being developed and implemented,” Ms Giddings said.

She told a media conference the savings needed were the equivalent of 2,300 jobs and she could not rule out forced redundancies in the public service, nor cuts to frontline services. Unions immediately branded her as the first Labor Premier in history to announce public service sackings.

“I want to be open and frank with people about the problems we are facing,” Ms Giddings said.

“We are in a place where we need to see significant action to avert a crisis. This is not a crisis; this is an unsustainable situation that will lead to a crisis if action isn’t taken now.”

[Editor’s note:

To the contrary, a ‘crisis‘ in a governmental context is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

“an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending; especially : one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome <a financial crisis>“]

The number of people on the State Government payroll has increased 24 per cent this decade to 25,000 – almost one in every nine employed Tasmanians. Economic commentator Saul Eslake has pointed out that it costs public employees 14 per cent more a year to deliver services to each citizen, compared with their counterparts in Victoria.

So the Government expects job cuts, spending cutbacks and increased efficiency in the public service to contribute $270 million of the $420 million it hopes to save over the next four years.

Ms Giddings said it was regrettable that some worthwhile Government programs could not be continued, but strong action was needed in response to falls in GST revenue and other income in the wake of the global financial crisis. “I am determined to take the steps necessary to protect the Government’s financial position,” Ms Giddings said. “While I would prefer not to have to take some of these measures, I believe they are essential if we are to avoid sliding back into net debt.”

A Sensis Business Index released in late February reinforced the need for decisive action, Ms Giddings said. “The national downturn in retail trade is a concern the State Government shares with local retailers, as it continues to directly impact upon the State budget through reduced GST receipts.”

[Read More]

– end of article –

Tags: Bill Kelty, Forest Reserve Map, high conservation value forests, Intergovernmental Forest Agreement, Tasmanian Budget Crisis, Tasmanian complacency, Tasmanian Forests Statement of Principles, Tasmanian logging, Woodchipping Tasmania
Posted in Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats to Wild Tasmania | No Comments »

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Abuse and Neglect of The Gully in Katoomba

September 5th, 2011

P5024811_The Gully_protected_Aboriginal_Place_20110502

The Gully Water Catchment (Photo by editor 20110502, copyright free in the public domain)

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The Habitat Advocate’s raison d’être

Habitat Campaigning best starts close to home. If everyone took this approach then the natural environment would be far more intact, the wildlife habitat more viable to sustain local wildlife, and the risk of species extinction far lower than where current trends are heading.

The Habitat Advocate established as a volunteer conservation group back in 2001 on the edge of a small steep creek valley within what we term The Gully Water Catchment based at The Habitat Advocate founder’s residential home on the bushland fringe of the regional township of Katoomba, situated in the central Upper Blue Mountains of New South Wales in Australia.

The reference to this creek valley as ‘The Gully‘ is the historical affection name for the valley by former resident tenants.

Our raison d’être (purpose in forming) initiated on one Saturday morning within a few weeks of the founder, Steven, moving into his recently acquired house and suddenly being impacted by the roar of racing Mini Cooper cars down in the creek valley less than 100 metres away. Having had all due diligence in conveyancing previously undertaken ahead of purchasing the property and the previous tenant advising how quite the area was, no mention had been made of the deafening motor racing circuit! Local Blue Mountains [city} Council (local council) maps had labelled the small surrounding valley as ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley‘, with the northern portion near our house named by Council as ‘Frank Walford Park‘, but NOT as ‘Catalina Park‘ motor racing circuit.

So that was it, the battle to end the motor racing commenced.

Steven soon learned about a local grassroots activist group of residents living around the edge of this creek valley, which had formed back in 1989 initially and primarily to end the car racing use of the valley and also to respect and rehabilitate the creek valley’s natural ecology. Steven joined them in 2002 – ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.‘ (‘The Friends’), led by the now late Neil Stuart [1937-2016].

Between 2002 and 2007, Steven volunteered in The Friends working group’s activities – lobbying local council to end the racing, participating in community meetings about the valley, meeting with former residents of ‘The Gully’ (mostly Aboriginal), writing letters in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, undertaking bushcare weeding and rubbish clean ups in the valley, and generally monitoring and reporting unsavoury goings such as illegal squatting by transient outsiders.

During those early years, The Friends learned about the tragic history of the creek valley’s 1957 forced eviction of former tenants by Council and its bulldozing of their homes so that the racetrack could be constructed. The former tenants had referred to the creek valley as The Gully – mainly the northern portion of what Council had named Frank Walford Park after one of its mayors of the 1950s who had approved the racetrack usurpation* of the land previously known by former residents as The Gully. A number of members of The Friends were indeed former residents of the valley – Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal, as well as intermixed local families.

