ntroduction by candobetter.net editor: This article reflects interviews with Frankston natural scientist, Hans Brunner, who has spent decades of his life trying to save the southern brown bandicoot, as many of those who know Hans are aware. Here the ABC takes up Hans's argument about the $20m promised by the State Government to be spent protecting bandicoot habitat that was threatened by Peninsula Link was never used as promised for a fox-proof fence. "Peninsula Link dutifully spent $20 million of taxpayers' money on the underpass, and handed over $1.6 million to Parks Victoria for the fence. But Parks Victoria never built the fence. At the completion of the freeway in 2013, and with only a single bandicoot hair detected two years prior, Parks Victoria chose to direct the money intended for the fence to bandicoot programs near Cranbourne..." in an area now allocated for a projected housing development. This is totally outrageous by Parks Victoria and by the government with which it is too closely aligned. Surely the current Parks Victoria Board should be sacked. Planning documents from 2011 show wide reserves with predator-proof fencing. But a 2012 revision made them a dotted line — an option if Federal Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt required it. Mr Hunt failed to do so. His dereliction with regard to this unique creature in the world, the southern brown bandicoot, seems to be his support for by Melbourne's [over]development. A Dubai conference recently named Greg Hunt 'the best environment minister in the world' seems a reflection of extreme cynicism or a calculated insult to the Australian public. Good on the ABC for promoting this investigation. Article by Sara Phillips, first published on http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-28/survival-of-rare-melbourne-bandicoots-under-threat/7181580
This article describes the important contribution of bandicoots to tree health and ecology. It raises the much wider costs of bandicoot extinction and tree die-off associated with such extinction.
A few days ago wildlife biologist, Hans Brunner, came to see me to ask me to publish the following report on the continuing failure of Victorian government to responsibly protect bandicoots. He also reported his personal experience on a recent visit to the Department of Environment and Primary Industries (accompanied by Gillian Collins, Michelle Thomas, and David Nichols).
For over 200 years Tasmanian wildlife were spared the devastating presence of foxes. A few years ago foxes made it onto the island. Now the effort to stop the irreversible spread of foxes in Tasmania is at a critical stage with many native species at risk of extinction, according to research in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology.
What do children, bandicoots, Melbourne's Green Wedges and the Garden of Eden have in common? This poignant submission to a developer-dominated government about a children and bandicoots' garden goes right back to the garden of Eden, retold again and again, this time in Uno's garden and a garden with 'protected' bandicoots near Clyde, Victoria, on the edge of the Green Wedge.
What kind of incompetent government cannot even keep small creatures like bandicoots from extinction? Wildlife ecologist and forensic animal hair identification expert, Hans Brunner, says politicians and greedy planners have seriously watered down and misinterpreted the meaning of the word 'reserve'. Parks Victoria complain about the lack of money, but spend money on infrastructure for people leaving no money for the protection of plants and animals, or for weeding, predator control and fencing, which should be their first and only priority. 
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