Save the Koala

If you want to save this area of the Mornington Peninsula from over development and save the koala bears who live there, would you chip in a bit to help the Save Reg's Wedge group to fight this. The place in question is the Sir Reginald Ansett Estate Green Wedge in Mt Eliza.

URGENT - Save Reg's Wedge

Act now to stop the multi-tower, multi-story Ryman Development at 60-70 Kunyung Rd, Mount Eliza on Green Wedge Land in Koala habitat!

The Save Reg's Wedge Community Group are raising funds to enlist legal representation to the upcoming VCAT Hearings in November 2020 and March 2021 (Reference: P1362/2020) but they need your help!

Mornington Peninsula Shire Council unanimously rejected Ryman’s massive development, along with the majority of the concerned community, but Ryman seem to be ignoring our community’s wishes and instead attempting to push their project through.

This development will cause environmental destruction, dangerous traffic chaos, and set a precedent for development across the Mornington Peninsula and Victoria.

Legal representation that has the expertise to fight poor planning development proposals is expensive and beyond the reach of us individually, but collectively we can work together to help save the habitat from this gross over-development on the Urban Growth Boundary, in proven Koala habitat! Will you help us?
Go fund me campaign.

LINK:

http://gf.me/u/y3fytz

The rate of road-kill of koalas in Queensland, NSW, and Victoria is testimony to the unsustainability of human population growth and the cowardice of our leaders in the face of profit-driven developer groups. We drive too fast, we are too numerous, and we have far too greater impact. Are most of us ignorant, selfish and callous or is it mainly our leaders and the developers they protect?

(Above) Yet another koala road accident victim. (Below) Ray and Murray Chambers return a koala to the wild. (Photograph from Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue

Its all a little too late for the koalas, finally being listed as threatened and the rest of the world is waking up to the shame of what we have done.

Following a photographer from the BBC tagging along with the Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue Service twin brothers, Ray & Murray Chambers, National Geographic Magazine included them in their feature in this month's issue, with photographs by one of the world's leading wildlife photographers, Joel Sartore.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/05/koala-rescue/sartore-photography#/04-koala-crusader-ray-chambers-670.jpg

http://www.joelsartore.com/galleries/koala-rescue/

The twin brothers today are laying three more of their beautiful koalas to rest and regardless of the heartbreak they endure each day, will not stop being on call 24/7 for their mates. Without this vital service, not just many koalas would be waiting to die on the sides of roads, but many other injured wildlife wouldnt be given a second chance.

We are currently negotiating with international documentary makers who have expressed interest in filming series on the incredible work these angels in footy shorts do without any financial assistance. A Sunshine Coast University Journalism student Sean Fabre-Simmons has also been chosen from a number of applicants to ride shotgun on some of their rescues, armed with a state of the art camera to post online the sickening scenes we are called to for the world to see.

For the Animals

Jaylene Musgrave
Vegan Warriors

Media Manager, Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue Service
http://www.veganwarriors.com.au.
http://www.sckoalarescue.com.au
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Nominee "Pride of Australia Medal" 2011 & "Australian of the Year Medal 2012"

The current system of protection is failing Australian wildlife. Too little too late. Does legislation claiming to protect really cause habitat destruction? Current legislation let wildlife numbers fall too low, creating genetic bottlenecks that reduce long term chance of species survival. Even the largest national park is just a gene puddle, rather than a gene pool, if it is not connected to other habitat.

Article by James Fitzgerald, NSW Wildlife Council

Photo of Koala Todd. James Fitzgerald looked after Todd for 3 months last year. Todd was found starving to the north of Cooma NSW, in open farmland without a gum tree in sight. A young dispersing male, he was looking for a new population to join but with so much habitat cleared he ended up lost in open grassland, underweight, dehydrated and starving. After Todd regained weight and was cleared by the Vet he was successfully released back into the wild on 30 November 2011.

Small step in the right direction

The federal government’s decision to list the koala as threatened in NSW and Queensland, is a small step in the right direction but unfortunately does not prevent logging in the koala forests of NSW or Queensland.

Pre 1788 koala population and fire reduction service

The Australian koala population prior to British settlement is estimated at having exceeded 10 million. A population of this size would reduce bushfire risk by providing over two million tonnes per year of hazard reduction eating of gum leaves. Gum leaves are the most explosively flammable part of the Australian bush. Too often little recognition is given to the positive services Australian wildlife would provide if normal population levels were re-established.

A significant factor in the fragmentation of the Australian koala population was the large-scale killing of koalas for their skins in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In Queensland in just one month August 1927, some 584,000 koala skins were sold.
Australia’s fragmented koala population could now be as low as 40,000 and declining.

habitat fragmentation reduces species survival chance

It is a long-established scientific fact that fragmented populations of animals become genetically weaker over time. The genetic weakness then causes the fragmented populations to start to die out as they are no longer able to fight diseases or adapt to changes in their environment. The correct approach to save the koala is to restore habitat within a system of wildlife corridors to enable the koala gene pool to flow via the normal dispersal of young males.

Australian laws hard to trust

There is a growing concern that the current system of protection is failing Australian wildlife. It is often too little too late. Some koala conservationists would go so far to claim that legislation aimed to protect actually enables the destruction of koala habitat.
In any case, current protections allow animal numbers to get down to low numbers, creating genetic bottlenecks that significantly reduce their long term survival prospects.

Need to restore koalas to at least 1 million - ten per cent of pre-1788 population

The NSW Wildlife Council believes that a benchmark based on pre-British settlement population estimates should be used to restore wildlife populations to at least 10 per cent of the estimate by re-establishing gene pools, habitat and wildlife corridors. Using pre-British estimates as a benchmark recognises the inter-relational connectivity of species. The current wildlife protection system does not provide for the many mutually beneficial relationships that exist in the natural world.

Gene puddles vs gene pools

It is important to consider that even the largest national park is just a gene puddle if it is not connected to other habitat.

Wildlife rehabilitation groups know that male animals are over represented in road kill because of their need to disperse and find other populations. Prior to the large-scale killing of koalas for their skins the koala gene pool flowed up and down and across most of eastern Australia. For koalas to survive in the long term, the fragmented populations need habitat restored and most likely a supplementary breeding program guided by geneticists to reconnect the populations. The aim to rebuild the koala population to at least 10 per cent of pre-British estimates using this method is not unachievable. All it needs is community and political will.

Restore habitat and wildlife corridors to rebuild the koala population

As the koala population is rebuilt it would be necessary to re-establish animals like the Powerful Owl, as this predator would play its role in ensuring survival of the fittest by taking the occasional young koala from an unfit or inattentive koala mother. Other animals like the glider possum that help pollinate trees and is also a prey species for the Powerful Owl would need to be rebuilt so that the Powerful Owl didn’t focus all of its attention on the koala. It is these types inter-relational connections across species and the roles they play in the natural world that are not recognised in the current system of wildlife protection in Australia.

Create buffer of wildlife-friendly business with incentives

Wildlife corridors need to be defined and wildlife-friendly people and businesses encouraged to buy land along the corridors with conservation agreements and reduced rates. The bang for the buck is that wildlife corridors of re-established and connected habitat will benefit not just the koala but many other native plants and animals. It might be appropriate to reduce some of the native vegetation controls outside wildlife corridors. People would then have a choice based on their belief systems and or business needs as to where it would be best for them to live and or own land.

The 2007 United Nations Global Environmental Outlook 4 report (GEO-4), identified species collapse as a major environmental threat. We are now in the world’s sixth great extinction event. Current man-made extinction rates are 100 times higher than the base level in the fossil record.

Australia has the worst record for animal extinctions. The failure of the current protection system will end up with more animals endangered… not a functioning ecosystem. Fertility is a product of nature that is needed to replenish depleted soils that farmers and human food production ultimately depends.

Is the Australian public happy that since British settlement we have destroyed 99.5 per cent of Australia’s koala population? Most Australians have not seen a koala in the wild because of this destruction. It is now well overdue for Australia to rectify the wrongs of the past and rebuild a one million strong healthy connected koala population.

James Fitzgerald is the NSW Wildlife Council media officer.

"Minister Burke has ruled out protection for all koalas and we are concerned these northwest NSW koala populations may be left off the threatened species list, even while their populations are falling dangerously low." Zoologist David Paull: 75 per cent decline in the relative abundance of koalas in the Pilliga from 1993 to 2011. Estimates only 500 to 2000 koalas left in the area. “The spread of mines and gas wells, tree kills from coal seam gas spills and increased vehicles through the Pilliga Forest will likely put extra strain on these already declining koala populations." Wilderness Society, 29 April 2012.(This article elevates to an article a comment "Media Release - The Wilderness Society on Koalas," posted by Bandicoot on April 29-2012.)

Koalas must be included on the national threatened species list as part of Environment Minister Tony Burke's 30 April announcement, especially in NSW’s Gunnedah region and the Pilliga Forest where they face the additional threat of expanding coal mining and coal seam gas operations, according to the Wilderness Society.

“Koalas need to be protected across Australia as they are rapidly declining in numbers, especially in the Pilliga Forest, where three- quarters of the population has been wiped since 2000,” Naomi Hogan of the Wilderness Society said today.

"Minister Burke has ruled out protection for all koalas and we are concerned these northwest NSW koala populations may be left off the threatened species list, even while their populations are falling dangerously low.

“Gunnedah is known as the ‘Koala Capital of the World’, yet recent scientific studies show koala numbers across the region and in the nearby Pilliga Forest are seriously declining.”

Zoologist David Paull has recorded a 75 per cent decline in the relative abundance of koalas in the Pilliga from 1993 to 2011. He said the population was relatively stable until 2000 and estimates there are only 500 to 2000 koalas left in the area.

“In 1993 I would take tours through the Pilliga and we would always see koalas, the river banks would be teeming with female koalas with babies on their backs,” said zoologist David Paull, an associate of the University of New England. “Now, you are lucky to see them.”

Miss Hogan continued: “These northwest NSW koala hotspots are the target of very rapid and aggressive coal seam gas and coal mining expansion. The Pilliga Forest is covered by a proposal for the largest coal seam gas field in NSW, while the Liverpool Plains are threatened
by coal seam gas pilot wells at Spring Ridge and Marys Mount. Koalas in Leard State Forest are facing three enormous open-cut coal mines.

“The spread of mines and gas wells, tree kills from coal seam gas spills and increased vehicles through the Pilliga Forest will likely put extra strain on these already declining koala populations.

“The 2011 Senate Inquiry into koalas recognised the major threats to Koalas are habitat degradation, vehicle strikes and fire – all of which are likely to increase in the Pilliga Forest, Liverpool Plains and Gunnedah areas if coal seam gas mining proceeds.

“Koalas are an Australian icon that deserves Federal protection.” Contact Naomi Hogan, The Wilderness Society Newcastle: 0401 650 411
David Paull, Zoologist in the Pilliga Forest: 0424 252 244
Prue Bodsworth, The Wilderness Society Newcastle: 0427 417 870

PS: Tony Burke wants to exclude the latest modern threat to koala's from an overall protective status, yet they are a national, world-wide recognizable native animal? The Koala Capital's exclusion for coal seam mining would make mockery of any threatened status!

Partial Source: Media Release -The Wilderness Society on Koalas
On April 29th, 2012
Three-quarter of Koala population wiped out

Delightful koala pictures in this film which talks about why we need to speak up for koalas at the upcoming Federal Inquiry into the status, health and sustainability of Australia's koala population.

Federal Inquiry

Federal Inquiry into the status, health and sustainability of Australia's koala population
On 17 November 2010 the Senate referred the following matter to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 June 2011, with effect from the first day of sitting of 2011.
See Submissions here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/ec_ctte/koalas/submissions.htm.

Some of the reasons to be worried for koalas

click image to see film.

Koalas also get trampled by cows, which are aggressive towards them, so expecting the koalas to travel on foot across paddocks isn't a solution. Everyone needs more trees in Australia but koalas need them most of all.

If Queensland's current runaway population growth continues, furhter encroachments upon the habitat of our endangered iconic koala are inevitible, practically guaranteeing their extinction from South East Queensland. Yet Premier Anna Bligh, by having renamed the 'population summit' to the 'Growth Summit', has told Queenslanders she is no longer interested in considering the one chance we have to save our koala, that is, population stability.

We reprint below a letter from the Save Our Koalas rally organisers

Dear Koala Supporters,

We asked what you wanted to do in response to the Queensland Government's upcoming Growth Summit, and an overwhelming majority of you want to let Anna Bligh know that the Koala is more important than unlimited growth in Australia.

We need to send a message loud and clear to Anna Bligh and Kevin Rudd, that rushed development will have a catastrophic effect on Koala populations in SEQ, our lifestyles and our biodiversity, and that it could cause the extinction of the koala.

Rally outside the main entrance of Queensland State Library, Southbank, Brisbane at 11.00am Tuesday 30th March 2010.

Please attend public forums against population growth, featuring Kelvin Thomson, Mark O'Connor and others. Brisbane: 8:30AM - 12:30PM, Saturday 13 March, Sunshine Coast: 2:00PM-4:30PM, Sunday 14 March.(See article "Sunshine Coast environmentalists condemn sham population debate" for more details.)

Glen Elmes, LNP
member for Noosa

In the debate over the The South East Queensland Regional Plan in 2009-2031 on 11 February 2010 Liberal National Party MLA Glen Elmes₁ warned how the vast discretionary powers, given to the Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchliffe, with his past history as a property development industry insider, would add to the consequences of SEQ's already shambolic urban planning and environmental management and runaway population growth.

The speech is effective. However, it has shortcomings. The speech appears to accept that continued population growth, even if at a lower rate, is actually necessary and desirable, just as long as it is properly planned and the necessary infrastructure provided beforehand. It also appears to avoid confronting those directly responsible for the current rate of population growth that it otherwise makes abundantly clear is excessive. Those directly responsible are, of course, the Rudd Government with its record high immigration program, that is given every encouragement by the Queensland Government. It is possible to draw the implication from the speech that the harm caused by rapid population growth could possibly be mitigated to an acceptable degree by the adoption of measures such as decentralisation.₂ and infilling.₃

I learned of this speech from the following comment (see also ) made in response to the article, "It's time to fight Bligh's growth" by Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily of 6 Mar 10:

Vanga and happychappy1 may care to go to Hansard Thursday 11 Feb and read Glen Elmes' stirring speech to parliament condemning the government's population strategy for the Coast. At least Elmesy is doing his bit.

The speech, below, is from the Queensland State Parliamentary Hansard of Hansard of 12Feb 10, linked to from Hansard page. I have added subheadings. - JS

See also: "SEQ Regional Plan a travesty against the people of South East Queensland" of 9 May 09 by Dr Jane O'Sullivan, "The downward spiral of hasty population growth" of 8 Mar 10 on Online Opinion by Dr Jane O'Sullivan.

Mr ELMES (Noosa--LNP) (9.45 pm): ...

Queensland Government's habitual disregard of resident's wishes

I am privileged to rise to speak again on behalf of my electorate of Noosa in this critical debate about our future. My community always worries when Labor starts to plan on our behalf. The forced council amalgamation process of 2006 and 2007 was hallmarked by stripping Noosa and the Queensland constituency of the right to a binding vote on council amalgamations as enshrined in state law. Do you know why, Mr Deputy Speaker? It was because the Labor government knew that a vote would be defeated not by a small margin but overwhelmingly.

We know that all of the submissions in the world make no difference to this Labor government's approach to consultation.

We on this side of the House support the planning processes which would, in normal circumstances, lead to the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031, but these are not normal circumstances. We know that all of the submissions in the world make no difference to this Labor government's approach to consultation. We know that all the wisdom subscribed by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council; the highly respected Sunshine Coast Environment Council; the influential OSCAR, which stands for Organisation Sunshine Coast Associations of Residents; the forensic Development Watch; the EDV Residents Group; as well as the wise council from the Noosa Parks Association, the Noosa Residents and Ratepayers Association and of course the Friends of Noosa, to mention but a few, simply fail to be taken into account by this minister and this Labor government.

How could we expect anything to be different? With a Labor government now more dependent for its political survival on donations from the property development industry than from its traditional labour trade union base and with a minister captive to that same industry for whom he was a consultant and advocate before coming into this place, how could we expect other than what we have got? But the minister monsters any notion of impartiality through the concept of investigation areas and sleight of hand expansions of the urban footprint to appease his constituent urban development lobby.

Reckless disregard of established planning principles

The Sunshine Coast Regional Council opposed the 1,408-hectare Caloundra South extension investigation area on the basis of the loss of the interurban break and the nutrient and recreational use impacts on the Pumicestone Passage. Others opposed other inclusions into the urban footprint as well, but still on he ploughs. But everyone was unanimous in their chorus for the permanent protection of the interurban break between the Moreton Bay area and the Sunshine Coast, for it to be set in concrete, to become an article of faith. This interurban break is prone to flooding.

Stirling Hinchliffe, former development industry insider, now has sweeping powers to over-ride community and local government objections to grant developers all their wishes.