[Ed: *Usurpation is the act of taking somebody’s position and/or power without having the right to do this. Land Usurpation is the appropriation of land from the previous or lawful owner].

In 1995, local council had renamed ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley‘ to being ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘. In around 2007, The Gully Traditional Owners decided to rename The Gully as ‘Gungaree’ in Gundungurra aboriginal language acccording to historical doctoral research undertaken by Wentworth Falls historian Jim Smith, Ph.D.

Around the time from 2000 to 2002, as chance would have it, there occurred an environmentalist momentum in the area, followed by a local social momentum that firstly had the Blue Mountains region internationally recognised as a natural World Heritage area on Thursday 30th November 2000. Secondly, portions of the valley became recognised and declared by the New South Wales Government as an Aboriginal Place under its National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 on 18th May 2002. That declaration resulted in local council terminating the car racing in the valley.

So job done! It was certainly a changeable time, and Steven just happened to have arrived from Sydney, originally Melbourne.

By 2007, despite tirelsss efforts of The Friends since forming back in 1989 to persuade local council (as the legal owner of the valley) to end the racing and to consult with interested local residents around the valley and about managing a natural rehabilitation process for the valley, that was not to be.

Instead, council bureaucracy over the years systematically thwarted all attempts by The Friends, and The Friends’ allied collaborated group The Gully Guardians (2004-2006) from having any say in joint community consultation and rehabilitation management of the valley. In fact, due to the years of The Friends demands upon local council to consult in rehabilitate the valley and The Friends’ relentless and strident criticism of local council (whilst valid in this author’s view), local council went further.

By 2007, local council had completely ostracised The Friends from all community consultation concerning the valley and had bureaucratically driven a by-law wedge between The Friends and the local Aboriginal people who had been former residents of the valley before 1957.

By 2007, local council had chosen to side solely with the newly formed Gundungurra Aboriginal group, The Gully Traditional Owners, in an exclusive management partnership for the valley. From local council’s bureacuratic standpoint The Friends had effectively become personae non gratae.

It wass in this year, that Steven sadly decided to resign from The Friends and focus his environmentaliost attention upon building the website of the Habitat Advocate.

All the while and since then, Steven has continued to maintain close good friendship and communication with members of The Friends.

The Gully Water Catchment?

In the upper Blue Mountains, a creek and series of wetlands following the upper reaches of the Upper Kedumba River above Katoomba Falls form an elongated upland valley covering an area of more than 100 hectares. This creek valley has been known for many decades by its former residents and their descendants affectionately as ‘The Gully’. Over more than a century since the 1870s, this natural valley was steadily deforested and around the fringes subdivided for housing so that the remnant natural area has been reduced to under 70 hectares..

Situated next to the township of Katoomba, The Gully has long been surrounded by housing development above it atop its steep valley embankments. Yet, The Gully held important ancestral cultural values to traditional Aboriginal peoples of the Gundungurra, Darug, Wanaruah, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal of the greater Blue Mountains region and adjoining lands. These values contimue to be held by formre residents of the Gully and current generations.

The Gully has been a ceremonial meeting place for traditional peoples of the Blue Mountains for perhaps thousands of years. Since colonial settlement at Katoomba in the 1870s, The Gully has provided a secure haven for poor people both black and white, who although living in basic squat conditions in the extremes of Mountains weather, lived together as a close knit community; the Congregational ‘Mission’ Church for many years having played a key uniting role for Gully folk and as an informal umbrella protecting authority to stave off designs on the place by selfish others.

Jimmy War Sing, Chinese market gardener and fruiterer on his sulky in The Gully; the poor horse not well fed.

His ‘Chinese Garden’ was situated in a natural gully with a small watercourse running through it behind Loftus and Neale Streets (McRae’s Paddock).

(Photo circa 1903), supplied by Colin Slade in Pict. Memories Blue Mountains, John Low 2002)^http://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/2669879647/ .

Two particular historic events have adversely impacted upon The Gully’s ecological integrity and its human community. The first event was the bulldozing of the natural swamp of frogs hollow in the 1940s by developer Horace Gates to construct a dam as an artificial lake as part of his theme park scheme for the Gully. A few years later a Catalina flying boat was floated in the dam (lake) as a tourism draw card. At some time in the late 19th Century a local by the name of McRae, decided to bulldoze and infill the wetland in the mid part of the valley so that he could graze his horse stock.

