biodiversity

Dear lovers of Planet Earth, animals, nature, peace and justice

This happened at a rally in Argentina August 15th 2009

An Injunction is being served on Repco Rally Australia tomorrow Thursday 2.15pm forcing Peter Garrett to call in their ecological survey for review. Please contact the Minister ASAP before then asking him to call in the rally.

There are 12 nationally listed threatened (endangered and vulnerable) fauna in the area and 34 migratory birds that have not been adequately assessed. These are species of national environmental significance that need to be reviewed. Factors such as the stress induced by 'mitigation measures' (low-flying helicopters, compressed air sirens and hand horns) will contribute to death of species from nest/fledgling abandonment. Stress myopathy deaths of macropods were not addressed. Barriers by creeks containing endangered Giant Barred Frogs will not contain the substantial dust and sediment generated by more than 100 rally vehicles going over 200kph along 350k of dirt roads every day for 4 days.

Peter Garrett inaugurates
the Green Cauldron

It is absolutely appalling that this rally has been forced on one of the most biodiverse areas in Australia in breeding season for the next 10-20 years, especially when 2/3rds of them are already endangered! Clearly the Minister for the Environment has a duty to protect our fauna. Australia has the worst reputation in the world for mammal extinctions having driven 38% of its mammals extinct since the early settlers arrived. This is just not good enough!

What you can do:Ask the minister to use his powers and protect the Green Cauldron (that he christened) to cancel this race ASAP.

Tel: (02) 6277 7640
Fax: (02) 6273 6101

Email: [email protected]
Maroubra office
[t] 02 9349 6007
[f] 02 9349 8089

Also send this alert to everyone you know, individuals, animal rights, environmental, wildlife carers groups you know. The above photo is a NASCAR test run that hit a coyote in U.S.A. recently.

Additionally, there are three other events occurring on the Fathers' Day weekend:

1. the Australian Tarmac Challenge http://www.duttonrally.com/new_south_wales_2009.php ,
which is coming up the coast to join in with the WRC special events section.
a quote from their site
" The 2009 Australian Tarmac Challenge will be huge, and kicks off with the Victorian event in May. Entries are now open for all cars, regardless of age or specification, the only requirement is that your vehicle is registered and roadworthy (includes Rally plate cars).

"No experience is necessary, the only prerequisite is that you love your car and love driving! If you’re a first-timer, you might want to read our FAQ section HERE, or email ask and ask anything you like, regardless of how silly you think your enquiry might be."

2. Then there is the Frontier Services Classic Outback trial with another 50 rally cars to run with the WRC on the dirt http://classicoutbacktrial.com.au/cot/Links.asp
quote “With the RRA organizers running Speed on Tweed that same weekend, there will be such a massive motor sport presence in the Murwillumbah and Tweed area that it will be like a mini ‘Goodwood’ and will attract enthusiasts from all over Australia.”

Many wallabies will be in the path of the rally not to mention those who will die from stress myopathy in the weeks following.

3. And then will be the 182 entries for Speed on Tweed .

4. The WRC

Plus all of above's crews and support teams and fans. If you dont like cars then its just bad luck. If you don't being locked in your house unable to get out to go to work, take kids to school, go shopping, go to appointments etc. tough. How much did our dear councils know about that lot????

Learn more at http://www.norallygroup.org - contact us for details at email [email protected], phone (0438) 357 452

#WhatUCanDo" id="WhatUCanDo">What you can do

Please attend protests against the rally

Peaceful protests against the World Rally. Each protest will be a silent vigil. Please remember to bring banners.

When?
There are 5 protest vigils planned:

The Final Ceremony will have live TV coverage, so please make a special effort to bring banners for that protest.

Thanks,
Menkit

The animals thank you ...

See also: Repco Rally route - the calm before the storm of 26 Aug 09, REPCO Rally injunction raced through court up blind alley of 31 Aug 09.

VicForests sued for illegal logging Tuesday 25th August 2009

Today, Environment East Gippsland commenced proceedings against VicForests in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

A writ was filed with the court this morning and has just been served on VicForests.

“We ask the Court for a permanent injunction to stop VicForests from logging Brown Mountain” said Jill Redwood, Coordinator of EEG. “We also ask the Court to declare that the logging of Brown Mountain is unlawful”.

Brown Mountain is known habitat for at least five species of wildlife listed as vulnerable or threatened under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

The Court has not yet set a date for the hearing of the case.

Kelvin Thomson on Overpopulation in Australia and the World: Parliamentary Speech 17/08/09

POPULATION

We all know that the world has plenty of problems. Let me run out some that come to mind without much effort – global warming, food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, transport congestion, fisheries collapse, species extinctions, increasing prices, waste, terrorism. We scratch our heads and try to come up with solutions.

It staggers me that so often we ignore the elephant in the room – increasing population. Each of these problems is either caused by, or exacerbated by, the global population explosion. In the first two million years of human existence, the global human population was only a few million. Up to 1950, it had managed to climb to 2 billion. In the fifty-odd years since, it has trebled to 6 billion people. The population is projected to double again.

The consequences of the present population pressure are dramatic. In my opinion it is not plausible that the world’s population could double without the consequences becoming catastrophic. And yet when it is suggested that the world’s population is a problem, there is zero interest from policy makers. In my view it isn’t so much a problem as the problem. Let me return to that list of problems, and describe the impact of population on them.

1.

GLOBAL WARMING

Population plays a critical role in global warming. We have one earth, one atmosphere, and every carbon dioxide molecule we release into it contributes to global warming. The more of us there are, the more carbon dioxide is released. Simple, undeniable. Al Gore identifies population growth as one of the big three drivers of the rapid spurt of greenhouse gases during the past 50 years. People who believe we can meet serious carbon targets without curbing population growth are kidding themselves, they are delusional.

There is no reasonable prospect that Australia will reduce its total level of greenhouse emissions, while our population grows by 1 million every four years, as is presently the case. Population stabilisation must be part of the plan to contain greenhouse emissions, not merely for Australia, but for the rest of the world as well.

2.

FOOD CRISIS

The combination of declining arable land and continued population growth has caused the world’s per capita food production to go into decline. We are now in a situation where there is a global shortage of food which is set to get worse. In future, more people will starve, not fewer.

Figures released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation show that the number of people suffering from chronic hunger is rising, not falling. In June last year the Australian Government’s Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation said that world agriculture is experiencing a growing crisis, and its first named demand side factor was increasing global population.

3.

WATER SHORTAGES

As with agricultural decline, population growth is fuelling water shortages, both indirectly through climate change and directly through extraction and pollution. Around the world one in three people is suffering from water shortage. Assuming modest rates of population growth, we will use 70% of the world’s accessible fresh water by 2025. Already 400 million children worldwide are drinking dangerously unclean water, and one child dies from a waterborne disease every 15 seconds. According to Melbourne Water, water scarcity in and around Melbourne is being driven by both climate change and population growth.