There simply must be a ban on the continued development of flood prone or flood plain land. The current practice of raising the level of flood plain land above the flood level for development purposes simply makes flooding elsewhere more likely and more severe. It is a 'beggar my neighbour' policy. On the Sunshine Coast we do not want to see the incremental stripping away of the interurban breaks, as has occurred between Brisbane and the Gold Coast which is an interurban break in name only. I strongly oppose this minister having the power to gazette new growth areas without public consultation and the process for declarations to occur.

There simply must be a ban on the continued development of flood prone or flood plain land. The current practice of raising the level of flood plain land above the flood level for development purposes simply makes flooding elsewhere more likely and more severe.

These regulations will permit a wide range of urban style tourist, recreation, sporting, hospitality and commercial developments to occur outside the urban footprint with limited code and impact assessment requirements and little guidance for local government. Further, I am also totally opposed to the proposed discretion for the minister to declare urban and future growth areas as a master plan area. Given the current minister's strong links to the property development industry, I am greatly alarmed by this proposed power, unfettered by any guidelines or ability to be challenged. This has been fostered by changing the definitions in the dictionary. Long-held definitions have turned turtle. What was forbidden is now at the bidding of the minister. Everyone has to go back to school and learn a new language.

My constituency and their advocacy groups requested the state support regional and local planning based on sustainable carrying capacity which also considers and accepts character and amenity. The Sunshine Coast Regional Council has a powerful electoral mandate for such planning and should be permitted to fulfil that mandate.

Queensland Government accomodates, rather than plans population growth

The South East Queensland Regional Plan proposes 156,000 extra dwellings by 2031, a 39 per cent increase over the 397,000 of 2006. The plan envisages 497,000 people crammed into a sardine city by 2031, 68 per cent more than the 295,000 of 2006. The place we call home and love so much will be loved to death by such an onslaught. The Sunshine Coast Regional Council sought assurance that dwelling allocations be qualified by assessment of development planning constraints--constraints extended by the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and others, all to no avail.

The growth is uneven. Although the South-East Queensland population growth is 1.57 million, Brisbane will grow by some 39 per cent, the Gold Coast will grow by 68 per cent and the heaviest impact will be borne by the Sunshine Coast, with a 76 per cent growth in population. Analysis of state and regional population progressions to 2031 and 2050 clearly shows that these are not sustainable in ecological, economic, financial or social terms. With the population doubling every 25 years and with two-thirds of the population in South-East Queensland, one-third in regional coastal areas and only one per cent west of the ranges, South-East Queensland will have a population equal to the present total state population by 2031 and 20 per cent of that population will be over the age of 65. The state already spends twice as much per capita on infrastructure as the other states and is facing mounting budget deficits and a state debt with a lowered credit rating. It just does not add up.

Here is a case for a state and regional population and settlement policy and strategy.₄ Analysis of the drivers of population growth, which is natural increase, net interstate migration and net international migration, shows that the state has a number of policy instruments at its disposal to deliver a population and growth rate which is determined to be sustainable for the region and for the state overall. Managing international migration to Queensland is obvious, given this has been double the rate of interstate migration in the most recent decade.

The South East Queensland Regional Plan simply accepts population growth as a fact to be accommodated rather than managed. Strategies and then policies need to be developed and implemented by which growth is limited to no more than the sustainable carrying capacity of the Sunshine Coast. A key factor of sustainability in my view is provision of acceptable infrastructure proceeding or in conjunction with appropriate development. I believe that the current government policy encourages this excessive population growth, and therefore policy change can reduce it.

For example, concessional stamp duty for first home buyers in Queensland is a significant incentive for Victorian and New South Wales property owners to relocate to Queensland, particularly in retirement, rather than to relocate within their own state. Limiting the concession to first home buyers generally rather than first home buyers in Queensland, as now, would be a good first step in limiting growth and would send a clear message of intent that population growth for Queensland is not limitless. It should be noted here that the Sunshine Coast Regional Council was elected almost two years ago with an overwhelming mandate from electors to preserve their quality of life, to nurture the area's unique communities, to manage population growth and development and to make the region the most sustainable in Australia. The electors who live on the Sunshine Coast have sent this very clear message which should be informing planning and planning instruments such as the South East Queensland Regional Plan that replicating the Gold Coast on the Sunshine Coast is not acceptable to us.

There is here potential for a clear identification of community areas in which modelling of desirable future living could be trialled. I envisage the greater Noosa area as one which could be home to communities capable of ready adaption to important change. Booking the ClimateSmart Home Service--which is a state government initiative and which I wholly approve of--managing our carbon footprint, insulating our homes, installing hot-water systems and solar power generation, composting and recycling more of our waste, installing greywater systems and harvesting rainwater et cetera are a few examples of some of the myriad ways in which a small engaged community might model solutions to climate change and sustainability. These solutions might then be rolled out across the state when it is clear which approaches work best and how they might be implemented.

We residents of the Sunshine Coast advocate a much less intensive residential development for our area than the currently accepted urban norm of large estate development which requires water and energy to be captured or generated remotely and delivered to these developments and from which waste water and waste is transported to a remote site for treatment or disposal. The current urban model is ultimately unsustainable and undesirable. Greater Noosa, with recognition from UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program, is, I submit, ideally and best placed to model a sustainable future.

Queensland Government spends on infrastructure for population growth on maxed out bankcard

The truly monstrous failure of the Labor government has been in the provision of infrastructure. With our bankcard maxed out, the capacity for future generations to work through the economic catastrophe facing the state--home-grown by sheer economic incompetence--is hamstrung. Both the plan and the South-East Queensland infrastructure program fail to commit to the provision of the necessary infrastructure to support proposed increases in dwellings and sustainable development. The teaching hospital for the University of the Sunshine Coast--a truly fantastic win-win concept for health services in my region, for infrastructure provision and for education as a hub for economic development--has been put off and put back until it is almost out of sight and out of mind. Why? Because the Labor government has given up even the faintest hope of ever winning a seat on the Sunshine Coast so those electors do not matter anymore to Labor. The Queenslanders in this region of the south-east know who they cannot count on. Redress the wrong, address increases in public and active transport spending, and bring forward as a matter of urgency the coast section of CAMCOS and CoastConnect.

Effects of poor planning on Sunshine Coast

Many rural communities are home to those engaged in lower paid employment who are compelled to travel to work, often shiftwork, by private car. Alternative transport modes must be made available for these workers. It is not acceptable that bulk public transport solutions be provided only in the most heavily populated areas which are already advantaged by a wider range of services under competitive provision.

There are other infrastructure failures which I will only touch on. Education has failed. Schools are being built under a public-private partnership in my region. I am attending the opening of Peregian Springs tomorrow morning at 9.30, which in time will really max out the already maxed out bankcard. Health services fail every day. This is not the fault of the health professionals who struggle to meet the needs of those for whom they care; there are just too many of them to care for.

[Sunshine Coast residents] see paddock after paddock of enormous black pipes just waiting to be laid to suck the lifeblood from the region. Water will leave from where it was harvested via one-way pumps through the infamous water grid, off to Brisbane never to be seen again ...

Then there is water. What do Sunshine Coast residents see? They see paddock after paddock of enormous black pipes just waiting to be laid to suck the lifeblood from the region. Water will leave from where it was harvested via one-way pumps through the infamous water grid, off to Brisbane never to be seen again and for which the reward of recompense has been harvested by this broke Labor government also.

To most constituents, 'infill development' are dirty words but not everyone agrees. Displaying great courage and foresight, the Sunshine Coast Environment Council, for example, has proposed to focus on infill development to take advantage of existing infrastructure and services and the achievement of a more compact urban form incorporating sustainability principles. But this demands that location, scale and design must be sympathetic to the surrounding area and to community aspirations. In short, the local community needs to be engaged in the local solution.₅

The Labor government's approach to planning did not even start from an informed position. There was no review of the performance of the previous plan despite the fact that the 2008 State of the region report showed declining trends in almost all sustainability indicators, most noticeably biodiversity and livability indicators, and many of the plans and strategies that the plan requires for implementation are still incomplete and not integrated. While growth, transport and climate change are acknowledged, no robust solutions are offered. It is almost as if they have conceded that they will not be around long enough to address these problems of their own making, but they do not effectively address or provide solutions to these issues. Finalisation of this plan should await a fundamental review of the carrying capacity of the region. The dreadful lag in infrastructure and services has caught up with even the existing population, and effective performance monitoring, review, resourcing and accountability structures are incorporated.

The South East Queensland Regional Plan will be informed by, and is subservient to, the Integrated Planning Act 1997 and the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. Accordingly, it is of particular concern that the act does not include a prohibition on development applications which conflict with local planning schemes. This deficiency requires any local council to assess an application despite the conflict. Consideration of such applications makes it very clear to the local community that their faith in the local planning scheme, developed following prolonged community consultation, is misplaced. It also highlights for them the significant waste of local rate revenues applied by council to the assessment process and the dilemma which councils face in defending their decision in the Planning and Environment Court should a developer appeal against a refusal. It is essential that this wasteful, resource intensive and unnecessary activity is made redundant by appropriate amendment to the act.

Failure to protect wildlife, agricultural land

Iconic koalas,threatened with extinction in South East Queensland by
State Government, pandering to wishes of developer consituency

While we humans can speak for ourselves, it is also incumbent to protect those who cannot defend themselves, and I speak particularly of the koala--our native icon--threatened with extinction by development, by this Labor government and by this plan in particular. The koala is a key indicator for biodiversity. They will be a lost indicator at the present rate as community groups struggle to offset the failures of this Labor government. The mapping program is inadequate, incomplete and slow, while another aspect of growth is seen with this minister--that is, the growth in loopholes to aid and abet the developer constituency to find legal ways to destroy koala habitat with impunity.

... another aspect of growth is ... the growth in loopholes to aid and abet the developer constituency to find legal ways to destroy koala habitat with impunity.

Another aspect that has been largely overlooked is the impact on food production from development. Productive land agricultural pursuits, particularly those close to major urban centres, need to be preserved. This is another failure of the Traveston Crossing Dam--that less than optimum water storage location which sought to flood farm land and deprive Brisbane of a source of food. Let us hope that the remedial work to repair the damage done to the Mary Valley, primarily by the Premier in this case, will focus on developing this food bowl and repairing the other major consequence, which is social dislocation.

There is strong objection to the amendment proposed to the regional landscape and rural production areas, which has the effect of expanding the urban footprint and redefining activities which were previously urban. These areas should be afforded the highest level of protection possible so that food production for South-East Queensland's increasing population can be secured and, simultaneously, natural conservation areas protected.

Reject Queensland Government's "Sardine City" vision for Sunshine Coast

For the Sunshine Coast, we all hope for the sustenance of it being a community of communities. We do not want a sardine city. We want the places in which we live, work, play and grow our families to retain their uniqueness and their individuality. We want them to be the places in communities which attracted us to them in the first place. We do not want to morph into obscurity. We do not want to be harmonised. We want progress without oblivion.

The vision for the future of South-East Queensland and the principles that underpin the plan are generally consistent with those supported and endorsed by Sunshine Coast constituents. However, one notes with concern that the plan and its regulated regulatory provisions have significant flaws which remain to be addressed. The major concerns remain the weak basis in the plan for determining how growth can be managed and the potential inconsistencies that arise between desired outcomes, the lack of infrastructure planning to underpin development and the powers to the minister, who always seems ready to do a stirling job on behalf of his developer mates. It does not bode well for a sustainable future for the Sunshine Coast or anywhere in South-East Queensland.

Appendix: Divided opinions about Sunshine Coast Members of State Parliament

The following are comments in response to the article "It's time to fight Bligh's growth" by Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily of 6 Mar 10.

Posted by vanga from Caloundra, Queensland, 06 March 2010 7:17 a.m.

yet another story bemoaning the imposition of 100K more people on our life styles and still no word from the liberal nationals

Will the libnats ban any greenfield development in south Caloundra?

Will the libnats go with the council on the maximum number of people for sippy downs and maroochydore urban infil?

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

McCardle, Elmes, Wellington, Dickson, Simpson, Powell and the other one I couldnt find - whats your thoughts? A lot of coast residents want to know if you are going to dare to be different or are we stuck with what labour are pushing on us because you want the same or even worse - more people?

Some answers libants - you cant just sit back and whinge about everything the government does - let us know if you will be any different

Posted by happychappy1 from Maroochydore, Queensland, 06 March 2010 7:41 a.m.

No, no, no, no, no. This govt has to be kicked out before our lifestyles are totally ruined. Please LNP, give us your views?

Posted by vanga from Caloundra, Queensland, 06 March 2010 7:43 a.m.

the emails are flooding in

Glen Elmes- not his responsibility - sent my email to Dave Gibson of the Gympie

Powell - and Dickson not in their electorate so they arent interested - suggested I contact Marc McCardle

Peter Wellington - good onya - a politician with an opinoin - dead set against the proposals

Posted by vanga from Caloundra, Queensland 06 March 2010 9 a.m.

happychappy - lnp views as emailed to me

Elmes - not his responsibility - sent my query to the member for Gympie because that member is the shadow minister - so elmes has no opinon

Peter wellington - against the proposals - was on ABC talking about it

Power and Dickson - its not their electorate so of no interest, told me to talk to Marc McCardle
Mccardel and simpson - no response yet

can someone tell the 7 memebrs of the state parliament they are members for the Sunshine Coast as well as their own fiefdoms?

Maybe if they actually spoke with each other they could present a united from for the coast

Posted by carrot from Maroochydore, Queensland 06 March 2010 9:51 a.m.

Vanga and happychappy1 may care to go to Hansard Thursday 11 Feb and read Glen Elmes' stirring speech to parliament condemning the government's population strategy for the Coast. At least Elmesy is doing his bit.

The SCRC (Sunshine Coast Regional Council) has already shot themselves in the foot by caving in immediately to Caloundra South. That set a precedent that informs the state government exactly how spineless they are.

Posted by tonyryan from Maroochydore Bc, Queensland 06 March 2010 1:17 p.m.

This is still a discussion in a bubble.

The predetermining issues are: 'population' and 'rights of the people'.

First POPULATION. Increase is NOT inevitable.

In fact natural Australian population growth went into reverse two decades after we installed statutory livable age pensions in 1946.

The current increase is primarily caused by three million migrants and refugees. Do we have to take them in? No. Australia is a desert continent and we have already reached our optimum sustainable population.

No foreign power can tell us what to do.

The newcomers are straining our water catchments; our rural food-growing zones through enforced urban sprawl; our culture; our national sovereignty and our social integrity.

And to say we must give way to seachangers is nonsense. All human communities in history have reserved the right to repel invaders in order to protect their homes, their incomes and their way of life.

Ignoring official lies, unemployment on the Sunshine Coast is 23% and newcomers compete for the few jobs going. In a sense, they import poverty.

And RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE?

During the past three decades there has been a media-driven viewpoint that we elect representatives to rule over us. This is dictatorial nonsense.

Democracy was clearly defined by the greatest minds in history... Thucydides of ancient Greece, the Irish Monks, Thomas Paine of 'The Rights of Man' fame, Lord Acton... but most lyrically by Abraham Lincoln: "Government of the people, by the people and for the people".

Abe overstated the definition because already, enemies of democracy were subverting the meaning.

In a democracy, councillors, MLAs and MHRs are our elected servants, there for one single purpose, to install the product of electoral consensus.... or in Constitutional terms... the will of the people.

Wellington and Blumell excepted, the rest of our grubby politicians are exchanging election campaign funding for development favours.

This is obviously true of tyrant Bligh and Andrews, but us equally true of the LNP. This is why they are silent.

If you want to save the Sunshine Coast, you will have to do what people have done since time immemorial; confront the politicians en masse.

They will back down, believe me.

Posted by shellsay from Maroochydore, Queensland 06 March 2010 1:46 p.m.

What is so arrogant about the Bligh/Hinchcliff army is that they have totally and utterly disregarded the S/C community and SCRC rights to have an opinion. The whole process of altering the maximum population number of nearly 16,000 set by council, to now become the minimum is outrageous, how can this just happen? Of course you can't stop population growth, but you should be able to stipulate a lot lower figure. And how can all this be approved by these loonies when no effort towards sustainable planning has been taken into consideration, we are talking flood plain land here, has anyone seen the amount of water that is lying on there at the moment. Why arent we utilising further regional areas for development, why does it have to be here, the infrastructure that is in place now can't cope. It is up to the S/C communities to stop this decision now, instead of just blogging about it let's all do something. Developers like Stocklands are way to powerful and have destroyed enough of the coast, they are not ratepayers and don't have a right to an opinion. Send a submission into council, to take a stand on this through the reinstatement of their structure plan, which can be viewed on their web: www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au. Sunshine Coast residents have a right to be heard, Bligh/Hinchcliff dont live here we do.

Footnotes

1. ↑ In spite of having made this speech, opinion about LNP member Glen Elmes is not unanimously favourable amongst Sunshine Coast residents opposed to population growth as can be seen below from comments in response to the article "It's time to fight Bligh's growth" by Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily of 6 Mar 10, where I learnt of this speech.