The second event was the bulldozing of the entire top valley including the homes of several families in 1957 by the Blue Mountains Council in collaboration with a local fraternity car racing drivers and local businessmen to make way for a motor racing circuit – ‘Catalina Raceway’. Those families were forcibly evicted from their homes, extricated from The Gully and one woman died of a heart attack during the raid.

Catalina Raceway was used for motor racing through the 1960s, by the 1970s the racing circuit had steadily fallen into disrepair. This was due to a number of factors – repeated foggy weather at many racing events, the inability of the racing association to repay its construction debt to the Blue Mountains Council, new competition from circuits nearer to Sydney (Oran Park and Amaroo Park), and due to the prohibitive cost of increasing motor racing safety standards, prompted by the death of two racing drivers on separate occasions at ‘Craven A Corner’.

The track became overgrown and weeds spread throughout the valley. Blue Mountains Council named the valley ‘Catalina Park‘, and later named the top northern part of the valley as ‘Frank Walford Park’ after the namesake of a previous councillor who had been a key decision maker in approving the racetrack be built. Car racing at Catalina, culminating in the formation of the Blue Mountains Tourist Association.

Catalina Raceway was a form of early Blue Mountains tourism and became very popular with car racing enthusiasts during the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1989, local nearby residents concerned about the poor state of the valley and with a desire to stop the car racing and protect the natural values of the valley, formed The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, Inc. (‘The Friends’).

This grassroots local community group of local Katoomba residents established as one of the first bushcare groups in the Blue Mountains and since then their volunteers have regularly engaged in bush regeneration throughout the valley.

One of many protests by members of ‘The Friends’ (1989-2016) to save The Gully (‘the Valley’) from harm mainly from housing developers and tourism operators seeking to profiteer. In this photo locals Ivan Jeray and the late Neil Stuart (joint founder of The Friends) in 2005 protesting about the proposed massive deforestation and subdivision of this remnant side gully into a 69 lots of new houses dubbed 21 Stuarts Road Katoomba.

The Friends also galvanised local community support to stop the racing and to rehabilitate the valley back to its natural condition, holding street stalls to raise funds and to raise community awareness over the plight of the long neglected valley. The Friends lobbied Blue Mountains Council over nearly three decades to have the car racing banned, to have the weeds removed and to restore the valley to its pre-1957 natural state.

The Friends’ became instrumental in having plans prepared for the rehabilitation for the valley, most notably the 1993 Bell Report prepared by environmental consultant Fred Bell, the only one done so in consultation with the local community. To date, none of the several plans drafted has been put into effect by local council, so the Gully remains neglected and the race track long abandoned, yet the natural bush vegetation is steadily recovering.

In 2000, local Darug elder, Aunty Dawn Colless, was instrumental in achieving proper recognition for The Gully as an official Aboriginal Place under the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Act. On 18th May 2002, regrettably after Dawn’s passing, The Gully became protected under Sections 84, 85 and 90 from development and all racing formally banned.

We dubbed this tractor towing a mower/slasher as ‘Hector’. It has been a notorious tool of destruction of the ecology of The Gully, also known for decades as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley.

Concerned local residents around The Gully back in 1988 began to realise that this natural creek valley immediately upstream and feeding Katoomba Falls and Kedumba River with fresh drinking water, was becoming increasingly under threat of destruction from various external vested interests. So in 1989 a mob of them formed a local community environmental conservation bushcare and activist group , The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.

This committed volunteer community group ran for some 27 years under the leadership and inspiration of local social worker and teacher, Neil Stuart. Most members of ‘The Friends’ initially lived within the water catchment of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley – a natural amphitheatre of multiple watercourses on the western side of the Blue Mountains township of Katoomba, which covered about 600 hectares.

So yes they were NIMBYS proudly, defending their beautiful natural place from selfish invaders threatening to ruin and exploit the Nature and its natural amenity.

Without the concerted efforts and activism of this committed community group, it is most likely that The Gully would now no longer exist, but be a valley of housing and recreational development.

The purpose of this webpage is to offer a perpetual factual account of the truth about The Gully, its recent history, its stories, its plethora of threats to undermine its integrity, values and spirit over many decades, and the stories of the ongoing abuse, neglect, battles, egos, bias – warts and all.

In 2004, the Blue Mountains {city} Council finally released it 2002 draft Plan of Management for The Gully, however, after seven years is yet to be funded and implemented; council preferring to fund multi-million urban developments such as nearby Katoomba Cultural (Shopping) Centre. In that same year, past Aboriginal residents and descendants of The Gully collaborated with local council management to have an archaeological survey conducted at key traditional cultural sites throughout The Gully.