4.

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY

Housing affordability in Australia has undergone a period of dramatic decline. John Edwards, an economist with HSBC has noted that Australia’s high level of migration – the highest level in our history – is going to keep upward pressure on house prices. The same goes for rent. The General Manager of Australian Property Monitors, Michael McNamara, said the shortage of rental properties would continue to worsen because of rising migration.

5.

OVERCROWDED CITIES

Our cities are too large. They dwarf people. The sheer scale of them is overwhelming for some, who lose the plot and fall victim to mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse. And for the rest of us the madding crowd swells every year, giving us that little bit less room. Every square metre of space is fought over.

In Africa and Asia, the accumulated urban growth during the whole span of history, is in the process of being doubled between the year 2000 and 2030. A United Nations Population Fund report released in June 2007 says that as a result a billion people – one sixth of the world’s population – live in slums.

The overcrowding of cities is not merely a Third World phenomenon, either. In my home city of Melbourne, a lot of people of goodwill have supported high rise as preferable to urban sprawl. What they don’t realise is that it isn’t halting any urban sprawl at all. Suburbs continue to march out onto the horizon. Property developers are having their cake and eating it, too. We’re growing upwards and outwards. Melbourne is becoming an obese, hardened-artery parody of its former self.

There is something intangible but important about the personal space of a backyard. I believe the children who grow up in concrete jungle suburbs are subject to more bullying and harassment, and are more vulnerable to traps like crime and drugs.

6.

TRAFFIC CONGESTION

More people equals more cars. And the more cars there are out on the roads, the longer it takes us to get anywhere. . The time motorists spend on the roads in and out of Brisbane for example – to the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, and Ipswich – is truly appalling.

And each suburb we build out of the city fringes means more traffic coming through the inner suburbs, more congestion, more pollution, more noise. It does nothing for our calm, our quality of life, our sanity. We think we have no choice but to grin and bear it. It’s not true.

7.

SPECIES EXTINCTIONS

The USA based National Academy of Sciences has reported that human activities are leading to a wave of extinctions over 100 times greater than natural rates. Over 12,000 varieties of animal, plant and water life are critically endangered. Thirty percent of Australia’s 760 bird species are under threat.

The world has entered the twenty-first century with little more than 10% of its original forest cover intact. According to anthropologists Richard Leakey and Roger Lewis all the forest cover will be largely gone by 2050.

Sometimes I think we have declared war on everything else. The more there are of us, the less there is of everything else. I consider it a grotesque piece of arrogance on our part as a species that we think that we have a right to destroy everything else on our way to affluence.

8.

FISHERIES COLLAPSE

One of our favourite old sayings was “There are plenty more fish in the sea”. Not any more. 90% of the large fish in the ocean are gone.

Australia is in the same boat as everyone else. Our annual catch has steadily gone down and a Bureau of Rural Sciences Fisheries Status Report says that two thirds of Australia’s fisheries are either “overfished” or “uncertain”.

9.

INCREASING PRICES

Increasing population consumes resources and makes them scarcer, leading to price rises . The rising price of petrol is a clear function of scarcity fuelled by population growth. And the increased cost of basic resources like water and petrol feeds into everything they contribute to – food costs, transport costs, insurance, housing etc.

Some economists argue that increasing population will create economies of scale and put downward pressure on prices. In reality, this downward pressure on prices is sighted less frequently than Elvis Presley.

10.

WASTE

A vast area of the Central Pacific Ocean has become smothered in plastic. It’s referred to as the great Pacific Garbage Patch. The area affected is larger than Texas and to a depth of at least 30 metres. What a disgrace!

11.

TERRORISM AND WAR

Analysts spend a great deal of time assessing the political and religious factors leading to the scourge of terrorism and war in the modern world. They spend less time noting the underlying cause – conflict over scarce resources – scarce land, scarce water, scarce oil – brought about by increasing population.

A Pentagon Report in 2007 detailed a range of scenarios in which population displacement caused by global warming and triggered by extreme weather events would lead to border tensions and armed conflict.

An Oxford University study has estimated that 26 million Bangladeshis, 73 million Chinese and 20 million Indians are at risk of displacement from rising sea levels.

CONCLUSION

In short, it is time for governments and policy makers around the world to come to their senses and take steps to stabilize the world’s population. It needs to happen in every country, including here in Australia. Especially here in dry, arid Australia.

And it is time people and communities stood up and demanded better of their policy makers than the “she’ll be right” growth fetish which is making an utter mockery of our obligation to give to our children a world in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.

Kelvin Thomson
MHR for Wills

Logging this massive forest represents huge CO2 sink destruction

News is just in is that a decision to log the huge forests of Brown Mountain will be made in a week or so and the loggers will go in immediately afterwards! Brumby is not planning to protect it! Be there Tomorrow at 10.30am on the steps of Parliament House Victoria. We want everyone who can come along - young and old.

Old Growth stops this land from drying and burning!

The more old growth we cut down the more drying of the land, reduced rainfall, increased temperatures and risk of more and hotter bushfires. Bushfires dominate in managed and thinned forest, not in old growth! Logging Brown Forest will cause more bad bushfires in Victoria. Campervan, 4WDS and cars needed. Contact 0413927044

Climate Change Activism - less talk - more local action on the big factors - defend the forests!

Crikey news 12 August 2009 carries a relevant opinion article today on the farce that climate action has become.

Emissions trading debate: is this the best we can do?
[...] the public don’t have the faintest idea how emissions trading works and are completely disengaged from the debate over model details. They just want something done about climate change and know that the experts think emissions trading is the way to go.

This entire debate is being conducted under false pretenses or on the basis that what is manifestly not the case, is. Is this the best a democracy can do?

Making the 'solutions' very abstract and removed to a global forum of international 'experts' is the best way to keep people from local action and critical thinking and to mire action in impenetrable jargon and unverifyable accounting of C02 tradeoffs, offsets, sinks etc.

So much more we can do for ourselves here

There is so much more we can do for ourselves, crucially by stopping removal of vegetation for population, infrastructure and economic expansion. For instance we have in Victoria a record of climate change related fires which can be linked at their worst to the thinned and managed forests here. See "Victorian Bush-fires: ABC 7.30 Report ignores facts, creates scapegoats". We have climate refugees now living in tents in the winter cold as a result of these fires. Yet, in this most cleared of states, Mr Brumby is about to send in the loggers to Brown Mountain, where 600 year old trees testify to the very low risk of out-of-control fires in old growth forests. Most recently scientists have tied forest to inland rainfall . Deforestation drys continents - new theory explains how and a huge environmental and political experiment in Borneo by Willie Smit demonstrated they are right , "Recreating Eden". Climate activism is a huge source of organised public action in the name of which small groups should be able to act. Instead we see a crowd hypnotised by Al Gore and captured and harnessed by various local political groups in their usual quest for power and dollars. It amazes me that the Al Gore Climate Change activists, for all their repetitive noise are apparently unaware of or incapable of stopping the destruction of forests in Australia. Why are they not converging in busloads to stop the loggers and the developers' bulldozers?