In the past the LNP has been correctly regarded as more the party of big business than the Labor Party. However, that reality appears to have been largely inverted in Queensland in recent years. An example which suggests this is the disturbing fact that on 2 June 2009, only two members of the Parliamentary Labor caucus were prepared to vote, even inside caucus, where they are all supposedly free to speak and vote as their consciences dicate, against privatisation. In contrast, the the LNP opposes privatisation and that opposition appears to be, in large part, genuine. They have repeatedly voted against privatisation and, on one occasion, LNP leader John-Paul Langbroek called on the State Governmet to put privatisation to the people in a referendum. Of course, the ultimate test for Parties such as the LNP is what they do upon winning government and not what some of their members are prepared to say whilst in opposition.

Glen Elmes' seat of Noosa was previously held by Cate Molloy, who was expelled from the Labor Party for her principled stand of opposition to the Bligh Government's environmentally and socially reckless plans to dam the Mary Valley at Traveston. Whilst we urged a vote for Cate Molloy in both the 2006 and 2009 state elections, this speech demonstrates that some considerable good has resulted from that loss.

2. ↑, 4. ↑ This has raised decentralisation as a possible solution to overcrowding of the major urban areas. Noosa Shire Mayor Bob Abbot proposed decentralisation at the Debate at the Conservatorium of Music in Brisbane on Monday 22 February. His argument was that if our Governments had not allowed the infrastructure that serviced Inland Queensland in the firs half of the twentieth century to have been neglected in the second half of the 20th century then there would be plenty of desirable alternative locations for people to live outside the major urban regions. An argument put against this view is that, as a result of mechanisation, there was no longer as great a need for the larger rural workforces that existed back then. Also the lack of fertility and water have defeated past attempts to settle outback regions of the country, most famously the soldier settlers who were given plots of land in outback Victoria after the First World War.

Nevertheless, I believe that it is appropriate to carefully examine the capacity of some currently sparsely settled regions to support greater populations. Some factors which could bend the odds more in our favour are (1) The potential of Natural Sequence Farming as well as Permaculture techniques to restore fertility the land, (2) the capacity of the Internet to allow much intellectual work to be perfomed remotely, (3) Cheaper building techniques as described by US architect Michael Reynolds in his video Garbage Warrior.

If it were to be found that some of these regions may be able to sustainably support substantially larger human populations, then decentralisation should be adopted, but only as a solution to relieve the overcrowding of Australia's existing urban areas, rather than as an excuse to furhter increase Australia's population.

3. ↑, 5. ↑ In fact, we would tend to agree that 'infill development' is dirty. In theory infill development could relieve some of the demand for land, but it is not environmentally cost-free. The financial and energy costs of building and operating multi0story dwellings and obtaining food, water and other necssities from elsewhere needs to be taken into account. In practice, it is also very difficult to infull without sacrificing ever more of the remnants of vegetation in city areas. In a context of population stability, some 'infill' development may prove to be a means to relieve the demand for bushland clearing, but, in the current environment of runaway population growth it has just become another means for developers to profit by degrading the quality of life of existing community.

Originally published 27 Feb 10, Updated 1 Mar 10 with Media Release of 27 Feb 10 from the Conservation Council ACT Region.

Several communities of koalas in the Mumbulla State Forest and the Murrah State Forest on the NSW South Coast near Bermagui are at risk of regional extinction due to plans by Forestry NSW to commence logging their forest habitat at the start of March 2010.

Murrah Forestry Map: Red shaded area to be clear felled.

And the bastards are to truck majestic Australian Spotted Gums to the Japanese mill at Twofold Bay at Eden for lousy woodchips again to export to Japan so they can profit from paper.

What mugs are Forests NSW and the NSW Keneally Government?

Surveys by the NSW Department of Environment etc. have found evidence of a recovering population of around 50 koalas in the Mumbulla State Forest, south of Bermagui. A study done by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) confirms there is a small but viable koala colony in the Mumbulla and Murrah state forests, which lie between Bermagui and Bega.

In this 2010 International Year of Biodiversity Forests NSW are set to destroy one of Australia’s critical koala habitats. On the south coast of New South Wales, the area south of Bermagui known as the Murrah/Mumbulla area, has recently been confirmed as critical habitat for the very last known koala population on the Far South Coast. The koala population has been decimated by habitat destruction on private and public lands and, over the past decade, extensive forest dieback.

Volunteer conservationists say they will confront loggers head-on in an effort to save the habitat of a small colony of koalas on the far south coast of New South Wales.

Forests NSW's logging is due to start as early as Monday 1st March 2010, conservationists say. They met with Environment Minister Frank Sartor on Friday [26-Feb-2010] to discuss the issue of logging in the state's southeast forests. "The minister is deeply concerned at the situation, but seems embattled on many fronts with forest issues," Jane Salmon of the South East Regional Conservation Alliance (SERCA) said on Saturday.

Ms Salmon added. "Members of the south coast are sick to death of 40 years of woodchipping and associated environmental destruction," she said. "We are determined to save the far south coast koalas." "State Forests (Forests NSW) will not rule out the start of logging in the key koala areas as early as next Monday," she said.

[Source: 'Logging threatens NSW koalas' SMH borrowed from AAP, 27-Feb-2010.]

The decision to log these forests indicates that negotiations between the NSW Department of Environment etc and the State Government agency responsible for logging, Forests NSW, have reached a compromise and the koalas and their habitat are the losers.

Residents and local conservation groups are calling on the State and Federal Governments to save the koala population from destruction, and to save the health of the estuary and the oyster industry, in addition to retaining the vast carbon sequestration potential of the forests and retaining the tourism economic potential of the area.

Pru Acton

"The significant social and economic costs of reduced biodiversity can only increase while our natural systems are poorly managed,” said Pru Acton, spokesperson for the South East Region Conservation Alliance.

"Credible experts agree that the cost of logging this habitat is not only the last few koalas, but also potable water supplies, oysters, the inspiration for the local artists community, and another chunk of the Wilderness Coast's tourism potential."

Conservationists state the native forest logging industry is unsustainable and only propped up by political will, public subsidies and union backing.

"It seems the NSW Government has now decided its contractual obligations to supply sawlogs locally and woodchips to Asia is more important then protecting this much loved native animal", said Pru Acton.

Residents and local conservation groups are calling on State and Federal Governments to to stop any proposed logging and follow the expert advice to implement a scientifically based and data-driven management system for koalas at a catchment scale.

They have called on the Federal Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, to step in and exercise the Commonwealth responsibilities for forests.

"We call on the State and Federal Governments to add the area to the National Reserve System and reunite the lands of the Yuin traditional owners through linking Mimosa Rocks National Park with Biamanga National Park", said Ms Acton.

As a result of arrests and charges against concerned residents in 2005, the NSW Government implemented a survey to establish how many koalas remained in the coastal forests between Dignams Creek and Wapengo. Although the survey was conducted across all land tenures, the few details released suggest only 15% of available habitat is occupied and koala numbers are now very low.

John Hibberd from the ACT Conservation Council says if NSW Environment Minister Frank Sartor lets the logging go ahead, the koala population will be wiped out.

"I think it's absolutely staggering that we're still having this debate", he said.

"The south coast is marked by fantastic beaches, beautiful forests and yet we're prepared to log the forests and destroy an iconic species like koalas for the sake of supporting a foreign-owned industry that's heavily subsidised by the NSW taxpayer."

A meeting between environmentalists and Mr Sartor yesterday failed to reach any agreement to protect the koalas. (See media release of Conservation Council ACT Region below.)

Noel Plumb from conservation group Chip Busters states "the community is not going to allow this koala population to become extinct because you've got an arrogant state forest agency that won't listen to anybody."

Check out Regional Forest Agreement for Eden (MS Word document, 476K)

Koala Crisis Deepens in South East Forests

Conservation Council ACT Region
Media release - 27 February 2010

The crisis surrounding the possible extinction of koalas in the South East Forests deepened yesterday, as conservation groups met with the NSW Environment Minister, Frank Sartor.

"The Minister is deeply concerned at the situation but seems embattled on many fronts with forest issues," said spokespersons for the South East Regional Conservation Alliance (SERCA).

"State Forests will not rule out the start of logging in the key koala areas as early as next Monday but are also effectively blocking negotiations (to protect the koalas) with the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW) and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS)."

"It was apparent to us in the discussions with the Minister and his senior officers yesterday that State Forests has refused to supply the critical, specific timber-supply figures that would enable Minister Sartor to negotiate for alternative supply arrangements with the Minister for Forests."

"The Minister repeatedly expressed his concern that alternative supply arrangements had to be put in place because of contractual commitments to the logging industry".

Concerned environment groups say "Such figures are, according to their own logic, critical if the koalas are really to be protected from the intensive logging and wood-chipping operations now proposed by State Forests in the koala area."

"State Forests has also broken its public commitment, made at a community meeting in Bermagui in 2007* that there would be genuine community consultation about the future of these forests once the NPWS koala survey was released by DECCW."

The completed Report was finally released by DECCW only on 23 February 2010 but without the maps critical for clear community information. The survey covers approximately 10,000 hectares of the Mumbullah and Murrah State Forests which lie between Bermagui and Bega.

"This survey does however confirm south coast conservationists and community groups statements of the past 10 years, that there is a small but potentially viable population of koalas barely hanging on in the south east forests."

Noel Plumb, John Hibberd and Prue Acton "expressed the deep concern of their respective organisations to the Minister that, given State Forests' present attitude, there would inevitably be direct conflict in the these forests if State Forests attempted to start logging operations. Members of the south coast communities are sick to death of 40 years of woodchipping and associated environmental destruction, we are determined to save the Far South Coast koalas."

For further comment:

Noel Plumb,
ChipBusters,
0425 23 83 03 (Sydney)
http://chipbusters.allaroundyou.com.au

John Hibberd,
Conservation Council ACT Region,
Mobile 0407292657

Prue Acton O.B.E.
SERCA Merimbula
ph. 0264945144, m. 0419393203
www.serca-online.org

About 380km south of Sydney lies what NSW Tourism labels the beautiful ‘Sapphire Coast’ and the seaside town of Bermagui. Less than 3km north of town north along Bermagui-Cobargo Road up the Bermagui River estuary is the Bermagui State Forest – a label by the NSW Department of Primary Industry (DPI) given to Spotted Gum forest habitat for Yellow Bellied Gliders, Grey-Headed Flying Foxes, Tiger Quolls, Sooty Owls, Sea Eagles, Possums, Koalas and a range of native fauna and flora.

Spotted Gum (Corymbia maculata)

Australia’s magnificent and unique Spotted Gums are naturally distributed in open forests along the hilly coastal corridor from south-east Queensland down through New South Wales and with a few isolated pockets in East Gippsland, Victoria. They belong to the botanical family ‘Myrtaceae’ and grow straight and tall up to 40 metres. Their height attracts roosting by Sea Eagles. [Listen to ABC Audio on a 400 year old spotted gum]

Spotted gums flower once every two years and produce a rich pollen that attracts native birds such as Lorikeets and Yellow Tailed Cockatoos as wells as possums and flying foxes including the now endangered Grey-Headed Flying Fox. [SOURCE]

Unlike the declaration of a ‘National Park’ which affords federal environmental protection to forest habitat, the State label of a ‘State Forest’ is a misnomer. A ‘State Forest’ is deemed a timber and woodchip resource for logging. The same public relations label is used across New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. A State Forest is not treated as a forest for its natural habitat values, but rather as a logging coup on death row, that can be chainsawed at will anytime. Perhaps ‘Death Row Forest’ is a more apt label than speaking the State euphemism of ‘State Forests’.

And its public relations label logging as ‘harvesting’, a euphemism to belie the destructive reality.

NSW Logging Offensive 1988

On the back of a century of clear felling Bermagui State Forest was logged in the late 1980s. Then according to data from the Bureau of Resource Science, 148ha were “thinned” in 1996, and another 133ha that same year, then 94ha in 1999.

Typically 70% of the spotted gums goes to Boral’s mills in Narooma, Nowra and Batemans Bay as sawlogs to be processed into mainly flooring. The remainder end up as woodchips at Nippon Paper’s woodchip mill at Twofold Bay for export to Japan.

So Australia’s precious endangered habitat is being destroyed for flooring and paper.

NSW Logging Offensive, Oct 2008

In October 2008, NSW Forests logged what it labeled “two compartments” in Bermagui State Forest north of Bermagui. It justified this under the infamous Eden Regional Forest Agreement (RFA). This RFA is one of three established in 1999, in which the NSW Government relegated 15.1 million hectares of native forests across New South Wales for logging anytime.

The usual public relations spin preceded the logging. Southern Region manager of Forests NSW, Ian Barnes,t;/small>

It was at this time that DPI Minister Ian MacDonald started to use Dick Cheney tactics and push his weight around with protesters. The following questions to the NSW Legislative Council by NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon on 28th October 2008 highlight the escalated use of law enforcement into a heavy handed riot squad:

Ms LEE RHIANNON: ”I direct my question to the Minister for Police. Did officers stationed at Batemans Bay police station in collaboration with Forests New South Wales hold a meeting at the Bermagui Country Club in September to warn locals associated with calling for forest protection not to protest when logging commenced in the Bermagui State Forest? Does the holding of this meeting reflect that Batemans Bay police officers have adopted a zero tolerance policing approach to forest protesters? Considering that since logging started in Bermagui State Forest on 27 October with a group of about 40 protesters gathered in the vicinity, about 15 police cars, more than 20 police, including members of the Public Order and Riot Squad, a mobile police command bus and two police rescue vans have been in attendance, will this level of policing continue for the coming six weeks of logging in this area? What is the anticipated cost of this operation?

The Hon. TONY KELLY: The Far South Coast Local Area Command of the New South Wales Police Force has been advised that New South Wales Forests is to commence logging compartments of Bermagui State Forest later this month. As in the past, protests are expected. As always, the New South Wales Police Force is committed to maintaining public order. For this reason, local police and various commands, including the Public Order and Riot Squad, Highway Patrol and Rescue Squad will join together to conduct an operation. This operation will focus on ensuring the protection of persons engaged in lawful activities. Local police have made it clear that anyone engaging in unlawful or dangerous activity in or near the logging operation will have action taken against them. When offences continue and are considered dangerous, police will arrest and charge people as necessary. Police respect people's rights to protest during these times; in no way are they looking to prevent lawful and peaceful protests. Police have asked anyone who intends to protest to contact them so that they can attempt to facilitate lawful activity, minimise disruption and focus on protecting the safety of everyone involved.”

[SOURCE: Hansard]

NSW Logging Offensive Feb 2009

On Monday 2nd February 2009, logging operations resumed in the Bermagui State Forest after the summer holiday break period and continued for about two months. Bruce Mathie and Sons is one of the prominent loggers in the area, but most timber finds its way either as saw logs to Boral for Spotted Gum flooring or else to Nippon Papers woodchip mill at Twofold Bay, Eden for export to Japan.

The forest rapers, ‘Forests NSW’ bulldozed, chainsawed and logged, then left with their booty.

Ian MacDonald’s Forestry Regulation 2009

But rather that do the right thing by the environment and by the community and obey the law of the land, those in power (Forests NSW) forced changes to the law of the land to bloody well suit themselves. Arguably reminiscent of England’s King Henry VIII changing laws to accommodate his adultery, or Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s gerrymandering that secured his electoral hold on power.

In order to keep the cameras and local conservationist away from the loggers destructive practices, Forests NSW got the Minister to legislate an exclusion area around its logging with the public relations labeling of “mainly for safety reasons”.

On 1 September 2009, the NSW Forestry Regulation 2009 came into force making it illegal for anyone to trespass into areas marked by NSW Forests for logging. This has given Forests NSW absolute logging power with the police as its enforcement lackies.

Forests NSW Minister for Primary Industries Ian MacDonald tabled the Bill and it became law preventing democratic protests by people trying to save important habitat from destruction. It has given loggers free reign to log State Forests with impunity.

Under Part 3, Division 1, Clause 11 of this Regulation, a logger has legal authority to request anyone to leave a forestry area and this includes if that person “causes inconvenience.”

Under Clause 12, a logger can forcible remove anyone from a forestry area “who is causing annoyance or inconvenience.” Surely such removal by a logger can be construed an assault under the Crimes Act? It is draconian. It is certainly an assault on Australians’ democratic right to protest. What was Ian MacDonald thinking?

NSW Logging Offensive Sep 2009

In September 2009, Forests NSW commenced logging again in Bermagui State Forest, like pack rapists marauding through a maternity ward.

Sure enough, on Monday, 14th September 2009, Police arrested two of four forest campaigners who had allegedly entered Bermagui State Forest in what Forests NSW had labeled logging compartments 2001 and 2002. Apparenpe known to support koalas is unacceptable, particularly when the NSW government cannot prove their claims that koalas can be found anywhere in the south east,” said Robert Bertram, local Friends of Five Forests member.

“This is yet another example of Forests NSW lack of care for community and the environment,” said Lisa Stone, spokesperson for South East Forest Rescue.

“They are logging old-growth in Dampier, threatened species habitat in South Brooman, endangered species habitat in Nadgee and now this.”