In early 2006, a collaborative coalition of various community members including traditional Gundungurra and Darug and The Friends and formed ‘The Gully Guardians’, although this was short-lived due to undermining tactics by political interests within Blue Mountains Council causing hostilities. This was superseded by the establishment of the ‘Gully Traditional Owners’ in June 2006 by representatives of the Aboriginal people that had inhabited the Gully over many generations. The Gully Traditional Owners has since that time collaborated with Blue Mountains {city} Council to achieve New South Wales grant funding for restoration works, including a planned interpretative walking track through the Gully.

‘The Gully Cause’

The Gully Cause (i.e. saving it from ongoing abuse and neglect) is an humanitarian one as it is an ecological one.

This creek valley is the site of some of the Blue Mountains most divisive conservation battles that persist – citing the forced evictions by Council, the notorious 1957 bulldozing for a car racetrack, the bulldozing for Katoomba golf course, massive subdivision for housing, council profiteering from land sales for incremental housing development, deforestation for mass tourism, arson, a sports centre development by council, the creek diverted into a dam as part of one of two wacky theme park developments, etc, etc.

The values, history, stories, threats, abuse and neglect remain ongoing. The Habitat Advocate was established in 2006 as a conservation activist organisation based in The Gully water catchment situated in inner west Katoomba.

Since the events of 1957, when council acquired the majority of what was then known as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley upstream of Katoomba Falls to the highway, most of the land has been deemed Council Community Land, so it is largely public open space, except for the many sections sold off for development – both housing subdivision and mass tourism.

The editor of The Habitat Advocate has lived within The Gully water catchment since 2001 and has contributed an active community voluntary role to protect the natural values of The Gully and assist local residents and former residents of The Gully and their descendants in a constructive way. This includes years of Bushcare weeding, SCA Streamwatch drinking water quality monitoring winning five awards from the Sydney Catchment Authority, as well as community activism as a member of the former local Katoomba community group Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (affectionately termed ‘The Friends’ by its members), which spanned some 26 years (1989 – 2016) protecting and the defending this natural valley from all sort of development threats.

In addition, our editor was a member of the former Gully Guardians (a joint informal coalition of both local Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal locals and former residents of The Gully and their descendants). I have enjoyed ongoing co-operation with The Gully Traditional Owners.

The Habitat Advocate grew out of its editor’s five year membership of local Katoomba protest action group The Friends from 2002 to 2006. The Habitat Advocate is intimately aware of The Gully’s values, cultural sensitivities, histories, issues and threats that continue to affect this special place.

The Gully Collection

This Habitat Advocate webpage is dedicated to the conservation values of The Gully and remains a work-in-progress, collating various records, documents, images and accounts on The Gully so that locals, past, present and emerging of all persuasions may learn more about the important conservation values of this special place, thus continuing in the conservation spirit of The Friends.

We have amassed a considerable library of knowledge on The Gully spanning a century.

An early photo of The Gully’s landscape (circa. 1920), taken looking from from the rear of the Balmoral Guesthouse (then 196 Main Street, since renamed Bathurst Road) in Katoomba perhaps by the renowned Blue Mountains photographer Harry Phillips (1873-1944)

The following hyperlinks below are to pages and posts internally on this website that over time will form a reference library of material on The Gully restricted to what is in the public interest – ‘The Gully Collection‘ (created by The Habitat Advocate from 2016):

>Go To The Gully Collection

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The Habitat Advocate

Forestry is logging, just as ‘forest rape’ is

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Then there is the Logging World…

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‘Ta Ann’: Forestry Tasmania’s Malaysian Veneer

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Ta Ann, when it opened the project, promised that the project would would rely on plantation forests and not extract wood from Tasmania’s remaining high conservation value forests.

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Protests met with contempt

[^http://www.huon.org/]

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Forestry Tasmania’s Chinese Solution

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Forestry Tasmania’s ‘Biomass’ Solution

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Further Reading:

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[1] Seahorses and Chinese Backward Medicine

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[2] ‘Weedy Sea Dragon Protection – 12 April 2011’

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Stihl woodchipping Tasmania’s Western Front

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So where does Harvey Norman’s EKO Wood ‘Jatoba’ come from?…

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Lake Pedder – the victim of an ignorant time

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The pristine glacial lake it once was.

The jewel of Tasmania’s primeval sacred ecology.

New Book Release:

‘Pedder Dreaming: Olegas Truchanas and a lost Tasmanian Wilderness’

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About Olegas Truchanas

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Remembering Lake Pedder

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