Home Grown solutions in NSF and Permaculture

We also have at least two homegrown major applied science theories and practice in the structural ecology of Peter Andrews' Natural Sequence Farming (NSF), and the social theory (as well as the farming theory) in Bill Mollison's Permaculture.

With this in mind, I hope I may now return your attention to the crucial local political action to save Brown Mountain Forest for tomorrow in Melbourne. This is a huge forest and logging it will make a HUGE difference to CO2 emissions and local and regional temperature and rainfall if allowed to proceed in this (it bears repeating) the most cleared of Australian states. Protest tomorrow (12 August) at 10.30am on the steps of Parliament House Victoria. Everyone who can come along - young and old. Contact 0413927044

It's truly time that the Australian government, farmers and Australians everywhere realised the tremendous contribution kangaroos make to our ecosystem instead of shooting them on sight as vermin and scapegoating them as 'pests'.

We wonder why we are in the worst drought of 100 years, why we have out of control bushfires and climate change. Nobody seems to make the connection between chopping down trees (to create grazing pastures) which shade the land and keep it cool and higher temperatures. Or between soil erosion caused by hoofed livestock and the drying of the continent. Nobody seems to get that the worst pest in Australia is not kangaroo or rabbits, foxes, cats, cane toads but US HUMANS who are destroying habitat for the very native species that keep the ecosystem in balance, introducing feral animals that compete with natives, and on top of that treating native animals as inconveniently in the way of 'our' farmland, our roads, our cities etc.

The really sad fact is that Australia has the worst record of wildlife extinctions since the arrival of the early settlers in 1770, having wiped out 38% of our mammals and at the rate we are killing kangaroos in the world's largest massacre of land-based wildlife, they are on track to extinction too (see http://www.stopkangarookilling.org ).

Below are some of the reasons why kangaroos benefit our country and why we should want more of them, not less and why we urgently need to change our outmoded attitude.

1. Kangaroos lessen the possibility of bushfires by eating dry grass that ignites easily and in locations near trees that sheep and cattle cannot reach (by virtue of being fenced in).

2. Kangaroos' soft padded feet and long tail are integral to the ecological health of the land, as regenerators of native grasses. Any seedling that falls into the long-tapering footprint of the kangaroo is buried into the hole left by the toenail. Covered and with moisture concentrated at one point, the germinating seedling has a chance of survival. Their tail drags along behind them while they are grazing, pressing the ground, rolling seeds into the earth.

3. Kangaroos play an undeniable role in biological diversity and ecological integrity by virtue of the fact that they have lived in Australia for at least 16 million years (some say up to 60 million years), in harmony with the other species as per the law of interdependence.

4. Kangaroo urine and faeces is a natural fertilizer essential to the health of the soil. Many species depend on the kangaroo for this reason. Their waste is not high in nitrogen like livestock waste which seriously pollutes ground and surface water. (Reference: http://milk.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionID=001056 ).

5. Unlike the livestock industry, Kangaroos do not degrade the environment by:

a) producing virtually no methane greenhouse gases through exhaling and eructation. The hydrogen by product of fermentation is instead converted into acetate, which is then used to provide further energy. The greenhouse gas effect of methane is 23 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. However, the greenhouse gases from the livestock industry is 18% total emissions (which exceeds the entire transport sector at 14%).

b) requiring massive quantities of water as with cows. Kangaroos have slender noses with a long narrow tongue that can lap water from sources that broad nosed livestock cannot even get to or would find unacceptable. (Reference: David Croft, p.238-9, Kangaroo Myths and Realities).

c) causing soil erosion, loss of soil nutrients and soil ecosystems leading to soil desertification. Kangaroos are not hoofed animals (like livestock) that compact the soil and cause soil problems.

d) destroying wildlife (the livestock industry shoots native animals which it regards as pests)

e) destroying trees or habitat of other species

f) contributing to the eutrophication and acidification of water and the ocean.

g) excessive grazing. Kangaroos' grazing pressure is only 1-8% (ref: (Reference:http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/drs/indicator/162/index.html ). The rest of the grazing pressure is mainly cows and sheep.

h) producing massive lagoons of excrement.

(References for all the above environmental effects of the livestock industry: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html )

************

Kangaroos have intrinsic value and are perfectly adapted to their environment. The more kangaroos, the more biodiversity in Australia. However governments are now claiming that kangaroos overgraze or threaten endangered species, even though there are no published articles in peer reviewed journals proving this scientifically.

Based on this junk 'science' thousands of kangaroos are being killed, most notably in Canberra, the nation's capital. Last year in Canberra, at a disused naval base, 514 healthy kangaroos were cruelly killed on the grounds that they were overgrazing and a threat to several species such as the legless striped lizard and the Golden Sun Moth and Ginninderra peppergrass. Never mind the cows grazing in the adjoining paddock, overgrazing and threatening the same species that would be perfectly capable of migrating over the fence. Never mind damage to the same species as a result of the remediation process that occurred after the kangaroos were dispensed with as contractors hauled out what was revealed as toxic soil that was contaminating groundwater as far as Ginninderra Lake. Never mind the threat to people living in the adjoining housing estates of these same toxins blowing in the wind and entering the groundwater.

In May 2009 no less than 7000 kangaroos were killed at Majura, another training base in Canberra, on the same specious grounds - overgrazing - again without proof, without even counting the population there, and without any attempt to relocate them.

Then barely a month or so passed and several hundred were killed at Canberra's Nature Park 'Callum Brae' on the grounds of 'overgrazing'. Never mind that there were rabbits and livestock grazing there whose grazing pressure far exceeds that of kangaroos whose grazing pressure is only 1-8% compared to cows and sheep.

I call for a revolution in consciousness in recognising the importance of maintaining a diversity of native species not only for the animals but for us as well. If humans think they can survive without biodiversity, well, they have another thing coming.

HELP US GET TO 10,000 SIGNATURES! THANKS.

Painting: John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark (1777)

The nationally publicized assault of a 38 year old black man

The nationally publicized assault of a 38 year old black man in Courtenay, BC by three young white thugs was predictably amplified by a media eager to sound the siren of politically correct paranoia. There was racism under every bed! White racism that is. The other kind, of “black on white” assaults, which statistically is much the more common event in America, is not the subject of polite conversation. It is, after all, socially outrageous to speak the truth in Canada. Best to ban the publication of ethnic crime data to smother bigotry in its cradle. Then again, statistical profiling may very well do the opposite by revealing that crime is not the trademark of any ethnic community but only of a tiny and troubled minority within it. And that culture, not skin pigmentation, is a relevant factor, among many.