“The loss of biodiversity coupled with logging and burning means the condition of many forests is as bad as the endangered ecological communities on private land, unable to support most threatened and endangered species and unable to recover.”

“We urge the newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Mr John Robertson, to step in on behalf of the native forests and their dependents and stop these archaic practices.”

"The current government policy of destroying habitat to satisfy ‘wood supply agreements’ is robbing from the future generations their chance of survival. The amount of breaches was astounding and shows that Forests NSW cannot be trusted to log these important areas of Koala habitat."

"We have inspected many other logging operations in the past year and have found the same breaches everywhere we have looked. This is pe known to support koalas is unacceptable, particularly when the NSW government cannot prove their claims that koalas can be found anywhere in the south east,” said Robert Bertram, local Friends of Five Forests member.

“This is yet another example of Forests NSW lack of care for community and the environment,” said Lisa Stone, spokesperson for South East Forest Rescue.

“They are logging old-growth in Dampier, threatened species habitat in South Brooman, endangered species habitat in Nadgee and now this.”

“The loss of biodiversity coupled with logging and burning means the condition of many forests is as bad as the endangered ecological communities on private land, unable to support most threatened and endangered species and unable to recover.”

“We urge the newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Mr John Robertson, to step in on behalf of the native forests and their dependents and stop these archaic practices.”

"The current government policy of destroying habitat to satisfy ‘wood supply agreements’ is robbing from the future generations their chance of survival. The amount of breaches was astounding and shows that Forests NSW cannot be trusted to log these important areas of Koala habitat."

"We have inspected many other logging operations in the past year and have found the same breaches everywhere we have looked. This is not a once off mistake but a systemic disgust for any environmental protection measures.”

South East Region Conservation Alliance

Conservationists state the native forest logging industry is unsustainable and only propped up by political will, public subsidies and union backing.

Spokesperson for the South East Region Conservation Alliance, Pru
Acton, says:

"The significant social and economic costs of reduced biodiversity can only increase while our natural systems are poorly managed.”

"Credible experts agree that the cost of logging this habitat is not only the last few koalas, but also potable water supplies, oysters, the inspiration for the local artists community, and another chunk of the Wilderness Coast's tourism potential."

"It seems the NSW Government has now decided its contractual obligations to supply sawlogs locally and woodchips to Asia is more important then protecting this much loved native animal."[SOURCE: ‘Logging resumes at Bermagui’ by Stan Gorton of Narooma News, 4-Feb-09]

Meanwhile NSW Forests remains culturally contemptuous to NSW forest

Forests NSW recruit their students with Communications degrees to lie for it on its website:

“State forests in NSW are managed sustainably to provide a supply of timber today and into the future, to protect the environmental values of the forest and provide community amenities.”

Forests NSW website claims that “Ecologically sustainable forest management (ESFM) is our guiding philosophy. ESFM is about managing forests to maintain ecological principles and biodiversity while optimising the benefits to the community from all uses of the forest…”

Revolving Door politics of NSW Labor

In the revolving door politics of NSW Labor, Premier #3 Nathan Rees on 16th November 2009 sacked Ian MacDonald from his DPI Ministry. Rees was himself sacked as premier on 3 December, then a week later, Labor Premier #4 Kristina Keneally reappointed Ian MacDonald Minister for State & Regional Development and Minister for Mineral & Forest Resources in December 2009.

The labeling of Minster for ‘Forest Resources’ leaves NSW State Forests in no doubt about the death row status. Throughout NSW Labor’s factional power shuffle Macca’s chair never got cold.

DPI Minister, Tony Kelly, overseeing Forests NSW, claimed on 18 November 2009 “The NSW Government has a solid track-record for maintaining prosperous and sustainable primary industries, I will be working hard with industry to ensure this tradition continues.”[SOURCE]

This author’s position

All State Forests should be added to Australia’a National Park Estate. Boral and Nippon Paper can transition their logging operations into plantation-only FSC resources.

The Twofold Bay Woodchip Mill was set up near Eden in 1969 by Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company over 35 million tonnes of native forest chips have been exported, mostly to Japan.

In contributing to the annihilation of thousands of hectares of Australia’s native forest habitat the Twofold Bay Woodchip Mill is Australia’s Habitat Auschwitz.

It must be unceremoniously closed down immediately.

The Queensland government plans to move koalas from a site earmarked for residential development. To where in South East Queensland, with ever more of its bushland being bulldozed by the Labor Government's developer benefactors and how the koalas can be expected to survive, let alone thrive, is unclear. We include an email from a save our Koalas. (We think http://www.savethekoala.com. The e-mail address is saveourkoalas [AT] gmail -dot- com)

Subject: Koala Habitat Hijacked for Development - Urgent Action Needed

Hello,

The Qld government has revealed that they plan to translocate a number of Koalas from a site earmarked for development of 600 residential blocks at Narangba near the Sunshine Coast in the very near future. It is apparent that the Queensland Government do not have robust policies in place to protect either the Koala or it's habitat. They plan to move the animals and would prefer that they suffer due to stress and starvation rather than implement the appropriate policies to ensure their survival.

This practice is unacceptable and sets a very dangerous precedence. We simply cannot allow the government to think that relocation takes precedence over necessary policy to protect our native wildlife.

We urge you to contact the Premier premiers [ AT ] ministerial.qld.gov.au and the Qld Sustainability Minister sustainability [ AT ] ministerial.qld.gov.au demanding that they stop this practice and get serious about protecting the Koala in South East Queensland.

Please do this today, we're running out of time.

Thank you

Save Our Koalas Rally Organisers

Editorial comment: Please also send us a copy of any e-mails sent and any responses, so that we can share them with our readers.

See also: www.savethekoala.com, Conservationist says Narangba koala relocation a death warrant ("Anger at koala 'final solution'" in printed version) by Brian Williams in the Courier-Mail of 19 Feb 10.

DEVELOPER RULES – URGENT!

WHAT THE ELLS GOING ON?

One rulebook for developer Bob Ells, of King’s Forest/Cobaki Lakes, and one rulebook for everyone else.

Is this right? Are we going to stand for it? What do you think?

4500 lots each Kings Forest and Cobaki Lakes (9000 total) What about the infrastructure, water etc. for such huge developments?

Block sizes from 120m (Normal minimum 450m)

Developer creates own rules for house types, roads, sewerage, etc.

THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE TO OBJECT

Send submission to:

Dept of Planning, PO Box 39 , Sydney 2001

Fax: 02 9228 6540

Email: [email protected]

IF YOU LOVE KOALAS , PLEASE HELP!

Dear Dept Planning

I strongly object to Leda Development being able to create their own rules for house types, roads, sewage etc. What on earth is going on here? Who is governing this country, developers or politicians? Who is this government serving, the people or the developers?

Why is Leda trying to minimise block sizes from 450m minimum to 120m? This is absurd not only for the environment but also the people who will be crammed together like sardines, 4500 lots with a minimum of 9000 people. Surely this will create a lot of crime in the area?

Leda will not be paying for infrastructure, water, rubbish removal, Tweed Shire council and local ratepayers will and we don't even want another 10,000 people here! We can hardly cope with the traffic and water demands we have now.

What I am most concerned about however, is the wildlife. Round Mountain was the #1 koala colony in Tweed shire and tragically it was totally burned out in a major bushfire a month or so ago. That leaves Kings Forest as the new #1 koala colony and you are allowing a major housing development on it?

What hope do the koalas have? Koalas stop breeding when stressed and many things cause stress - even simple things like having their favourite tree chopped down, or the loss of family members to say nothing of dogs (which will be permitted at Kings Forest), 6 lane freeways (with no overpasses, underpasses or exclusion fences), invasion of habitat. Their main habitat will become the new golf course which of course will be regularly sprayed with neurotoxic organophosphates which also will cause cancer and reproductive problems.

In addition to the threat to diminishing numbers of koalas, there a total of 450 species of native animals on Kings Forest , 33 of which are endangered. Why isn't the government doing something proactive to protect our wildlife? Are you not aware of the fact that Australia has the highest rate of species extinctions on the planet? Wildlife is under the radar of any government department and I would like to know WHY.

By the time people wake up to the horrific loss of biodiversity it will be too late. Humans cannot survive without biodiversity. The best protection is for the government to reclaim land like Kings Forest and leave it for the native animals. Why does money win out every time? What about your children's future? Are you even thinking of what a diminished future they will have with no koalas in Tweed ?

Tweed is home to more biodiversity than even Kakadu yet 2/3rds of these species are at risk of extinction.

Please do something NOW! Stop Kings Forest from going ahead with this madness. Bob Ell is acting like a Frankenstein monster with dollar signs popping out of his eyes and hell bent on destroying our wildlife.

[...]

Sincerely,
Menkit Prince
Uki NSW

Logging is set to start within weeks in a forest that supports the last known koala colony on the NSW far south coast.  There has been a fractious debate between staff from the Department of Environment and Climate Change, which managed the koala research effort, and Forests NSW, the government agency that will manage the logging operation.

The marsupials are listed as a vulnerable species in NSW, but there is controversy over how many are still alive in the wild.

SMH article

Early results showed evidence of koalas at about 50 sites in forest between Gulaga and the Mumbulla mountains.

Based on these findings, the NSW Environment Department issued a statement which described Mumbulla as ''a stronghold of the species'' on the far South Coast.
Timber harvesting in Yabbra Forest near Casino late last year damaged areas used by the highly endangered black-striped wallaby, koalas and yellow-bellied gliders, among several other protected native species, according to an independent report.  A high proportion of trees used by koalas and gliders had been felled and some buffer zones around waterways had been ignored.

Greens MP and south east NSW spokesperson Lee Rhiannon has called on Premier Kristina Kenneally to step in to save a koala population under threat from logging in the Mumbulla State Forest. The NSW Premier should hang her head in shame if she allows the last known koala habitat on the far south coast to be destroyed on her watch, Ms Rhiannon said.

Forests NSW has indicated that logging in Mumbulla State Forest will start early in March 2010.

see the map of the area

According to the Australian Koala Foundation, koalas are in serious decline suffering from the effects of habitat destruction, domestic dog attacks, bushfires and road accidents. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are less than 80,000 koalas left in the wild, possibly as few as 43,000. 

There are four states where koalas occur in the wild - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia - and each state has its own legislation.

The Federal Government passes responsibility for protection of koala habitat to the states.

The NSW Government first listed the koala as ‘Rare and Vulnerable’ in 1992 and this status was later reaffirmed as ‘VULNERABLE’ within the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. In recognition of the continuing decline of koalas and koala habitat in NSW, in early 1995, the NSW Government introduced State Environment Planning Policy No 44 - Koala Habitat Protection (SEPP 44).

This is the first state-wide species-specific planning policy introduced by any government in Australia. This Policy aims to encourage the proper conservation and management of areas of natural vegetation that provide habitat for koalas to ensure a permanent free-living population over their present range and reverse the current trend of koala population decline:
(a) by requiring the preparation of plans of management before development consent can be granted
in relation to areas of core koala habitat, and
(b) by encouraging the identification of areas of core koala habitat, and
(c) by encouraging the inclusion of areas of core koala habitat in environment protection zones.

Reported: Two other scat sites were located in Murrah SF that team participants concluded were likely to be koala scat but further analyses were unable to provide definite confirmation of this (B. Triggs pers. comm.). One of these scats, collected at 766574/5955437 could only have been from very young animal if it was from a koala .

Even one koala means that it is koala habitat.  Destroying potential habitat is adding to the threat!

Our relationship with non-human species is ambivalent and there are some species that serve our interests, for resources or companionship, and others that are treated as novelties and thus seemingly without any real purpose. There is so much indifference to Australia's original native inhabitants, and our environment, and our extinction record is the worst in the world.  In the last 200 years nearly 40% of mammal species that have disappeared are from Australia (WWF figures).

With increased urban living, population growth and cultural diversity, we as a society are becoming divorced from Nature and our unique land.  As an aggressive, and arrogance self-centred species, we humans could easily eradicate our native animals, even flagship ones like kangaroos and koalas.  They are all on the extinction trail, and all vulnerable to attacks by humans who see them as no more than vermin or rodents - optional features without any real value that can even be killed for sadistic entertainment or steal their homes for selfish interests.

We as a society embrace the suffering baby koala hit a close range, but ignore the on-going savagery of land-clearing and urban sprawl.  Losing trees makes koalas vulnerable to sadistic humans, stress, starvation and roving dogs.

Koalas should be declared Endangered now, before it is too late to save these world-famous flagship and much-loved animals.

Our governments have hijacked long-term interests in Australia's biodiversity for the short-term benefits of jobs, population growth and profits.

Please contact those below to send your objections:

Department of Climate Change, Water, NSW
[email protected]
Head office
59-61 Goulburn Street, Sydney
PO Box A290, Sydney South NSW 1232
Phone: +61 2 9995 5000

Mr Frank Sartor, MP
Minister for Climate Change and the Environment
Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Cancer)
telephone: (02) 9597 1414
fax: (02) 9567 0508
email: [email protected]
Address: Shop 3A, 452  Princes Highway, ROCKDALE NSW 2216

The Hon. Ian Macdonald, BA(Hons) MLC
Minister for State and Regional Development
Minister for Mineral and Forest Resources
Minister for the Central Coast
Telephone: (02) 9228 3344
Fax: (02) 9228 3452
Email: [email protected]
Address: Governor Macquarie Tower
Level 36, 1  Farrer Place, SYDNEY NSW 2000

The Hon. Tony Kelly, ALGA MLC
Minister for Planning
Minister for Infrastructure
Minister for Lands
Deputy Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council
Leader of the House in the Legislative Council
Telephone:
    (02) 9228 3999
Fax:
    (02) 9228 3988
Email:    [email protected]
Street Address:
    Governor Macquarie Tower
Level 34, 1  Farrer Place, SYDNEY NSW 2000

Send a letter to Peter Garrett, and our Prime Minister. Click on the link

Originally published as "Community must ask who bears the cost of progress" by Dr Mark Copland of the in the Tooowoomba Chronicle of 5 Jan 10 (URL of article unkown).

This story first appeared, along with the koala photograph, in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 5 January 2010.
Story written by Dr Mark Copland

Acland - a town on death row

Late last year I took a short drive and visited the town of Acland. It was a haunting visit. Like a town on death row -- or a community on life support -- except they've already started ripping the drips and sensors from the veins before the patient is even dead. The Acland story is like the Australian movie "The Castle" -- except this one doesn't have a happy ending. It left me full of uncomfortable questions -- with far too few answers.

As people we are good at opening things. We bring in the politicians, the brass bands, the plaques and all enjoy a very civilized morning tea as we bask in the warm glow of progress. One of the many questions sitting with me as I left Acland was, "How do you close a town?" How do you honour the memories, the lives lived, the countless hours of voluntary community building given by loving citizens? It's a bit embarrassing and so we mumble something about progress once again and then just move on.

Environmental Impact Statement farce

In this process, mining companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expert consultants who create very large documents telling us why the mine must go ahead. There is barely even the illusion of independence. The average citizen with no resources is given a few weeks to respond. The question is not will the mine go ahead -- but how can the mine go ahead?

I met one of the last men standing in Acland. Glen Beutel. Glen isn't ready to move on. And I don't blame him. Us Aussies love the glorious defeat -- Gallipoli, Ned Kelly etc. And Glen is in this tradition. By staying - he is shining a light on the farce that passes as the Environmental Impact Statement process. In this process, mining companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expert consultants who create very large documents telling us why the mine must go ahead. There is barely even the illusion of independence. The average citizen with no resources is given a few weeks to respond. The question is not will the mine go ahead -- but how can the mine go ahead? The key word for the proponent is mitigation - how to respond to government regulations and possible community complaints. And the company gets its money's worth. If you read one of these things you would almost believe that the local environment will be enhanced with an open cut coal mine, which if all goes to plan will eventually engulf the town that once was Acland.

Koalas in Acland

I met somebody else on the road to Acland. The guy in the picture above. Last Summer our hearts went out to image of the koala burnt in the Victorian bushfires. In 1995 furry friends like this one helped to bring down the Goss government as proposed roads in South East Queensland were believed to be destroying koala habitat. And while there are even fresh water tortoises that call Acland home -- there won't be a Mary Valley Turtle to bring a halt to things a la Traveston Dam. I wonder if finding this bloke and his friends a new home is part of the planned expansion of the Acland mine. No doubt the plan will be buried somewhere in the Environmental Impact Statement.

Acland like Pandora in Avatar - Who pays for 'progress'?

A few nights ago I sat with my 3D glasses on watching the blockbuster movie Avatar. The plot is thin -- but familiar -- a colonizing power wishes to remove some Indigenous people to rip a precious mineral out of the ground. It's Hollywood where the good guys win and the baddie gets his just desserts. All the while I was watching it I had Glen Beutel and my Koala friend sitting somewhere on my shoulder. One of the serious questions that Avatar leaves the viewer with -- "Is it always necessary and right to take things out of the ground, and use them -- just because they are there?" I am sure when the Acland mine was first proposed there was never any mention of closing down a town. For me the sadness is not just the passing of the town -- but the way that it has been done. As a region we must ask the question, "What price progress -- and who will bear the cost?"

See also: Also from the Toowoomba Chronicle: "Our region could be one big hole" of 16 Nov 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Removal trucks spell last rites for Acland" of 10 Oct 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Coal mine nightmare" of 12 Nov 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Facebook keeps residents on line" of 9 Nov 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Friends take heart from senators' visit" of 30 Sep 09 by Roseanne Schefe, "Jones labels Acland's decline as 'sickening'" of 30 Jan 09 by Madeleine Logan about Sydney radio personality Alan Jones' feelings about the threatened destruction of his home town, "$200m mine deal sparks water war" of 16 Nov 07 by Sue Searle, "Acland producing the cleanest coal" of 22 Mar 07 by Greg Berghofer, "Couple join exodus as Acland 'closes down'" of 2 Mar 06 by Sarah Vogler; Web site of the New Hope coal company: www.newhopecoal.com.au (including environmental impact statements, newsletters and assorted other pro-coal-mining propaganda); Friends of Felton web sites: www.fof.org.au, www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com.

What you can do

Sign e-petition calling for resignation of Queensland Government. For futher information, please read "Why Queenslanders must demand new state elections" of 8 Jan 10.

Details of the Save the Koala protest are:
Time/Date: 11AM sign-in for a 12PM start, Friday, 25 September
Place: Brisbane Square (in front of Treasury Casino)
Contact: saveourkoalas[AT]gmail.com, www.koalarescue.org.au

See also: "Bald Hills community fights sand mining threat to flood plains and Moreton Bay" of 31 Aug 09, www.savethekoala.com

Appendix: recent comment about Koalas posted to feedback

16 Sep 09 I was just wondering how I could get involved in actively working to protect the Koala. I think it's disgraceful how the situation is being swept under the carpet by the government, who refuse to aknowledge the problem at all. I'd like to know how I can get on board and do something to actually make a change. When a government fails, the responsibility lies then with the community, i feel. Any advice for me would be greatly appreciated, I'm just a concerned citizen who's had just about enough of our beautiful country, our home, and its precious flora and fauna being destroyed at the hands of negligent government. Look forward too hearing from you.

Cheers!

Editorial Comment: In general, we encourage visitors to post directly into the comment form which should lie at the bottom of nearly every article, including this article but thanks for your encouraging feedback all the same. - JS

ABC Australian news reported that someone somehow placed rocks on the road where rally cars would pass at some time prior to the Repco Rally event. Apparently stones or rocks were also thrown. See Rally rock-throwing 'could have killed', ABC news, September 5, 2009 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/05/2677430.htm

First day of the rally

The picture of the car trailing dust has been included for educational purposes because it shows how much dust is being thrown up by a rally car on the unpaved roads that pass through national parks of World Heritage significance. One can imagine the noise and the speed from the picture. Unless you like noise, speed, metal and dust, this would be a very unpleasant experience. For wildlife it could be a fatal experience. Politically it could represent a fatal breech in the wall of law that has preserved Australia’s wild spaces to date.

Would Repco race cars through a cathedral?

The idea alone of racing cars through national parks is appalling to many. With the position of National Parks in Australia it is a bit like racing cars through cathedrals in Italy or France, except that the damage it is likely to do in the long term is that much more significant.

It may not result directly in the extinction of endangered species but, whether it does or not, it is like a big breech in the wall. If government can get away with doing this to our National natural cathedrals, they may soon be running the equivalent of brothels in cathedrals there. Indeed, the same NSW government which overturned local democracy (the most immediate form of democracy) to force this race on Australians, is also apparently prepared to allow the Shooters Party to shoot indigenous animals in National Parks.

The car is not exactly an endangered species

Many of us live on highways or have to drive to work and find this difficult enough. It is amazing to think that the NSW Parliament actually legislated away 12 environmental laws in order to import such a rally to this area, which, to date, was a sanctuary for animals, trees and humans. The local inhabitants have complained of the risk to life for humans and other animals in the area.

Today we received a letter to candobetter.org claiming that “Greenies” threw rocks at the rally drivers.

“Rally Australia"

On September 5th, 2009 Jack (not verified) wrote:

"You greenies who are responsible for putting boulders on the road and throwing rocks might get charged with attempted manslaughter or murder if you are not careful. It is not a joke to do these things, one could expect it in a third world country but one would have hoped that in a so called educated society things like this would not happen. If you want to protest then do it in a more effective way than risking the life of another human being!”

The writer assumes that ‘Greenies’ were responsible for putting boulders on the road and throwing rocks. In fact we do not know who was responsible. However, let us take his other assertions in this paragraph. He says that we could expect such activity in a third world country, but not in an educated society. However it has been the anti-rally protesters’ contention that an educated society would not put a rally through international heritage rainforest national parks including 16 km of koala habitat. To many people the notion that we are an ‘educated society’ does not hold up because of this. Regarding third world societies: what are the criteria that make this kind of protest likely in the third world? Perhaps the quality of not having any other means to protest?

Is the writer actually unaware that 12 environmental laws were overturned to permit the rally?

Is the writer actually unaware that 12 environmental laws were overturned to permit the rally? This event has been enabled by the NSW Motor Sports (WRC) Bill 2009, which overrode 12 different planning, environmental protection and heritage laws and removed all right of appeal.[1] Or has his enthusiasm for the rally diminished the importance of this fact in his eyes? If that is the case, I suggest that he reconsider these inconvenient facts.

What more effective ways are open to people in the Green Cauldron? They have protested peacefully in the streets, written to politicians, and invoked the law. The response from the government was extreme: The government abrogated the very environmental laws that the people had invoked to stop the race. Then, when a councilor took the matter to the courts, she felt that it was given the bum’s rush. Behind the abrogation of the 12 environmental laws was pressure from Repco, a global corporation of retailers of car parts, which apparently had far more pull with the NSW Government than the democratic wishes of members of its electorate.

Even some of the competitors sound as if they understand.

"Some people don't like us in front of their house but I didn't ask to come here," French competitor, Loeb reportedly said.
"I can understand why some people don't like the rally, but I have to do my job."

Indeed he does. But the problems are not the fault of the people defending their rights and their environment. (Source: "Rock throwers halt Rally Australia", ABC News, 4 September.)

What would have been much better is if the FIA had adhered to its stated high principles of environmental standards and good governance, saying, “No, Premier Rees, we want to be good global citizens. You must find a venue for this event which is acceptable to your citizens. We cannot stand by and let you overturn your own peoples’ laws in order to run a mere race. It will not do our reputations or yours any good. People have a right to self-government. We cannot impose things they hate on them. The French Revolution taught us that.”

So much for an educated, first world society.

“And do not bother denying it had anything to do with your movement, you ARE tarred with the brush in the same way that you like to tar motorsport with the "hooning" brush.”

Why didn't the FIA or drivers stand up for democracy against Repco and the NSW Government?

It would be reassuring if people in the rally movement had stood up for democracy. Since they have not it is hard not to see them as hoons. And since their representatives have not spoken up, they look like representatives of hoons. Those perceptions will change when rally-people stand up for democracy and justice along with the environmentalists. As long as you do not you defend the wholesale destruction of laws by a dictatorial government. Candobetter.org cannot comment on allegations about people who used rocks as weapons since we have absolutely no idea who those people were. It is even conceivable that people wishing to give the environmentally concerned a bad name threw the rocks themselves. That would seem to me more likely since, from the point of view of an environmentalist – a person who defends wild spaces – throwing rocks is rather similar, although not as bad, as driving racing cars through world heritage landscapes and biodiverse hotspots.

False argument pretends area not worth protecting

"I watched the you tube video and I have never seen so much rubbish in all my life,
Mostly it looks like farming country, overgrown with weeds, so much for the environment."

I am not a resident of the area, but, to me this is what the videos have conveyed. We saw a koala crossing the road and we have been told elsewhere that the rally passes through 16km of koala habitat. We know that koalas are endangered. That, to me, is enough to tell me that the area cannot be totally degraded.

Secondly, it would not be surprising if the area is being degraded, given the kinds of forces it is subjected to. That is not the fault of environmentalists. The area was rural with forested parts. There is obviously a tension between rural, other commercial values and the environmental values of local constituents. Environmental has to win out, however, because the area is internationally recognized for its biodiverse and landscape qualities. Car races, shops and farms already take up substantial parts of this country and if we still cannot make a go of what we have already got economically, then destroying more wildlife habitat is not likely to help.

Impact of farming

"Farming does far more harm to the environment than Rally could ever do!

After having experienced Rally Australia in Western Australia for 18 years I can assure you that there will not be hundreds of wild animals killed, in any way!
If the people who live and run businesses in the towns involved have any clues they will see the prospects for adding value to what they do or in fact even starting up new ventures all because of the Rally."

Farming is certainly problematic because it converts wild-spaces for food. However the farms are already there. The rally was not. It was an additional stressor. As for the damage it might do. I have compared it to racing through cathedrals and I stand by that. This country is absolutely covered and ringbarked with roads, for Pete’s sake – how could racing car drivers possibly justify taking roadspace in National Parks? And, I do not see how you could argue to put a koala at risk just for some ephemeral potential ‘profits’ which will not sustain any human in the long term.

Little evidence for much touted 'economic advantages' and no amount of money could make this right

The Rally will bring economic benefit to the area and to the state in general, you lot rave on about eco tourism, I can assure you that if the area does indeed have something to offer then the Rally will bring thousands of international tourists.

The insistance that this rally will bring lots of money to Tweed has been knocked down over and over. Our definitions of what constitutes 'economic benefit' must differ.

"Same Rally cost WA tax-payers $6m+ p.a.

Previous speakers who praised the rally indicated that it will bring $100 million of value to the area. They do not understand what they are talking about. For example, $100 million over what period? It is certainly not for this one race that is coming up; nor for the one in two years time or the one in 10 years time. It is the accumulated value they think they might get if everything is done and all options are accepted between now and 2027. A more true picture comes from Western Australia. The Western Australian Government no longer wanted the rally, indicating that it was costing Western Australia $6 million a year and it was not getting economic value to make up for that $6 million." Source For more on the debate read here.

Our definitions of ‘eco-tourism’ must also differ. Who want’s tourists in national parks who come to watch noisy cars go round and round and tear up the earth and vegetation, kill wildlife, and pollute the atmosphere with petroleum fumes and dead soil organisms from the dust? How could anyone consider that desirable? For someone who likes quietly walking through a forest amid a community of other species, just like someone who might enjoy praying in a cathedral and looking up through the stained-glass windows and imagining they were in God’s house, your idea that racing cars through these quiet and otherly places might add to their ‘value’ seems really strange.

And the thing is, nature preservation does not cause the extinction of car-rallies, since there are roads for rallies everywhere, but roads and rallies do destroy nature. I mean, what environmentalists do and like does not stop rally fans from doing what they do and like somewhere else. For instance, the Goldcoast Super GP Rally will be staged next month, through city streets, just across the border from this one. However, if you want to do your thing in our quiet places, you destroy what we have. Look around you: the world is absolutely full of roads and noisy cars. Your kind of ‘paradise’ is proliferating daily. Ours isn’t. It is disappearing. Have a sense of proportion.

There is a huge contingent of International Rally people who follow the WRC around the world, just like the people who follow Tennis or Cricket or Footy, Yep just the same, and they will be coming to your part of the world, generally speaking they have a few bucks in their back pocket and have great fun unloading the stuff, so do not think there is no money to be made.

Obviously money is very important to you, much more important to you than beauty, wildlife, peace and quiet and democracy. Even if money were more important than place for environmentalists, it has already been shown many times that the rally has brought a net financial loss when costs are taken into account or no benefit to other communities where it has been held.

You need to try to see that environmentalists need to protect what they love and that rally values will harm what they treasure most. The rally is invading green environmental space and trying to change it. It has also destroyed democratic space, by forcing the overturning of laws. That alone should signal "Danger! Danger!" On the other side, environmentalists are not invading road-space. The huge contingent of International Rally people have lots of places made of concrete and tar and cement where they can go and they will possibly even be welcome there.

"If you think however that you should just need to stand in line with your hand out to get your share then you have your head in the sand (or somewhere else!)"

Honestly, this stuff about making lots of money out of these rallies just sounds like pie in the sky. After the rally has been run, however, I think that residents would be justified in demanding compensation for the trauma of having their democratic self-government annihilated and their environmental laws overturned, as well as their peace disturbed and their happiness destroyed by the need to go out of their way to try to protect what they love due to the failure of their governments to enforce protections which were available at law prior to the rally and were overturned because of the rally and for no other reason. Those environmentalists would be justified in demanding ongoing compensation since the intention is to continue to stage this rally for decades.

Democracy is the big question

"An event like this will always have those who are against having it, well we live in a democracy, so if it is taking place then there must be a higher number of people who want it than don't, bad luck!"

But that is the very problem. We DON'T live in a democracy in Australia anymore, and things have got particularly desperate in Tweed Shire due to the Repco Rally. By removing legal protections from the community's right to environmental protection and self-government the NSW Government has left the community in a situation of lawlessness and injustice. Did you not realise that 12 laws were put aside to run this rally? Why would the NSW government and Repco have had to go to such extraordinary lengths to impose the rally - and overturn democracy - if so many people, as you believe, wanted this rally? Why did they not just allow democracy to prevail, instead of removing it?

"I suggest that you greenies would be better off spending your time and money trying to fix up a couple of the countries biggest environmental disasters which are on your back doorstep, like the Murray Darling disaster for one!"

At candobetter we continue to represent problems with the Murray Darling and other threatened waters. If environmentalists were not busy defending multiple cherished places under attack by developers and now democracy under this rally, they would indeed have more time to dedicate to these ongoing other threats. If the rally were withdrawn from the Green Cauldron we could all get on with the other jobs.

[1] "" Source: http://www.norallygroup.org/

Injunction to prevent suffering to native animals fails in Australian World Heritage National Park

Councillor Katie Milne of Tweed Shire Council, NSW, failed in her attempt to prevent the staging of a 3 day long international car rally through Tweed and Kyogle Shire national parks, state forests, World Heritage areas, nature conservation areas, major koala colonies, core koala habitats and habitat where over 12 nationally-threatened species live. In September 2008, the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett dubbed the area as the ‘Green Cauldron’, one of 8 national iconic landscapes.

On 27th August, 2009, in Milne v. Rally Australia Pty Ltd, Federal Court Justice Stone was assigned to hear the case in Sydney for 3 hours. The Judge had only just received the last of the reports an hour before the hearing and admitted she had not had time to read all the material.

Fastest case in the history of Tweed Shire?

“It was the fastest case in the history of Tweed Shire. The Judge was able to somehow determine the case in about 10 mins flat after we began," commented Cr Milne. "We didn’t even have a chance for all the issues to be heard. The rally has assigned 600 police for 5 days including training, but they couldn’t even assign a Judge for a proper full day trial to hear all the evidence."

She said, "We knew we were gone when the Judge said, 'Times up, you’ve got one more issue you can raise’.'"

"We had barely started. We had only just got past our argument when the judge dismissed both our ecologists’ reports."

Ecological expertise wasted

Ecologist Dr Stephen Ambrose was there to present his report which challenged Repco's assertion that there would be no significant impact on any nationally-listed threatened species. Dr Ambrose had presented a 12 page resume of his qualifications, his published papers, committees he had chaired and court cases he was involved with. He had supplied a huge dossier of issues including a comparative study and a raft of arguments refuting Dr Phillip’s methodology and many assumptions made. For instance, he claimed that there is a higher probability of mortality as animals actually frequent roadside verges.

Councillor Milne said it was frustrating that he had been available as a witness but the court wouldn’t interview him.

"Dr Ambrose was the key ecologist in the V8 Homebush Supercar case. He is a bird specialist and familiar with the problems a rally is likely to cause. There is a population 35-45 Black Breasted Button Quails near the Mebbin locality Byrill Creek stage of the rally route and it is believed that the loss of one or disruption to their breeding cycle could be fatal to the viability of the entire population."

She added that another ecologist, Mr Mark Graham, who also presented a damning report "had extensive and specific local experience of the area, having coincidently carried out a 3 month ground survey of the endangered Giant Barred Frogs on the Byrill Creek route. The spray of dust can settle on their eggs and larvae and totally destroy their breeding cycle."

Arcane-seeming technicalities defeated community’s try for justice

“The Judge said we had not presented the argument in the manner required by the Courts. It was our ecologist’s case that this was not possible. She made no attempt to ascertain the validity of the arguments with Dr Ambrose. The whole crux of the ecological case was not even argued. It was absolutely appalling” said Cr Milne.

She went on to say that Repco Rally Australia had employed Dr Stephen Phillips (Biolink Pty Ltd) to conduct an ecological report on the impacts on species living on the rally route in autumn. As a result many species that were not visible at that time were visible in spring, breeding season for many species. Had Dr Phillips found any significant impacts to any of the nationally-listed threatened species, the matter would need to be referred to the Minister for the Environment for assessment as these are matters of national environmental significance.