When the Mayor of Courtenay, Greg Phelps, failed to comply with a PC injunction to support a “feel good” anti-discrimination ‘protocol’ he found substantially meaningless, to address a problem too over-blown to warrant panic, an activist of self-righteous disgust raised the specter of rampant subterranean racism. You may not see it, but trust me, it’s here, there and everywhere! Courtenay may project the image of placid tolerance, but scratch the surface, and it’s a town in the Jim Crow South. “The mayor,” he said, was “just the tip of the iceberg. And it’s not about the three young white men either. There’s got to be a large peer group who shares their racist views. And don’t forget racism begins at home. These men obviously have parents. And these parents have peers too…” Implication? Let’s find them and root them out! I wonder if Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” is included by the school board in the canon of student texts, along with the slogans of intolerant tolerance that the Ministry of Education mandates.

How inconvenient it was then, when it was later learned that apparently, the three aggressors subsequently attacked a Caucasian man. One wonders would words they applied to taunt him. Was it “fatso”, “gimp”, “four eyes”, “baldy” or “fag”? If so, would it indicate that they were motivated by a hatred of obese, handicapped, bespectacled, hairless or gay people? Or would it reveal that their despicable aggression was more accurately the result of three young punks spoiling for a fight and looking for any handle or epithet to goad their victim and get under his skin?

Media alarmism and rent-a-crowd fury

This media alarmism and rent-a-crowd fury recalls the outrageous claim made by the then Minister for Multiculturalism, Hedy Fry, that racism had reached such a fever pitch that ‘they were burning crosses in Prince George (BC).” That too was a ridiculous hyperbole and a blatant lie. Prince George was no more a racist hotbed than Courtenay is today. Nevertheless, these kind of charges serve a purpose. And what purpose do they serve? They stoke up a hyper-sensitivity not only about racism, but issues about that are peripheral to it, but not necessarily connected.

The bogeyman of rampant white racism creates an atmosphere of social intimidation that already greets anyone who dares to criticize the state policies of mass immigration and official multiculturalism. And as we have seen here and elsewhere, racial vilification laws and the revision of history are the logical complement to it. The need to suppress and punish odious views is thought necessary to smother any nascent challenge to the corporate agenda of growing the economy by growing the population. Hysteria inflates the constituency for more restrictions on contrarian speech and the ethnic cleansing of textbooks. Since Canada’s immigration selection criteria, in tandem with the second highest per capita immigration intake in the world, ensures that the country will evolve as Courtenay is evolving, into “a growing community increasing in diversity”, ethnic harmony must come at any cost.

Given that imperative, free speech can no longer be regarded as the very condition and pre-requisite of all other rights, but in the classic Canadian light, of merely one right to be weighed against others in determining the public interest.

"Cultural diversity" a sweet-sounding syrup to coat the bitter pill of naked profit and greed

“Cultural diversity” is the clarion call of the liberal-left, but it is also the mask of the corporate elite, a sweet-sounding syrup to coat the bitter pill of naked profit and greed---and the environmental degradation that comes with it. Big banks, developers and cheap labour employers fly its banner as a smokescreen to obscure their efforts to widen the labour pool and recruit more homebuyers. Immigration is openly promoted as a life-preserver for the shipwrecked home mortgage and home building industry by the Royal Bank of Canada, Scotia Bank and other credit institutions. Cultural diversity is the flavour of the month for an agenda that has no sincere interest in ethnic folk dances and exotic cuisines, but only in the making of money, and the fragmentation of a once cohesive society so that united opposition to its aims become less and less likely as the process unfolds. It is a kind of diversity that comes at the cost of both biological diversity---the staggering loss of species from human population growth in Canada----and intellectual diversity. A nation where people of different origins and hues can co-exist only if they sing the same tune, and the old slogans of “white” nationalism are supplanted by the cant of fake “diversity”. It is the ideology of current convenience, like the “Manifest Destiny” or “White Australia” of times past, to camouflage and disguise the continuing quest to dispossess whom ever happens to be the native population of its share of the economic pie.

For good measure, school textbooks, and history itself, has been revised to advance the new state religion of “Multiculturalism”—Canada’s Ingsoc. The falsehoods of the past have been replaced with politically correct falsehoods of the present. The Chinese head tax and the Exclusion Act, together with the Komagata Maru incident, now form the centerpiece of White Guilt 101, which never looks at the historical context of these events, but assigns retroactive blame on working people and politicians whose main objective was simply to defend wages and living standards from cheap imported labour. No mention is made, for example, that “Chinese exclusion” did not apply to students, diplomats or Chinese business men and their families. Some kind of ‘racism’ that.

Don't play into the PC game-plan

But making the foregoing case plays right into the PC game-plan. That is, draw us into a verbal maelstrom on race, away from the critical issue of sustainability. Away from what should be our primary concern, which is not about how people in our lifeboat treat each other, where they are from or how they look, but how many damn passengers the boat can carry sustainably past the tumultuous storms of peak oil, peak water and peak everything that loom over the horizon. The relationship between humans is secondary to the relationship of humans to nature and the resources it provides. HMCS Canada is a lifeboat, not an aircraft carrier. It is not a vast and boundless land begging for more people to unlock a treasure trove of limitless resources, but a big “little’ land in ecological terms. A nation of frozen tundra, short growing seasons, mined out and marginal soil where 20% of its best farmland is paved over and the rest is under threat from continuing sprawl and the impending loss of oil-based fertilizers. A ship hurtling toward the iceberg of overshoot with politicians on the bridge who want to stop to pick up more passengers and encourage those already on board to have more children.

It is in this context that the crusade of “anti-racism” must be seen. It is the sand that is thrown in our face to get us off our game----stopping growth. And growth is no bogeyman. It is here and it is killing us.

Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
July 14/09

Humans have moved into native animals' backyards yet many of us get upset when there is a possum in our roof and go to all ends to remove it by having it relocated. Some farmers even shoot these hapless animals that are only looking for somewhere to sleep during the day and something to eat. We have a responsibility to them because we caused this situation and it's possible to not only share our space but give back some habitat to them. Here's what happened to a friend of mine recently when a possum moved into his house..... See the sequel to this story.

Every time I talk to my friend, who lives in suburban Brisbane, he tells me of another encounter with a possum that happened in his house. Apparently there is a small part at the top of the window where this small possum can squeeze into. The first event was a loud crash and evidence of a microwave door window being smashed. The poor thing must have been sleeping in there! Lucky my friend didn't turn on the microwave...