"In the first report released by Repco in April 2009, Dr Phillips actually did recommend that the rally be referred to Minister Peter Garrett. However Repco claimed in the Court that this was a mistaken release of a draft document. Dr Phillips was not in court to confirm or deny this." Cr Milne said that regardless of whether the document was a draft or not, Dr Phillips had actually stated that the rally should be referred to Minister Garrett up until July and therefore the community had believed this would happen. While Dr Phillips may have changed his mind in his July report, it shows that the matter was in contention and that a precautionary approach should have been taken. The matter of referral to the Minister should have been debated by the ecologists but never was. "It feels like we haven't even had a proper hearing and it feels extremely unjust," said Cr Milne.

Late timing issue a non-sequitur and not our fault

Cr Milne said “The late timing of filing for this injunction was being used as if it was something we were responsible for. The fact that the community has been asking the Environment Minister Garrett to make a decision on this right from the start, and that the Minister had failed to do so, did not seem to worry the Judge at all. Nor did the fact that the community was misled up until July by the Repco report and that a Development Application was also promised up until July, seem to worry the Judge.”

"When were we supposed to take an injunction?" she wondered. "We only had between July and August after the special legislation Motor Sports Bill 2009 was brought into force. The community have done everything in their power to seek a legal outcome including commissioning not one, but two, ecological reports. Minister Garrett has joined with the State government and local Council to ignore this community and this World Heritage environment completely."

She said, "Rally Australia's claims that 'this is going to be the most environmental friendly rally in the world' is a joke. How can this rally be 'environmentally friendly' when it needed to bypass State environmental laws to be held? Many of our environmental laws have had to be extinguished to force this otherwise illegal event through. This race will set a new environmental standard but it’s an absolutely appalling one, one that allows such extreme sports races to run between World heritage corridors and through National Parks and Conservation areas."

Non-profit organization well-provided for in legal counsel

Repco Rally had five lawyers present in court at a cost of $40,000 in three days. “They won on legal technicalities, not on issues”, said Councillor Milne. She added that she was surprised that a non profit organisation could afford such representation. "They have threatened that they will vigorously pursue costs. The costs order case is going to be rushed through as well, in less than a week for this Wednesday", she concluded.

This rally is intended to become a bi-annual event until 2027.

Not a good look for the Fédération internationale de l'automobile

These political and environmental impacts must also be doing great harm to La Fédération Internationale de l'automobile and the road safety and green reputation it promotes on its pages:

"Formula for the Environment: As the governing body of motor sport and the representative of more than 100 million consumers worldwide, the FIA has been actively putting the environment on the top of its dual agendas. Formula for the environment outlines the FIA’s environmental efforts, from proposals for global emission benchmarks by policy makers to forward thinking environmentally relevant initiatives in motor sport such as the introduction of energy recovery systems in Formula One, highlighting what the FIA is doing to reduce the impact of motoring on the environment." Source: http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mobility/policy/Pages/FIAPolicyCentre.aspx

Residents of the community are reportedly devastated.

One has written to candobetter: I am so sad!! Today I drove on most of the rally routes and saw so many beautiful animals, right by the road. Many kangaroos mostly, wedgetail eagles, low-flying little birds, lots of snakes, very sad looking cows and sheep and horses all looking at me as if to say 'please save me, take me away from here' .... the grief is so deep inside me right now....I am utterly inconsolable."

The making of a new law to disempower environmental laws and local government powers in order to hold the rally means that democracy has been extinguished in Tweed Shire. Environmental damage and loss of democracy always seem to go together. This is surely a matter which should concern judges all over the land.

How to make donations to court costs

Something just as bad could easily happen to a place you love, now that it has happened in Tweed Shire. Downsizing democracy is a pernicious trend in Australia. Australians need to fight these trends as hard as they can and prevent communities from being destroyed by financial costs. Perhaps there will be an appeal. People can make donations towards the $40,000 court costs. It has been suggested that if 200 people can donate $200 each the shire will be able to pay.

Bank details are:
No Rally Group
BSB 062 580
A/C 10275161
Commonwealth Bank

See also: Repco Rally route - the calm before the storm of 26 Aug 09, URGENT! Contact Peter Garrett re Injunction to stop Repco Rally of 29 Aug 09.

Another famous koala - from Norman Lindsay's Magic Pudding

"Sam, we were all so glad to hear of your rescue, which gave us hope that the world would realise the plight of you and your fellow koalas and other wildlife in Australia and that our politicians might then wake up. We enjoyed seeing that you had made a friend at the wildlife shelter and it seemed that your future looked comparatively rosey. We are now so sorry to hear that you are no longer with us."
-- Ed.Candobetter

Sam was actually a female koala and, soon after she was rescued, she became fast friends with a male koala who was recovering in the same shelter.

Sam was a victim of controlled burning, not of 'bushfire'

Sam was a victim of the practice of "controlled burning-off" to prevent bushfires. She was not actually a victim of an out of control bushfire. Burning-off is a practice of which the frequency is criticised soundly and scientifically here. In many cases it benefits loggers and land-clearers. Managed and thinned forests are overwhelmingly more frequently linked to uncontrollable bushfires than old growth forests. There is a case for burning off on ridges which are prone to lightening attacks, but, as writers argue in these pages, we should use an entirely different approach to fighting fires in Australia.

Although Sam became known, admired, and undoubtedly loved, by millions of people, due to the terrible fires last February in which hundreds of people died and over a million native animals died, she actually succumbed to chlamydia.

Chlamydia in koalas

Chlamydia is a disease which was found to be epidemic in a number of koala populations about 20 years ago. Since then, the mixing up of different populations in new places in an effort to save the species from extinction due to traditional habitat destruction, has probably contributed to a rise in the incidence of infections. Stress in its own right is also an obvious likely factor in the prevalence, seriousness and chronicity of this illness.

Chlamydia bacteria occur in many different animals, including humans. In koalas clamydia can infect the urinary tract the genetical tract and the respiratory tract. It may cause infertility and blindness and the animal may die from these. They get pink rimmed eyes and cannot keep themselves clean due to incontinence.Source:

How safe are koalas in Australia?

Koalas only live on the South and South Eastern coast of Australia and most wildlife carers consider them in danger everywhere. Unfortunately the way that animals are classified as threatened and endangered in Australia means that you have to wait until the entire population of koalas Australia-wide is on the brink of extinction. Meanwhile, as we head quickly towards this situation, local and regional populations are being extinguished with barely a protest registered in the mainstream media and with only the merest token gestures from parliamentarians.

Wildlife Carers finance most of their work themselves, with little help and much hindrance from the government. People around the world who may read this: please place pressure on our Australian State and Federal governments to start protecting our wildlife instead of killing them through neglect or demonised as 'pests'.

In some cases koalas are endangered by being marooned by human development, so that they cannot get out and they exhaust the food trees where they are boxed in and die of starvation, fighting and disease. Throwing animals together from different populations, without a normal population structure means that these artificially created new colonies lack brakes on reproduction which occur normally through incest avoidance and the Westermarck effect.

However, the greatest direct killer is loss of habitat due to suburban development. This loss of habitat is driven by the growth lobby which has caused Australia to become severely overpopulated to the extent that we are now running out of water and land for farming and for wildlife is being stolen for human development. This means less water and less land for animals and forests.

Koalas are also killed by dogs, humans, stepped on by cattle, and run down by cars.

Brigitte Bardot's site has a very good page on this, devoted to Victoria's Mornington Peninsula Wildlife carer, Jenny Bryant's Koala Refuge.

But koalas are also loved by many Australians

As you can see from this page
In Australia one of our most famous books was Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding, where the hero was a Koala called Bunyip Bluegum, who left his home because he couldn't stand sharing it with his untidy uncle.

This picture shows him eating outside to avoid watching his uncle drag his whiskers in his soup. You can see that Bunyip is being importuned by two small goannas, who want hand-outs.

At the last council meeting Cr. Katie Milne, heroine of environmentally-minded local residents, moved a raft of motions to protect koalas, which were unanimously adopted. They were:-

1. The Recovery of the Tweed Coast Koalas is to be classed as an urgent and very high priority.

2. A review of Council’s Tree Preservation Orders (TPO) be undertaken to include identified Koala habitat:-

a) Currently identified Koala habitat to be included in the TPO as a matter of urgency.
b) Further identified Koala habitat to be included as a high priority as information becomes available.
c) Council holds a workshop on the Tree Preservation orders to facilitate further preservation of native bushland and urban vegetation, especially landscape values and waterways corridors.

4. Council develops a marketing campaign to educate and enlist the assistance of the community in the preservation and enhancement of Koala populations.

5. Where Koala habitat or corridors occur on private property, Council to inform landholders and provide appropriate strategies to preserve and enhance these habitats and linkages.

6. Council develops an interim Koala Recovery Action Plan, as a matter or urgency, until a Koala Management Plan is able to be funded and implemented, this plan to include addressing ameliorative measures to known Koala problem hotspots such as Clothier's Creek Road and South Tweed.

7. Council brings forward a report on appropriate incentives that could be provided for Private Landholders to enhance Koala habitat and corridors.

8. Council writes to the Minister for the Environment and the local State Members with a request that:

a. The SEPP 44 Koala legislation be reviewed, as a matter of urgency to provide stronger protection for koalas, and
b. Additional identified tree species utilised by Tweed Coast Koala populations that are not listed in the SEPP 44 for Koalas be included as a matter of urgency.

9. The Tweed Link to be utilised as a medium to promote this marketing campaign to the community.

Unfortunately, Council did not vote to establish a Fund for Koala Conservation in the Tweed which would have included a donation tin (at front counters of Council offices, libraries, holiday parks and other approopriate Council places) and establishing a fund with annual financial targets promoted in the Tweed Link. How on earth will they be able fund the development of a marketing plan or campaign let alone a Koala Management Plan without funding???

Tweed Shire Council has already shown in the 2009 Management Plan not a single penny is to be allocated to the Koala Recovery Plan while they are happy to spend $150,000 on new carpets for the auditorium and $50,000 for security cameras in Main St and so on.

It leads one to ponder just how serious this Council is especially in light of the following letter written by the CEO of Australian Koala Foundation to Qld Premier Anna Bligh:

*********

Dear Premier,

On behalf of the Australian Koala Foundation, I am writing to advise that we have lodged a nomination to list the Koala Coast koala population as Endangered under the Nature Conservation Act 1992. The nomination proves this population is eligible for listing under this legislation. I also wish to advise that the AKF has nominated this population as Critically Endangered under the Federal Government's EPBC Act and await the Federal Minister's decision.

You are to be chastised. This action should have been your Government's responsibility given your public admission of its endangered status. It is Queensland's faunal emblem, for goodness sake.

For the purposes of both the EPBC Act and the Nature Conservation Act, a "geographically separate population of any animal or plant" is eligible for listing. The Koala Coast area is delineated by Manly Road and Lota Creek to the north, the Gateway and Pacific Motorways to the west, Logan River to the south, and Moreton Bay to the east. These barriers effectively isolate the resident koala population as a geographically disjunct population. Genetic analysis has confirmed this geographic isolation; koalas from the Koala Coast region are genetically distinct from all other regions in South East Queensland.

A recent report prepared by one of your Departments has concluded that koalas within the Koala Coast have declined by 51% since 2006, and by 64% in the 10 years since the original 1996-1999 surveys. These declines are generally the result of high levels of anthropogenic mortality and habitat loss. There is no scientific evidence these declines have been caused by drought even though you have made a public comment to the contrary. As such, the Koala Coast population resoundingly fulfils the requirements for listing as an endangered species under the Nature Conservation Act.

The AKF believes that listing the Koala Coast koala population as `endangered' under the Nature Conservation Act will highlight the policy failures of the past 15 years, and increase community awareness of the plight of the koala in South East Queensland, encouraging further community participation in the recovery of this important population. I am disappointed that the Department of Environment and Resource Management has not already undertaken to review the status of this population under the NCA, given that the population declines have been observed and reported by departmental staff.

I would also like to take this opportunity to raise our concerns with the current process for listing species under the Nature Conservation Act. As you are no doubt aware, there appears to have been a number of significant changes to the nomination and listing process since the previous AKF nomination which was successful in listing the SEQ koala population as vulnerable under the NCA in 2003. Disturbingly, the EPA website currently has no information to guide those wishing to nominate a species for listing. In addition, the pro-forma nomination form on the EPA website has significant flaws, and does not appear to have been updated since 2007. The nomination form specifically requests anyone submitting a nomination to provide details of their publications and scientific qualifications - I would suggest this is designed to intimidate the average citizen from nominating any species for listing. Indeed I will suggest that it would be impossible for a member of the public to complete this process.

I further believe that the independence of the listing process has been compromised, as the nomination is now judged by a "technical group" many of whom are department employees, rather than by a committee of independent scientific experts as in previous years.

In short, Premier the process is flawed from beginning to end and indeed I believe I can predict the outcome both from Queensland and the Federal Government because of the perceived implications you fear from developer backlash.

Why you cannot initiate Koala Beach style developments throughout South East Queensland is just beyond me, but it is clear the development industry in Queensland is just "business as usual" to the citizen's and the koala's detriment.

A timely assessment of this nomination is requested.

Yours faithfully,
Deborah Tabart OAM
Chief Executive Officer

******************
It was then reported in the media at www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/premier-chastised-over-looming-koala-extinction-20090722-dtf6.html

Premier chastised over looming koala extinction
Brisbane Times - Tony Moore
July 23, 2009 - 5:10AMSouth-East Queensland's urban koala population could be wiped out within two years, according to conservationists.

State Government figures released in May showed numbers of the iconic species in the Redland and Logan areas halved from 4611 in 2006 to 2279 last year.

The Australian Koala Foundation has accused Premier Anna Bligh of driving South-East Queensland's population towards extinction. The organisation has now gone over her head, writing to Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett nominating the region's koalas as a "critically-endangered" population.

In a letter to Ms Bligh, AKF executive director Deborah Tabart harshly criticised the Premier for failing to protect the animals and nominate them for extra protection.

"This action should have been your Government's responsibility given your public admission of its endangered status," the letter read.

"It is Queensland's faunal emblem, for goodness' sake."

Ms Tabart told brisbanetimes.com.au the extinction of the animals on the 'Koala Coast' - which includes Redlands, Logan and Brisbane - was now inevitable.

"It's been on [former premiers Wayne] Goss' watch, on [Peter] Beattie's watch and now on Bligh's watch," she said.

Queensland Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones yesterday said she understood the need to act quickly and that new state planning policy would soon be implemented to help protect koalas.

She said better koala habitat mapping, which would be available within weeks, would give councils the ability to veto development on habitat land, which was was more valuable than changing their protection status.

"That mapping will give councils the ability to identify koala habitat and ask developers to provide an offset parcel of koala habitat land if they want the development to go ahead," Ms Jones said. She said she had received the Australian Koala Foundation's nomination to increase Queensland's protection of koalas.

"We will consider its listing, but it will be done on a South-East Queensland basis, not just on the Koala Coast," Ms Jones said.

"We are prepared to change its categorisation once the koala habitat mapping is completed."

Redland mayor Melva Hobson last month said the State Government's plans had failed, and 1000 koalas were now killed each year. She told brisbanetimes.com.au last night there was too much focus on urban growth, rather than saving koalas.

"To me the balance at the moment should be in favour of koalas, not in favour of people," she said.

"I can't find words to express what (extinction of koalas) would be like and how anybody could allow that to happen. We need to pull out all stops to recover this iconic species."

A population of fewer than 500 koalas cannot sustain itself, experts say.

*******

However, in December 2008 the Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation made a raft of protection provisions to the save the koala and established a task force. Yet in spite of them, the koala populations in Redland City dropped by 50% in the last year (mainly due to State authorised clearing of eucalypt trees used by koalas in order to clear land for a new school). http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/qld/content/2006/s2609890.htm

Can we rely on State governments to protect local species when Australia's track record for native extinctions is the worst in the world? Hardly.

The deplorable apathy, ignorance and arrogance filters down from the top to the bottom. Cr Dot Holdom at the same council meeting where Cr Katie Milne's koala motions were carried (which are barely a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done urgently) in response to Cr Milne's impassioned plea to the other councillors to raise their consciousness about the plight of koalas said that she didn't need her consciousness to be raised on this issue and proceeded to not vote for koalas to be in urgent need of protection in Tweed Shire!

I have heard it said by locals that certain business members on the steering committee of Tweed Tourism hold the view that it would make no difference to Tweed Tourism if there were no koalas left and that people would still come to see the topography and flora. But do people really think that flora can exist without fauna? Are they so ignorant about biodiversity to think that we can live in a totally mechanised, sterile world with mountains, sun, rivers and earth without animals to fertilise, aerate, regenerate grasses with seed dispersal, insect control and other integral services required for a healthy ecosystem?

If so, such bureaucrats are urgently in need of educating before they make any decisions that will affect our environment! Decisions such as Repco Rally which will be devastating for not only the future of koalas but all the current endangered/at risk species in Tweed Shire.

Why do they think we are screaming so loud to stop the Repco car crash Rally? Because we would rather spend our time, money and energy holding placards in the street and beating drums for peace for months on end, tossing sleeplessly in our beds at night, than having a life? No! Because WE care about our native animals and ecosystems and will do everything in our power to protect them, in spite of NSW state government's determination to make a blasphemy of environmental protection.

Visit sites.google.com/site/norallygroup.

Kathryn Kermode, who lives on the route of the World Rally Championship races planned for Kyogle and Tweed Shires, planned for September and every second year until at least 2019, shows how the races further compound the threats faced by the endangered Koala from rampant overdevelopment elsewhere in northern NSW and across the border in Queensland. This letter was sent to the Tweed Echo newspaper.

Unbearable Bad Taste

Millions of Koalas were killed for their thick grey fur back in the old days of the late 1800s and early 1900s and in fact, in one month alone in 1927, 800,000 Koalas lost their lives to fuel the North American fur trade. We have come a long way as a Nation in recognising the barbarity of these now outlawed practices but can we do more to protect our harmless and iconic Koala? In 2009 the Koala is on the Threatened Species List, listed as vulnerable to extinction in NSW so why is the State Government so keen to sponsor Repco Rally Australia's, World Rally Championship (WRC) which plans to race rally cars through a Koala corridor and well known Koala Habitat? It makes me wonder what century we live in as Politicians from Parliament right down to the Local Kyogle Shire Council are endorsing a dinosaur car race that wants to secure the region for staging the Rally every second year for another 10 years! Can you imagine facing your children in 2019 and trying to explain that when you had the chance to say enough, you let it pass by? And can you also imagine your children explaining to their children how back in the old days, in 2009, Local Government was so ignorant they didn't evolve a Koala Management Plan and that's why the only Koalas you see today are in a zoo. Councils that border Green Zones and National and World Heritage Parks should have lots of Environmental Plans in place to protect these unique parts of Australia for future generations. I know that Kyogle Council, the tiny and cash strapped Shire who will be processing Repco Rally Australia's humongous Development Application does not even have an Events Policy in place to guide their decision making.

The WRC is scheduled to run for several days finishing, ironically, on September 7, National Threatened Species Day. Perhaps even more ironically, these dates coincide with the Koala breeding season, a time when this animal is most at risk from death and injury on roads. I don't believe the WRC organisers can guarantee that Koalas, their habitat and feed trees will not be harmed during the sporting event, despite any stringent safety conditions that may be imposed upon them. It's not rocket science to realise that when a car is travelling at speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, no living creature would have a fighting chance, should anything go wrong.

Those of us who live beside the Koalas of Sargents Road in the Kyogle Shire know they spend hours in the trees on the verge of that road. We are baffled that Council has not considered the Koala's relaxed proximity as special, as a drawcard even for an altogether different kind of Tourism, perhaps a more sustainable, slow and low impact tourist attraction like Koala Watching! It's a clear majority of residents along this road who don't want to host the Rally, not this year and definitely not every second year until 2019. Already though we are paying a high price for our opposition. In the greater community, the Rally has become insidiously divisive and is exacting its toll upon those who feel obliged to fight this Goliath like oppressor.

Let's face it, car rallying has limited appeal, it's not something many of us are remotely interested in especially when you consider that we have all chosen quiet and tranquil parts of the country to build our homes in. We have obviously chosen peace, quiet and privacy and all of these things will be confounded by the World Rally Championship when it blows into town. Our skies will be swarming with dozens and dozens of helicopters hovering at low level, perhaps even as many as 60 plus, a number recorded at one of the World Rally's Irish stages. Our country roads will be filled with motor sports enthusiasts, pumped on the adrenalin of watching crashes and near misses and cars lurching sideways around tight corners.

But who is really paying for this bit of pointless entertainment? You are, taxpayers, whether you like it or not. And we, the residents of the Wollumbin Caldera of Australia's Green Cauldron are paying with our rights. Our right to say no appears not to belong to us and we are being told to stand by mute while the jewel of the rainforest is stolen from us. One day we will all realize that our Threatened Species, our Biodiverse Hot Spots, our dramatic National landscapes are our most prized possessions, our Nation's Jewels, and the likes of the Kings of the Motor Sports Industry are our Nation's Jewel thieves. Repco Rally Australia's, World Rally Championship cannot showcase our region's Rainforests while simultaneously polluting our clean environment with heavy emissions. Repco Rally Australia's, WRC is in essence, a threat to all rainforests, all Biodiverse green belts and definitely all Koala habitat. I believe the writing is on the wall for elite Motor Sports. Sponsors of the industry are obviously finding more and more reasons to pull out of the costly competitions and attempts by Rally organisers to meet Environmental guidelines are looking increasingly oxymoronic, to put it nicely.

No, those who want to run car rallies should find themselves 340 km of road through Radiata Pine Forests and Plantations, not Biodiverse hotspots, Koala corridors and residential properties. If anyone can be accused of trying to ruin the party, it's Repco Rally Australia and not the brave locals standing up to them.

See also: "Development project threatens second largest Koala Colony in Tweed Shire" of 21 Feb 09, "Kyogle residents fight World Rally motor race" of 7 Mar 09.

Contents: A Kyogle district resident states the case against the motor race, The Repco FIA World Championship Rally is More Than a Koala can Bear, How the Kyogle District Chamber of Commerce, Rally Australia and the Kyogle Council imposed the motor race on local residents.

Residents of the Kyogle district of NSW, just south of the Queensland border, are organising to protect their way of life and local wildlife from the threat of an FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) World Rally motor race scheduled to be held in September 2009.

A Kyogle district resident states the case against the motor race

The following letter sent, recently to the Tweed Echo by Kyogle district resident Kathryn Kermode, states the priciple objections to the holding of the Repco FIA World Championship Rally in the area.

Gary Connelly from Repco Rally Australia seems to be surprised that many residents along the proposed route of his event are not welcoming him warmly.  We await Dr Steven Phillips environmental report with great interest, to see how Rally Australia will demonstrate protection of our threatened species, but this report will not address all of our serious concerns.

Noise.  We are residents of a quiet country road.  We want to attract tourists to our road who appreciate the natural virtues and who have the time to stop and look at the view.  Noise is not a new problem for the WRC (World Rally Championship), reading the Irish press reports it appears that the residents in Drumkeerin have summoned the organizers of the WRC to court over the noise.  They say "the previous rally held in November 2007 was held with total disregard for residents, their property and safety, and that the noise leading up to it caused total sleep deprivation and the "terrible" noise of the rally itself left animals and a disabled person traumatised."

Lack of Consultation.  The public community meetings, that were stacked with outsiders by the organisers, have not answered the serious concerns raised by the residents.  Repco Rally Australia has however successfully and derisively, divided our community and marginalized the residents.  It is a great shame that Events NSW who have handed over our taxpayers dollars did not consider the region and undertake a feasibility study prior to the event being placed in Northern NSW.  It seems the process of decision-making has been rushed and the event is being pushed through without true consultation and consideration of the community living along the stages.

Dangerous Copy Cats. The WRC is a dangerous sporting event.  Drivers, co-drivers and spectators have been killed during the WRC; Repco Rally Australia will be working hard to try to ensure this will not happen in our region.  They cannot however promise that there will not be a fatal accident and will have helicopters on site ready to airlift the wounded to hospital if necessary.  Have Repco Rally Australia considered that the residents do not want anyone dying at our mailboxes?  In fact, many residents do not want a high speed, long-term activity on our roads.  Existing research indicates a link between motor racing and road accidents.  Accident rates can be higher in localities that have been associated with a motor racing event, casualty accident rates on the public roads around Melbourne's Albert Park significantly increased when the public roads were used as a Formula One race circuit.

The majority of people attending the WRC are young males, a category already over represented in our region as road statistics.  This is not a family fun event, we are asking the wider community to fully consider the repercussions to our young drivers if nothing else.

Pollution and Resources. Rally Australia's carbon offsetting will not reduce the level of pollution that the residents who live on the route will be forced to endure.  All the dust, fumes, noise and the potential for fire that is created by a high speed motor sporting event of this scale.

Liberty and Amenity. Repco Rally Australia is removing our civil liberty and amenity.  They are restricting and removing access to our properties and the public roads that we pay our council rates money to upkeep.

The Cost. NSW taxpayers are footing the bill for the event.  Would you as a taxpayer rather the millions be spent on hospitals and education, or do you see this event, which has a non-viable record of accomplishment as a good choice for the NSW Government.  The amount of money that Events NSW has provided Repco Rally Australia with, should be disclosed and accounted for.

Community Aspiration.  Our community wants to collectively lighten our footprint on the earth.  We aspires towards principles of the organic industry; home grown, hand made, slow food, bird watching, bush walking, recycling and rainforest restoration are activities that we want to embrace and encourage for our region.  We would like to see the local B & B's full every weekend, we would like to see the verandahs in the village eateries bustling with customers every weekend, not overflowing and unable to cope once every second year.

The WRC will benefit a few financially in the short term, but it will carry a huge burden of cost for the residents in the long term.

Kathryn Kermode
Sargents Road

See also: "Tweed Shire Council General Manager, Director of World Rally Australia?" of 8 Apr 09, "World Rally is too noisy say residents" in the Sligo Champion of 19 Nov 08, "Damaged bridge 'won't impact on rally'" in the Leitrim Observer of 16 Jan 09, "Failure in bid to divert rally" in the Irish Independent of 11 Dec 08, "Noise pollution case against Rally Ireland dismissed" of 19 Dec 08,
"World Youth Day wash up" of 5 Feb 09 about how the supposedly cash-strapped NSW government, which is subsidising the rally in Northern NSW, squandered AU$120 million on World Youth Day last year.

The Repco FIA World Championship Rally is More Than a Koala can Bear

The following letter was published in the community newspaper Northern Rivers Talking Turkey on 25 Feb 09.

If the dumb animals could speak I wonder what they would say, would they ask for justice or compensation? The day after Rally Australia walking into Kyogle and divided the community with its fun map, I filmed Sargent the koala, about three meters from the ground in a grey gum, right beside Sargents Road.

Sargents Road has a known koala population, it is quite possibly a koala corridor as it is lined with schedule 2, koala feed tree species, it could even be core koala habitat. Why then would Kyogle Council and Rally Australia even consider it as a good option for their race map?

I ask Kyogle Council and Rally Australia, if Sargent the koala happens to be up in his tree, or any other tree, during the reconnaissance exercises or the race what will Gary Connelly and his troupe of volunteers do? Will they

a) Ignore the fact that there are koalas in the trees and race their cars up
to 200 kph

b) Poke it with a stick, throw things at it or try other methods to scare it
away.

c) Knock it out of the tree, catch it and take it away.

There is already a plan in place, it has been created by the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) to ensure the survival of the koala in the wild and it is called the Recovery Plan for the Koala, published November 2008. It would be wise for Kyogle Council to recognize this and the value that koalas have for our Community, both in terms of their presence in our landscape but also their unfulfilled potential to attract the tourist dollar.

It would be foolish of Rally Australia to ignore our plea to protect our koala. We must as a Community realize that we need to protect our wild populations of koalas NOW. This iconic species is declining in nature, and is fast headed toward the Endangered List. We ask Rally Australia to think of the future. We cannot buy back the species once we have pushed it to the brink; it is not like offsetting carbon emissions.

One intelligent choice remains for all those involved: The World Rally Championship should immediately be re-routed away from koala habitat.

Kathryn Kermode

Sargents Road
Cawongla

How the Kyogle District Chamber of Commerce, Rally Australia and the Kyogle Council imposed the motor race on local residents

This was orignally published in a Kyogle District local newspaper wiht the title "Kyogle Rallying ..."

In a very embarrassing slip up, Gary Upson from Rally Australia accidentally sent an email intended for Arthur Piggott, Kyogle Council's General Manager, to one of the rally's opponents. In it, Gary Upson asked Arthur if he could get as many of his pro-rally supporters to the meeting and suggested that he would do the same from within the rally fraternity. Well, sure enough, that meeting had people from the Rally Fraternity coming all the way from Brisbane.

Rally Australia sponsor a website where they post Public Relations Statements (e.g. "Community Support, Economic Benefit And Green Policy Refute Rally Australia Critics"). These statements are sent out to the Media as Media Releases for Journalists who are obliged to rehash them into news items. One of their most recent stories is about Kyogle's District Chamber of Commerce giving their support, in principle, to the Rally. Rally Organisers asked pro-rally supporters to make their voices heard in the community, in the media, everywhere in order to drown out the voice of those against the rally but it is not the role of big business to attempt to divide our community through blatant lobbying. The most memorable demonstration of this divisive behavior was Rally Australia's stacking of February's Community Consultation meeting. In a very embarrassing slip up, Gary Upson from Rally Australia accidentally sent an email intended for Arthur Piggott, Kyogle Council's General Manager, to one of the rally's opponents. In it, Gary Upson asked Arthur if he could get as many of his pro-rally supporters to the meeting and suggested that he would do the same from within the rally fraternity. Well, sure enough, that meeting had people from the Rally Fraternity coming all the way from Brisbane. This debacle also reveals a possible politicisation of Kyogle Council's administrative staff, risky business given Council's previous track record. And by the way, who exactly requested a Police presence at the meeting? Is NSW Police also to be co-opted to the pro-rally agenda?

Where can Rally opponents turn when their own Council no longer represents their best interests ... ?

Where can Rally opponents turn when their own Council no longer represents their best interests but represents primarily the interests of a Client who will soon have a Development Application pending? I would argue that Rally Australia has a Public Relations strategy with malicious intent. I would also argue that Kyogle Council doesn't have the planning policies to even consider the World Rally Championship's Development Application. What have we got to lose if this project proposal is gone over with a fine toothed comb by a panel with expertise in all the issues it raises?

On Rally Australia's website, Kyogle Chamber of Commerce President, Councillor and Businesswoman, Ms Lynette Zito, claimed quite ingenuously, that the Chamber "did not ask the proposed rally to come here, but now that they are looking to hold this international event in our location we are looking at what we want to make of it." The reason the Chamber didn't invite the Rally may have something to do with the idea that it wasn't the kind of Sustainable business opportunity they were looking for. After fourteen separate workshops with community members in the preparation of Kyogle Council's Sense of Place Economic Statement, it was concluded that throughout "the consultation process the community has echoed a range of common desires. Whilst most recognize the need for economic development and growth, they fear the loss of their way of life and core cultural elements that build a sense of ownership and pride in their community." Too right they do!

At the Ordinary Council Meeting of April 21, an urgent motion to approve the Rally in principle was passed without further discussion. At the next Ordinary Council Meeting after that, in May, likewise, there was no further discussion. There have been no Feasibility Studies or Council Environmental Studies so I ask: How do we know the Rally will be good for our Town?

The people of Kyogle collectively identified the "environment, its protection and enhancement [as] a priority to the community as it is the reason why people chose this place to live." The statement revealed that the residents who attended the Council's workshops felt the Environment was critical to the growth of tourism in the area and was in fact its greatest attraction. So yes, why would these people invite a Motor Sporting event into the community? The truth is that it seemed nobody invited it except a few people who had discussed the issue with Kyogle Ex- Mayor Ernie Bennett. He met with the World Rally Championship organizers in mid April 2008. At the Ordinary Council Meeting of April 21, an urgent motion to approve the Rally in principle was passed without further discussion. At the next Ordinary Council Meeting after that, in May, likewise, there was no further discussion. There have been no Feasibility Studies or Council Environmental Studies so I ask: How do we know the Rally will be good for our Town? Did Mr Bennett know something more and did he pass the Arcane knowledge of such onto the new Mayor Mr Brown? That rushed and undebated urgent Motion was all that was needed for this Rally's Organisers to come speeding into our lives telling us what we should and should not be doing for the Rally and what is and isn't good for our Economy and our future. I hope the lesson of this is that more of us become involved in Local Council.

That rushed and undebated urgent Motion was all that was needed for this Rally's Organisers to come speeding into our lives telling us what we should and should not be doing for the Rally and what is and isn't good for our Economy and our future. I hope the lesson of this is that more of us become involved in Local Council.

Kyogle Council's Sense of Place Economic Statement placed great importance on the values and guiding principles that emerged from the Consultative Meetings it initiated saying that they articulated "those fundamental and common rules that should be applied in the planning and implementation of all future projects." That statement seems like a hollow one now. I believe the common thought about the Rally among Pro-rally supporters is that, like Lynette implies, it just fell into our lap and we should all make the most of it. We can't build an envisioned Sustainable Tourism Industry in such an undisciplined manner. We are sending mixed messages to those we previously encouraged, investors with Eco Tourism, Green and Organic Agriculture and Farm Gate to Plate projects, to name a few. Kyogle must be pro-active in determining its way forward without losing the unique identity of being Gateway to the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests as well as a Gateway for its children into a reinvented 21st Century Rural Heartland.

Our young men don't need any more encouragement to find out the hard way that speed kills. Even being a spectator at a Motor Sports event is a dangerous activity and one which the World Rally Championship Organisers refuse to underwrite with any moral responsibility.