Being an animal-lover, of course he had to offer the hungry creature some of his leftover birthday cake. After that, evening sortees into his house became more regular. I encouraged him to give the possum vegetable and fruit matter instead of highly processed food which could make a native animal sick in time.

The last encounter was yesterday when he went to get his haversack to take to work and who was sleeping inside but none other than Ms Possum. Unhappy to be woken from her snooze in such a nice dark, warm place obviously she would have been forced to find another dark warm spot to continue her rudely awakened and by this time much-needed sleep.

I suggested to my friend that he get a haversack especially for Ms Possum but then it occurred to me that a better solution would be to get a (available here possum house or simply make your own possum house
which is attached to a tree.That would be a nice dark location for the possum and its future offspring to sleep in by day. Perhaps position it in a shady spot so it won't be too hot in the summer. Possums should be encouraged to live outdoors and if they have a place to sleep and a food source there is no need for them to come into your house.

Relocating possums is not in the best interest of the possum. Possums are extremely territorial and if moved to another possum's territory may lose its life in a death struggle with the presiding possum.

Normally possums like to sleep in tree hollows but these are very rare and fiercely contended for by a variety of other animals. By providing a box for various native animals you will be allowing them to survive the damage wrought by tree felling over the years which has led to the destruction of their habitat.

Perhaps you could consider planting some trees in your backyard that it might like to climb in or some fruit trees. Possums feed on leaves, buds, flowers and fruits. Occasionally they eat insects, eggs, meat.

For those people who have orchards or vege gardens who object to possums eating the fruits of their labour, why not put a fence around the tree or the vege patch or at least part of it? The possums could at least have access to your compost pile. Possums come to my open, compost heap which is full of organic, unsprayed veges and fruit and must find something tasty in there.

Possums are native to Australia and therefore protected (which doesn't mean much in a country like Australia whose kangaroos are also 'protected'). However in NZ possums are regarded as 'pests' and number 70 million. They have no sympathy and are shot on sight by farmers.

Native animals have a right to live too. Without biodiversity we will all perish. Besides, possums can offer a pleasant diversion for people who live alone. Even though I live in the rainforest, the sound of the gutteral calls of the possum who comes around regularly at night and his funny way of running which reminds me of ladies in high heel shoes delicately prancing across my tin roof at top speed gives me pleasure.

There is something very satisfying about non-verbal interspecies communication. Fundamentally, we are all the same as all creatures seek happiness and avoid pain and suffering. Ultimately, nothing brings as much joy as helping provide another being its needs. For many native animals, their survival depends on our kindness, especially as they share our world.

Maybe the day will come when the lion will lay down with the lamb and man will no longer regard other creatures like kangaroos, possums, wombats and bats as pests but beings who share the planet with them in peace.

See the sequel to this story.

government source at biodiversity site

Sustained protest delays nasty political act

Sustained protests from Australians who are horrified at the cold-blooded policies pushed by the NSW Cabinet seem to have had an effect for the moment. It is believed that public reaction to this bill has put the wind up members in marginal seats. The proposal has the obvious 'pay-off' for a cash-strapped spendthrift government of pushing through another unpopular privatisation - this time of a state lottery.

"A decision was deferred until further talks could be held with the Shooters. The Opposition, the Greens and environmental groups oppose the bill and the Government had been accused of supporting it because it relied on the Shooters Party for critical support [to sell off a state lottery] in the upper house."Source:The Sydney Morning Herald

Shooters Party & NSW Labor - Rees Government

The Shooters Party had introduced a private member's bill to "allow recreational hunters to shoot native animals and birds and to allow for private game reserves to be set up for professional safari hunters."Source:The Sydney Morning Herald

NSW Liberal Nationals declare strong opposition to notion of sporting shooting in National Parks

The NSW Liberal Nationals portray themselves as strongly opposed to the shooting of Australian native species in National Parks, and the establishment of private shooting reserves. SourceThey say they will introduce amendments to the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill to ban it, according to Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Catherine Cusack MLC, and the Shadow Minister for Primary Industries Duncan Gay.

"The NSW Liberal / Nationals' move comes following a backdoor attempt - with the apparent support of the NSW Labor Government - to introduce unprecedented shooting of Australian native animals, including in National Parks, as well as private game reserves,” said Ms Cusack.

“We will oppose this and introduce other amendments aimed at genuinely managing the real environmental and other threats posed by feral animals - not Australian native species.

"The shooting of Australian native species in our National Parks or exotic species in private 'game parks' are offensive concepts. If this legislation is brought on the NSW Liberal / Nationals are armed and ready to move legislative amendments to make sure it doesn't happen.”

Illegal release of animals for hunting purposes & feral pig and deer problem

One of these amendments includes changing the Game Act to increase the penalty by four times as much for anyone caught illegally releasing animals for the purpose of hunting. The fine will now be $22,000 for persons caught illegally releasing animals.

“The feral pig problem in NSW is due to the deliberate release of piglets and juveniles for the purposes of hunting,” said Ms Cusack.

“We are also seeing deer being released in many National Parks - they are spreading weeds and are an incredible threat to agriculture as well as the environment.

“I challenge the NSW Labor Government to support our tougher penalties.”

Mr Gay said NSW National Parks and their neighbours needed a comprehensive and strong approach to managing the threat of feral animals - especially as the State comes out of drought and feral animal numbers go up.

“Strongly regulated professional shooting is part of that - unprecedented and unrelated new rights for people like wealthy overseas hunting tourists should not be," Mr Gay said.

"We need comprehensive and strong management of feral species including professional conservation shooting - we don't need for NSW to inadvertently become the Safari State of the Southern Hemisphere.”

Details of Other legislative amendments to be moved by the NSW Liberal / Nationals

Other legislative amendments to be moved by the NSW Liberal / Nationals will:

* Put strong regulatory limits and controls on the use of professional, limited shooting for the appropriate management of feral animals;

* Give Forestry and DECC officers stronger powers to oversee feral animal shooting - rather than the proposal to make it an offence for them to approach hunters;

* Give the Minister for Environment the regulatory power to classify in which National Parks feral animal shooting should take place - rather than the proposed 'one size fits all' approach that makes all National Parks - be they urban or rural - public hunting lands;

* Continue to allow farmers to appropriate manage feral animals on their properties - rather than requiring the proposal that they be forced to pay for licences;

* Ban trap shooting with live birds

Mr Gay said the NSW Liberal / Nationals would fight strongly for these and other amendments because of the need to protect Australian native animals and manage feral animals.

“That's in the best interests of both the environment and rural communities that border National Parks,” he said.

Ms Cusack urgently called on NSW Labor to do the right thing and support the Coalition’s amendments.

Is there no end to growth?

Queensland and the rest of Australia sure have problems associated with growth, but the growth lobby appears completely addicted to entropic speed and there are dealers in real-estate activity on every corner and lurking all over the internet, financing the commercial media and even advising the ABC. What hope does Andrew McNamara have, or even Simon Baltais (Sustainable Population Australia) of affecting this scourge on koalas, quality of life and democracy? Well, there may be a window, since growth is costing many businesses more than they can afford, in terms of rising prices for land, water, petroleum and electricity. Stay tuned.

A new self-help movement for growth-addicts?

Former environment minister, Andrew McNamara will join some 150 business leaders from across Brisbane as keynote speaker at a business breakfast forum. The Queensland Conservation event looks at when enough is enough in terms of population in Southeast Queensland and Australia more broadly. McNamara is excited about the opportunity to share his views about population with a diverse audience.

“Every day, the front pages of our papers are covered in variations on the same problem. Whether the issue is traffic congestion, overcrowding on trains, waiting lists for hospitals, skills shortages, social alienation in urban sprawl, food security, water security or global warming," McNamara says.

“There is only one problem,” McNamara says. “There are too many of us.”

The forum, with tickets at $120 per person or $1000 per table takes place on Friday 17 July from 6.50 am - 9.00 am at the Gabba. The event also features the following panel:

* Brian Stewart, CEO Urban Development Institute of Australia
* Melva Hobson, Mayor Redland City Council
* Glen Elmes MP, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability and Member for Noosa
* Simon Baltais, Sustainable Population Australia

Registration is now open for the event, which is sponsored by SEQ Catchments. For more information, contact [email protected] or at register online

This blue-green jewel floating in space that we call planet Earth is dying. There are 16,000 species at risk of extinction in the world today. This mass extinction is caused by one species – us – and may well include us.

Australia has the worst reputation of species extinctions having driven 38% of its mammal species extinct in just over 200 years. The Tweed Shire has probably the most biodiversity in the whole country yet a whopping two thirds of our species are at risk of extinction. We could stop biodiversity loss right now – there are plenty of laws in place to stop it but they don’t appear to be enforced.

Biodiversity loss is a much bigger problem than water or climate change, according to Professor Hugh Possingham of University of Queensland. Whereas water shortages could be turned around in 20-40 years and climate change could be turned around in 100 years, biodiversity loss could take between 10,000 to 100,000 years to turn around.

The human species needs biodiversity to survive. We live in a complex web of life that has taken billions of years to evolve. If bees became extinct all of life on this planet would end in just four years, according to Einstein. If plankton became extinct, we wouldn’t have enough oxygen to breathe. Even earthworms tilling and fertilising the soil are more ecologically important than humans.

A healthy ecosystem needs a variety of species each with large populations and strong gene pools – like a jungle teeming with life. But we clearcut land and overfish the oceans, destroying ecosystems and species. Our oceans are in dire crisis having been overfished and polluted, with dead zones growing every year. We are chopping down rainforests faster than what we can replant.

We act like they will be there forever – but our resources are finite. If we keep consuming and populating at the rate we are going we will hit a wall, a Malthusian ceiling of misery where life won’t be worth living.

Now is the time – not tomorrow.

The Convention on Biodiversity, to which Australia is a party, has as its aim to significantly reduce biodiversity loss by 2010. Every loss of species is a threat to global biodiversity. The Convention is concerned with the moral and ethical aspects of biodiversity loss.

How can Council abide by these international regulations? By considering the ethical aspect of biodiversity i.e. having reverence for life. Animals have feelings, just like us. They feel happy, sad, lonely, they grieve. They fear death and they love their families. When their habitat is destroyed, they die – in terror. Can you imagine how that would feel?

In Queensland between 1998 and 2004 a total of 104 million animals died as a result of land-clearing. If we had compassion for animals, we wouldn’t be doing this. There would be no species loss and no extinctions. But we humans have a habit of seeing animals as resources to harvest and manage instead of sentient beings with feelings and the right to live in peace.

What is needed is a paradigm shift away from being anthropocentric to being biocentric – where life itself is the centre of our Earth, not humans. It’s about practising the Golden Rule.

If Council had reverence for life it would reject a town of 10,000 people for Kings Forest/Cobaki Lakes where 30 endangered species plus the second largest colony of koalas in the shire live. Council would zone it as a sanctuary instead.

Council would reject a car-crash rally tearing through national parks and habitat where koalas and endangered species live. Why wait till a species is at risk to protect it? By the time species reach the tipping point it’s too late and we never know when that tipping point is.

If Council had compassion it would have funding for the Koala Recovery Plan, which the current budget fails to do. Council would put biodiversity protection ahead of development, since all developments are a nail in the coffin of wildlife.

Council would also put overpasses, road culverts, signs and exclusion fences at known road kill hotspots and they would stop using toxic pesticides from Monsanto that bio-accumulate and lead to more species extinctions.

If the people in power had wisdom, they would make the Tweed Shire a model for the rest of the world on how to slow down or stop biodiversity loss. That’s what we – the voters – want. We want YOU to protect the crown jewels of the Green Caldron, which are its biodiversity. Not only for the sake of our grandkids but for the sake of all the non-human creatures and for the planet.

Our future depends on the decisions you Councillors make over the coming months and years. Please change your policies. Change your priorities. Change your heart – before it’s too late. We are running out of time.

Menkit Prince

Radiocarbon-testing has confirmed that a giant rare old-growth Eucalyptus regnans located in its natural forest habitat on East Gippsland's Brown Mountain has been chainsawed by VicForests, despite it being scientifically confirmed to be at least 500 years old.

No regard has been made for the existence value of a Victorian 500 year old natural asset, nor the habitat requirements for the typical arboreal animals and forest owls dependent on this old growth habitat tree or its associative forest dependent habitat. Under State-sanction, ignorant VicForest butchers have plundered, ransacked and run.

Manager, Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, Orbost, Steve DeVoogd, has been formally advised that this chainsawing of rare old growth forest is an offence committed under the section 46(1) of the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004. The action is also a breach of Code of Forest Practices (CFP).

VicForests Chairman, Warren Hodgson, Board members Monica Gould, Jim Houghton, Fiona McNabb, Bob Smith, Susan Walpole, and Chief Executive Officer David Pollard should all be sacked forthwith. VicForests token 'vision' 'purpose' and 'values' which profess motherhood notions of 'sustainable', 'environmentally responsible' and 'ethical' are but Mugabean. This 500 year old tree epitomises the reality of Brumby's 'Sustainability Charter for State forests.

Botanist Steve Mueck has worked for the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment and is now a consultant in the private sector. He says radiocarbon dating of eucalypts is unusual and the result in this case is significant.