Motor Sports is an incompatible Eco activity, it is largely irrelevant to the Agricultural Industry and it can only undermine the very World Heritage Environmental values Kyogle's residents so obviously value. Our young men don't need any more encouragement to find out the hard way that speed kills. Even being a spectator at a Motor Sports event is a dangerous activity and one which the World Rally Championship Organisers refuse to underwrite with any moral responsibility. Before you even think about where you're going to find a park to watch the race from, I invite you to peruse this Confederation of Motor Sports' Indemnity clause for potential spectators to September's World Rally Championship. Would you sign it?

Jenny Bluefields

Form to indemnify rally orgnisers from legal liability arising from injury

Repco Rally Australia Tour: September 2-7, 2009.
Disclaimer
Exclusion of liability, release and assumption of risk motor sport is dangerous

In exchange for being able to attend or participate in the event, you agree:

to release Confederation of Australian Motor Sport Ltd ("CAMS") and Australian Motor Sport Commission Ltd, promoters, sponsor organisations, land owners and lessees, organizers of the event, their respective servants, officials, representatives and agents including Rally Sport Magazine and Rally Australia Pty Ltd (collectively, the "Associated Entities") from all liability for your death, personal injury (including burns), psychological trauma, loss or damage (including property damage) ("harm") howsoever arising from your participation in or attendance at the event, except to the extent prohibited by law;

that CAMS and the Associated Entities do not make any warranty, implied or express, that the event services will be provided with due care and skill or that any materials provided in connection with the services will be fit for the purpose for which they are supplied; and

to attend or participate in the event at your own risk.

You acknowledge that:

the risks associated with attending or participating in the event include the risk that you may suffer harm as a result of:

motor vehicles (or parts of them) colliding with other motor vehicles, persons or property;

acts of violence and other harmful acts (whether intentional or inadvertent) committed by persons attending or participating in the event; and

the failure or unsuitability of facilities (including grand-stands, fences and guard rails) to ensure the safety of persons or property at the event. motor sport is dangerous and that accidents causing harm can and do happen and may happen to you.

You accept the conditions of, and acknowledge the risks arising from, attending or participating in the event and being provided with the event services by CAMS and the Associated Entities.

Signed……………………………………………………………. Date ……………..

This media release with was received this morning. As an independent candidate for the seat of Mount Coot-tha, I will do my best to raise this critical issue in the remaining weeks of the campaign. If elected, I will put legislation before the Queensland Parliament to outlaw the destruction of any more Koala habitat in South East Queensland. - James Sinnamon, 5 March 2009.

Say Sorry Mr Garrett

The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) was told yesterday that their nomination for the Southeast Queensland koala population as a critically endangered species under Federal Environment laws would not proceed because "the form had not been filled in correctly."

Despite images of burnt and desperate koalas flooding the world and on the eve of Environment Minister Peter Garrett performing with Midnight Oil this Saturday for bushfire relief - including the famous Sam the Koala - he has turned his back on the koalas that desperately need his support for the protection of habitat in Southeast Queensland.

CEO of the AKF Deborah Tabart OAM is saying Mr Garrett has lost control of his Department or worse still, does know of this decision, which would be even more disturbing.

"The ironic thing is he is the custodian of our koalas and he should be the one telling his bureaucrats to fill in the boxes - we're tired of doing the work for you, Mr Garrett.

"It is outrageous that after the AKF has poured $8 million into science proving the koala is a threatened species, they still find a loophole to avoid protecting it," Ms Tabart said.

"You have to ask, is this because of a too close relationship between political donors and the Rudd Government?

"I am convinced this situation is linked to the upcoming Queensland election and by September 2010, when the listing decision is due, all approvals for infrastructure and development will have been granted by then.

"I am shocked at the lack of compassion of the bureaucrats in Canberra who know that this bureaucratic decision will see the demise of the Southeast Queensland koala population and I want the people of the world to know.

"Our Governments are prepared to watch the Southeast Queensland population go to extinction for their own political gain," Ms Tabart said.

Even if the AKF submits another nomination, it will not be reviewed again until September 2010 despite predictions that the koala could be extinct in Southeast Queensland within just five years.

To find out ways to help the Australian Koala Foundation save our koalas, visit the website at www.savethekoala.com.

Sophia Walter
Public Relations & Communications
Australian Koala Foundation
www.savethekoala.com

GPO Box 2659 Brisbane Qld 4001
Tel: (07) 3229 7233 Fax: (07) 3221 0337
sophia [ AT ] savethekoala.com

See also: "Queensland Government killing koalas for developer dollars" of 12 Aug 09, "Wildlife also bleed, also feel, also lost their homes" of 13 Feb 09, "Development project threatens second largest Koala Colony in Tweed Shire" of 21 Feb 09.

The last stand for Tweed Coast koalas - our local heritage and icon at stake!

The Tweed Shire has abundant World Heritage areas and has the highest biodiversity of vertebrates in Australia - more than Kakadu National Park - due to abundant rainfall and rich volcanic soil from Mount Warning.

Kings Forest is a 2,000 + acres (880 hectares) parcel of land that contains critical habitat for the second largest colony of koalas on the Tweed Koala Coast (i.e. 145 to 175 koalas) out of a total of 300 koalas (see map). This is a very significant colony. There are a total of 22 endangered species of animals on this land and hundreds of endangered flora (scribbly gum and rare heathland).

There is currently a proposal by Mr Bob Ell, Executive Chairman, Leda Holdings, GPO Box 2522, SYDNEY NSW 200 before State government to develop the following on this land:

• residential development of 4,500 houses (dogs and cats permitted)
• aged care facility and/or retirement living
• educational facilities (pre-school, primary schools, high school)
• village centre
• church
• service station
• golf course and club house
• neighbourhood centre
• regional community facility
• four-lane boulevard

What threatens koalas' survival?

The biggest killers of koalas (in order of impact) are:

1. habitat destruction
2. cars
3. dogs

All three threats would be present on this development, in addition to others. Felled trees would not only cause loss of habitat for koalas but also loss of koalas' food source. Revegetation of these eucalypt species would take at least five to ten years.

Koala-friendly wildlife corridors

Additionally, the plan includes a golf course, a four-lane road and bicycle paths to interface with the wildlife corridor for koalas who move on foot from tree to tree.

There are no koala-proof fences planned around the roads or overpasses/underpasses to prevent koalas from running onto the roads. This would be disastrous for the koalas and would lead to their local extinction.

Already the koala populations on the Tweed are highly fragmented due to lack of interconnecting wildlife corridors. Without a healthy gene pool their species will become weaker and sicker. This is may be the only healthy koala population in NSW. Other populations of koalas die from disease and weak immunity.

Golf courses spray pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that can be carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and mutagenic, affecting immunity and reproduction of koalas who could inhale and also tread in these toxins. Also fertilisers will kill native species of flora.

World koala experts say that when you reduce habitat and food sources to koalas, their numbers will reduce, so if this goes, all koalas go.

Since pockets of koala habitat occur throughout this area, removing pockets will have a major impact on the colony. Although 50% of the koala population are female, none of them have any sign of breeding due to the stress of logging in the area.

Koala distribution map for the tweed shire (crosses):-

www.tweed.nsw.gov.au/stpuweb/koala.htm

Unsafe human habitat

Due to the high fire-risk nature of the area with so many native trees, this development is very risky for human habitation. Every house would need trees cleared around it, trees that are habitat and a food source for the koalas thus significantly impacting endangered species. This would breach the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999 (EPBC Act). Furthermore, this is low-lying land prone to floods and close to the coast in the event of rising sea levels.

In summary, this proposal is an ecological disaster for the Tweed Shire.

Koalas extinct by 2020?

There are estimated to be less than 100,000 koalas remaining in Australia, considerably less due to the recent disastrous Victorian bush fires and Queensland floods.

It is incumbent on us to protect those koalas and endangered species remaining not only for our growing tourism industry but for future generations. Currently, Koalas are predicted to become extinct in the wild by 2020.

Considering we are in the Sixth Mass Extinction of all species, it is imperative that we understand that human survival depends on biodiversity.

See also: "Kings Forest Development threatens 21 Threatened Species of Fauna" on Blue Cray of 28 Feb 09.

How you can help

Please write to:

The Director
Coastal Assessments
Department of Planning
GPO Box 39
Sydney NSW 2001
(02)92-285-811
[email protected]

The General Manager
cc The Councillors
PO Box 816
Muwillumbah NSW 2484
email [email protected]
(02)66-702-400.

Deadline: March 2, 2009 (post-dated on envelope)

"Think Globally, Act Locally"

Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh, in a letter published in the Courier Mail on 8 August, claimed concern at the decline in South East Queensland's koala population. However, it was her Government which only recently legislated, against community and local council objections, to fast-track the destruction of much of the remaining koala habitats in South East Queensland to make way for residential development.

Queensland Government to blame for the koala's demise

Wildlife Preservation Society Queensland, Bayside Branch media release

The Queensland Government's growth strategy and past poor planning are the causes of the demise of the state's wildlife emblem, the koala, in South East Queensland, say conservationists.

"One of the biggest reasons why the SEQ koala is heading towards extinction is because of the State Government's pursuit of growth at any cost," said Simon Baltais, spokesperson for Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Branch. "As Deputy Premier and Minister for the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, Paul Lucas should be held responsible for this deplorable situation."

"Hundreds of hectares of koala habitat will be destroyed and hundreds of koalas will be killed because of the Minister's push to open more land for residential development," said Mr Baltais.

In a recent joint statement from the Premier and Deputy Premier Lucas on the issue of providing more land for urban development it was stated, "The development industry has been calling on us to make more land in the Urban Footprint available sooner - here it is." (see attached media statement at end)

Yet the Government's own research has shown urbanisation is driving the koala to extinction (see attached background paper). The SEQ koala had gone from Common to Vulnerable in 2004 and now the Koala Coast koala population is considered Endangered. Just recently the Environmental Protection Agency and Moreton Bay Regional Council showed the urban koala population in that area had declined 46 per cent over the past six years. The situation is similar on the Gold Coast, where the State Government has condemned hundreds of koalas to death because they have allowed massive development in Coomera koala habitat.

"The loss of koala habitat was recognized as the biggest killer of koalas." said Mr. Baltais. "As a member of the Koala Taskforce recently setup to advise the State Government on the matter of how to save the koala I will state what scientists have been saying since 1995, protect koala habitat in both the rural and urban environment."

"The key reason why the koala is heading towards extinction is because the State Government is ignoring the scientists and because ministers like Mr Lucas have encouraged an unsustainable pattern of development in SEQ."

Simon Baltais
WPSQ - Bayside Branch
Mb: 0447 539 968

Background for Media Release

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The 1995 Planning Guidelines for the Conservation of Koalas in the Koala Coast (SPP 1/95) stated, urban residential, industrial and commercial estates and major Community developments were considered to be generally incompatible with the maintenance of koala habitat values.

However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.

The 1997 Planning Guidelines for the Conservation of Koalas in the Koala Coast (SPP 1/97) stated that urban residential, industrial and commercial estates and major community developments were considered to be generally incompatible with the maintenance of koala habitat values.

However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.

In March 2004 the koala was re-listed from a common species to 'vulnerable to extinction' in the South East Queensland Bioregion, under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA).

However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2005 the SEQ Regional Plan stated that koala populations are declining or becoming locally extinct in many areas, primarily due to habitat loss. The SEQ Regional Plan Regulatory provisions stated that subdivision of land in the Regional Landscape Area could not be subdivided below 100 ha.

However, the State Government allowed urban, commercial development, rural industries and quarries to occur in koala habitat and allowed subdivision of koala habitat in the Regional Landscape Area. The lots were smaller than 100ha.

In 2006 the Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006-2016 stated that koalas are suffering from the impacts of urban development and habitat clearing. The greatest threats to their survival are the destruction and fragmentation of their habitat, car strikes, dog attacks and disease.

However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2006 Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 stated:

However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2007 the Report on Koala Coast Koala Surveys 2005-2006 (EPA) stated,

However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2008 the survey by consultants GHD for the Environmental Protection Agency and Moreton Bay Regional Council showed the urban koala population in that area had declined 46 per cent over the past six years. The loss of koala habitat was recognized as the biggest killer of koalas.

Perhaps repetition repetition repetition will finally see the State Government take strong positive action and stop the loss of koala habitat?

Unfortunately, the State Government has already suggested major koala habitat south of Boundary Road, Thornlands (Woodlands Drive) be opened to greenfield development and has forced the community to go to court to stop quarries destroying koala habitat in Mt Cotton. The State Government appears to have written off hundreds of hectares of koala habitat and koalas in the Coomera area.

Is the State Government perhaps just a bunch of slow learners? Do they listen too much to developers and not the scientists and community?

Help the State Government understand the need to protect koala habitat, if
they are genuine about saving the koala, by sending them an email and
reminding them. Email:premier[AT]ministerial qld gov au and
deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au

Bligh greenfield study reveals land, lots of land

Joint Statement:
Premier The Honourable Anna Bligh
Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning The Honourable Paul Lucas

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Premier Anna Bligh today announced the State Government would fast-track planning for development of 17 greenfield sites in South-East Queensland, as part of its plan to tackle housing affordability.

Ms Bligh said while the Government was limited in its ability to influence
housing prices, she was determined to do everything possible to tackle the
issue of affordability.

"I want the Australian dream to be alive and well here in Queensland, particularly for young people wanting to own their first home.

"Yesterday we announced significant changes to stamp duty to make buying a home in Queensland cheaper and today, we are tackling the issue of land supply.

"Last year as Treasurer and Infrastructure Minister I commissioned a review of the Greenfield areas within the Urban Footprint that could be market-ready sooner.

"I want to see land being turned into new homes for Queenslanders as quickly
as humanly possible and this investigation looked at 42 greenfield areas -
containing more than 40,000ha of undeveloped land.

As a result - the Government will remove any regulatory hurdles slowing the development process on 12 sites:

1. Maroochydore, Meridian Plains, on the Sunshine Coast;
2. Market Drive and North Lakes in Moreton Bay;
3. Upper Kedron and Rochedale in Brisbane;
4. Coomera and Helensvale on the Gold Coast;
5. Springfield and Redbank Plains in Ipswich; and
6. Kinross Road and South-East Thornlands in Redlands

"This will make it possible for the industry to begin the development process of these sites by Christmas.

"In addition, there are five sites where we believe integrated communities of 15,000 people or more can be delivered and we will work with councils to prepare land developer-ready within 12 months:

1. Palm View and Caloundra South on the Sunshine Coast;
2. Flagstone in Logan;
3. Oxley Wedge in Brisbane;
4. Ripley Valley in Ipswich

"That's a total of 17 new Greenfield sites that will be developer-ready by this time next year.

"This is about cutting red tape and bottlenecks that are delaying the development process.

"These bottlenecks are occurring at all levels of government - including within State Government agencies - and its not good enough.

"An implementation team will be established with the Department of Infrastructure and Planning charged with the task of cutting through and removing these hurdles.

"The development industry has been calling on us to make more land in the Urban Footprint available sooner - here it is," she said.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Paul Lucas said
the fast tracking of Greenfield sites will be guided by an Action Plan
released today.

"Housing affordability is a challenge that demands action not just at all levels of Government but also from the development industry," said Mr Lucas.

"The industry wants more land released and the Bligh Government has responded with a plan that will provide additional housing choice for the public and contain costs by increasing competition between developers.

"But governments can't do it all alone and we can only bring these sites forward if the necessary infrastructure is in place.

"Yesterday we announced the $107 billion South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan and Program, which demonstrates our commitment to building for Queensland's future.

"Now we need to work with the industry to deliver these sites ahead of time.

"They will also need to demonstrate how they plan to deliver the transport options, road upgrades, water and energy needs for these areas.

"These sites must all be developed as well-planned and integrated communities and the State Government will need to ensure growth is spread across the regions.

"Although the review shows plenty of greenfield land available for housing it must be emphasised the South East Queensland Regional Plan aims to cater for 45 percent of the expected population growth through infill and redevelopment."

"This review is another one of the State Government's strategies to address
housing affordability in addition to setting up the Urban Land Development
Authority and implementing reforms to the state's planning and development
systems."

Visit www.dip.qld.gov.au for more information.

Media: 3224 4500 (Premier's office) or 3227 8425 (Deputy Premier's office)

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's letter published in the Courier Mail of 8 August

I assure readers who share my concern about the continued decline in southeast Queensland's koala population that I appreciate the need for a multi-pronged strategy.

The specific areas I have requested the taskforce to consider are further protection of koala habitat, changes to road speeds, signage and koala crossings, koala-friendly fencing in habitat areas, restricting or controlling dogs and banning clearing of habitat trees.

Pets are an important part of our lives, so proposals for controls or restrictions will arouse the most discussion.

However, this is a discsussion we need to have as part of a total response.

Anna Bligh
Premier of Queensland

What you can do: Email Premier Anna Bligh (premier [AT] ministerial qld gov au) and Deputy Premier Paul Lucas (deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au) to demand that they act now to end Queensland's economic dependency upon population growth. This dependency, if not broken, will make the extinction of the koala and other native species, such as the lungfish, inevitable.

See also: Locals join koala 'crisis' taskforce in the Bayside Bulletin of 7 Aug 08 including readers' comments.