"Current forest managements practices are looking at harvesting on rotation times in the vicinity of 80 to 120 years with the perception that that's a particularly long period of time," he said.

"Now it is, I suppose, in the context of a human lifetime, but it is a very, very short period of time in comparison to the age in which many of the components that live in these forests can in fact get to in a natural system."

Back in the 1860s timber workers and naturalists emerged from the forests with stories of massive trees towering to immense heights and as wide as houses. Government botanist Ferdinand von Mueller recounted the existence of a tree as high as the Egyptian Pyramids at 480 ft (144m) and another fallen tree in the Dandenong Ranges over 400 ft (120m). A giant was sighted in the Otways with a girth of 64 ft (19m).

VicForests senseless decapitation of one of the last Victorian giants is a harbinger of extinction to Victoria's old growth forests. It's like grabbing an old ANZAC from the march past and slitting his throat.

A lot of people have concerns about the General Manager of Tweed Shire Council, Mike Rayner, and his Director's role with World Rally Australia Pty Ltd.

Alex Mitchell, a journalist writing at Crikey (11/3/09) said that the Department of Local Government director-general Garry Payne gave permission for Mr Rayner to join World Rally Australia Pty Ltd board of directors.

Mr Rayner denies he has a conflict of interest. Some Tweed Shire Councillors, Garry Payne (apparently) and maybe even some lawyers agree. But from the perspective of local residents who are outraged on a number of fronts this is a blatant subversion of process.

Following the Daly Inquiry in 2005, administrators were appointed, and administrators appointed Mr Rayner as general manager. Has director-general Garry Payne given permission to Tweed Shire Council's General Manager to take a director's role with a Pty Ltd business which is subject to development approval by Tweed Shire Council?

Is director-general Garry Payne's permission concerning Mr Rayner's position with World Rally Australia Pty Ltd in written or verbal form?

In relation to Mike Rayner, residents object to:

• Rayner’s involvement with World Rally Australia Pty Ltd
• Rayner’s dual role
• Council's involvement with the preparation of the World Rally Australia development application
• Rayner’s influence over Council Staff and the processing of the World Rally Australia development

application (referred to as Rayner's 'mushroom farm' by deputy mayor of a nearby shire)

• the loss of publicly paid time when Rayner is engaged with World Rally Australia and not attending to Tweed Shire duties.
• World Rally Australia has its offices within the Tweed Shire council premises and until recently had free publicity on their council website
• that there has been no public consultation process even though Rayner was approached by Repco Rally Australia 2 years ago

How can we be confident of Tweed Shire Council’s ability to be objective in processing the DA for this event when there is such an obvious conflict of interest?

This proposed motor rally is for up to twenty years. I wonder how long Mr Rayner may be a director with World Rally Australia Pty Ltd, and can Mr Rayner's non-remunerative status change? Can potential future rewards, or current bias, cause undue influence?

This proposed motor rally is fundamentally wrong (conceptually, environmentally, socially and economically) for Tweed Shire, dubbed the 'Green Cauldron' and the process of its unfoldment, including Mr Rayner's over-involvement, is unethical.

We are calling for Mr Rayner to step down not only from his position with World Rally Australia but also from his position as General Manager as residents have lost confidence in his credibility. The Tweed Shire Council has more than its fair share of corrupt councilors as in recent years when the entire council was sacked.

Time for an FOI, methinks, and a whole lot more noise from locals rejecting this ridiculous rally.

What you can do: Attend protest march in Murwilumbah from Knox Park to Council chambers at 3pm, 19th May, (if raining, 4pm at council, with council meeting starting 4.30pm). Contact no.rally[AT]yahoo.com.

See also: "NSW spin doctors find another frog to save" by Alex Mitchell in Crikey of 11 Mar 09, "Kyogle residents fight World Rally motor race" of 7  Mar 09.

It seems that the people who have managed to get into power in this country simply cannot take seriously the importance of the natural world to climate, aesthetics, society and human survival. Money eclipses everything in their Growth Lobby paradigm, including democracy.

Today this dreadful news arrived from Geoff Brown of the ADI Residents' Action Group:

Keneally gazettes green light to Delfin Lend Lease to bury last grasslands in vast suburbs

Kristina Keneally the NSW Planning Minister on Friday gazetted amendments to the SREP 30 the zoning plan for the ADI Site. Under the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act the Minister could, based on submissions received from the public, amend SREP 30 any way she saw fit. We called on her to use her planning powers to protect a further 100 ha of Cumberland Plain Woodland by rezoning land from urban to conservation (E2 Environmental Conservation was proposed - therefore no cost to government). Nearly 300 ha of regenerating bushland is zoned urban by SREP 30 and will be cleared so our proposal was a compromise in the hope that we may just get some support from the NSW Government. It would of reduced the development by 1000 dwellings = $100 million that Delfin would of lost.

As a result of Fridays gazettal of SREP 30 Penrith Council now has the green light to approve Delfin Lend Leases massive Western and Central Precinct Plans (suburbs). This equates to 3400 lots. Council planners are now rushing to prepare for next Monday night the 9th March when a Report will come before the full Council urging that they approve both plans.

Government by cynicism

We recently met with Council Planners about Delfin Lend Leases abysmal plans. Despite raising numerous issues it was obvious they just don't care. They had no valid responses to our questions. Talking to them was like talking to the developer. Q's such as 'Delfins tree survey identifies 20000 trees - will these be removed? Answer - Don't know. Q's What are you going to do about the fact Delfin have a 3.8 ha shortfall in the provision of public parkland (open space) within the Western Precinct. Answer - Delfin can use the Regional Park to cover the shortfall. Apparently only 40 comments were received on the Precinct Plans so they are cocky that there will be little public opposition from here on. Personally I am quite disappointed that such a massive ecological disaster could only attract 40 comments.

So if you are not completely over it and still have some concern then do what you can. It would be good to wind up this 16 year campaign (arguably one of the longest resident campaigns) next Monday night with a packed public capacity giving Penrith Council what they deserve.

Info on the planning disaster that Council will approve and the issues we raised with Councils Planners are here http://www.adisite.org

You may be interested to know that Blacktown Council refused to commit to the acquisition of the Norman St bushland at Prospect. Council voted unanimously. They came up with some excuse to make continued representation to State and Fed Gov'ts to obtain funding.

In Victoria in 1992 some bureaucrat got the idea of changing the name (and focus) of the Department of Conservation and Environment to a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, then in 1996 to a Department of Natural Resources and Environment, then in 2003 a split to (1) a Victorian Department of Primary Industries and (2) a Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Source: http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/asaw/biogs/A002037b.htm

Currently it's known by its obscure acronym DSE...(Don't Support Environment, or Department of Sparks and Embers).

Across the border in NSW, in 2007, the Department of Environment and Conservation was changed to the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC). Rather than forming a dedicated research and response organisation to focus on climate change, the conservation was dropped from the existing department. Cynically, including 'climate change' as a name of one of its departments, government must feel cosy sending a message it is addressing climate change. For a while the department was headed up by The NSW Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water - a bucket of outdoor type activities that sounded good together.

Across the border in South Australia, they have the Department for the Environment and Heritage (DEH), which sounds borrowed from the federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (another collective bucket). It is hard to see how with so many diverse portfolios, a minister can dedicate any leadership to making genuine improvements to what's left of Australia's intact natural environment and its desperate need for conservation.

With all the money spent on names changing, the tens of thousands could have gone into onground conservation activities like fox control programmes.

Eastern side of Wilson's Promontory near where
the fire started. Photo: John Woudstra

I have been monitoring the Jan-Feb 2009 Victorian bushfires from NSW and have turned my attention to the bushfire management in a natural area - Wilsons Promontory. I note satellite observations of the fire with concern showing the lighting ignition on the east coast started 9th February, but had almost extinguished itself by the 13th. Then a wind change drove it out of control. A week later it has burnt out 22,000 hectares (almost 50% of our precious 50,000ha Prom)!

While the Country Fire Authority (CFA) has paid special attention to non-imminent bushfire risks to rather distant private property. The CFA says "the fire does not currently pose a threat to the Yanakie community." Backburning the Prom is given as the only bushfire response strategy. So do we interpret this as a noncommittal response by the CFA for the Prom - that is since no human lives or private property are at threat, the CFA's bushfire response is to just 'monitor' the fire and put out the spot fires threatening private property to the north?

I interpret this bushfire management by Victoria's CFA as one that respects only human life and property, but does not rate the natural asset values of fauna and flora habitat of the Prom with any respect.

The CFA reports read as though CFA policy for active and damaging bushfires in important conservation areas is to wait for rain, but otherwise 'let it burn'.

And yet the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts hot and windy conditions for tomorrow Monday, 23 Feb 2009.

Wilsons Promontory where thousands of hecteres have been burnt.
Photo: John Woudstra

I interpret this bushfire management by Victoria's CFA as one that respects only human life and property, but does not rate the natural asset values of fauna and flora habitat of the Prom with any respect. It seems at best an opportunity for de-facto hazard reduction that it would normally not get permission to do, and at worst an inconvenient distraction for CFA crews.

If this is the prevailing attitude of rural firefighting then clearly the CFA has no interest in natural assets, and no mandate to protect them from fire in the same passionate way it does private property? There seems no difference in approach or skill set by the CFA to that that would be exercised by urban fire brigades.

So why do we have a CFA? Professional fire brigades are expensive, whereas volunteers are cheap is the political answer!

On this basis, it is overdue for the CFA to be incorporated within the urban fire brigade structure. While this initial structural change won't save Victoria's vast tracts of wildlife habitat in the short term, it will sure will remove the false premise to the community that the CFA respects and defends natural wildlife habitats.

What does Victorian Government's Department of Sustainability and Environment have to say for itself? It is charged with the Promontory's protection.

See also: "Crews unable to slow Wilsons Promontory blaze" on ABC online on 17 Feb 09, "Huge blaze threatens the very heart of the Prom" in the Age of 19 Feb 09.

#LastStand" id="LastStand">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

#ThreatsToSurvival" id="ThreatsToSurvival">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.

#WildlifeCorridors" id="WildlifeCorridors">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.

#DistributionMap" id="DistributionMap">Koala distribution map for the tweed shire (crosses):-

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

#UnsafeHumanHabitat" id="UnsafeHumanHabitat">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.

#Extinct By2020" id="Extinct By2020">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.

#HowYouCanHelp" id="HowYouCanHelp">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"

This book paints a picture of the ecological mechanics of this continent, using clear, concise prose. It is a painlessly educative book. The bold claim of its subtitle, "How Australia's landscape can be saved," stands up to scrutiny.

Take a new look at thistles, dock plants and other hardy weeds. Enjoy trialling the author's theories in your neglected front garden or replot your broadacre farm. Re-examine the cause of total re-nativisation in the light of galloping desertification. Peter maintains that his simple hydrological theory holds true for the entire continent. He re-interprets the history of this land; he may well be right.

It is a pleasure to read an inspired ecological work by an Australian farmer for Australian farmers. This book is full of practical experience and experiment. The author tells a tale of several farms in his life, of discussions with other farmers and with scientists. He has acted in his life with confidence and conviction, in accordance with his observations. He has learned and remembered lessons, which he knows to be important and hopes to teach the reader. He has lived his research.

If you break down what he says, he is a systems thinker and he has a systemic theory and methodology, which means that his arguments are logical and testable.

Australian deserts are man-made

I found the chapter, "Australia's deserts are man-made" very satisfying because it linked the removal of trees to the drying of climate. God knows why this isn't being shouted from the rooftops everywhere. (Well, perhaps because you cannot package it and sell it as toilet paper or recycle it as plastic.) Andrews doesn't say this, but I will; we should not wait for climate change policy and practice to be agreed at the global, national or even state level. We can start locally - by paying attention to the landscape and protecting the trees and other plants it already has, and adding many more. Trees lower temperature and increase humidity locally, below and above ground; they are not just carbon sinks.

Peter argues clearly that aboriginal use of fire massively transformed Australia's landscape by changing and reducing the vegetation varieties. The effect of this was drying. On top of this, the effect of 220 years of mechanised agriculture, with industrial fertilisers (like feeding soil vitamin pills and no food, as Alice Friedman writes(1)) and half-baked economic propaganda has brought us right to the brink of ruin.

Landscape Fractals

Without mentioning Gaia - or fractals for that matter - Andrews conveys the idea of Australia as a huge organism with fractal systems which can be managed from micro to macro, using the hydrological properties of trees and other plants, like reeds, and identifying topographical forms peculiar to the Australian landscape. The swale and contour system writ large. But he says it like this, "Unless we all come to understand how the Australian landscape functions and then conduct our agriculture in harmony with it this country is dead. It will collapse, no question."

He describes familiar landscape elements like deeply eroded streams and shows that they are produced by damage to live systems, causing water to flow faster and more forcefully than it otherwise would. The immediate solution is weeds, reeds and trees.[video] The finer choices of trees can be worked out later in cases of emergency.

Reviewer's aside

(Andrews' familiarity with the concepts of erosion, salt and fresh water tables, and transpiration comes as a relief. I could contrast this with three days I once spent at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), trying to defend an ancient coastal creek against more development of its catchment. The question of run-off was crucial. Engineers claimed that they could reduce run-off by putting in mechanical devices - basically holes - to retard the flow of water into the creek after rain. Quite apart from the question of biodiverse habitat, this incredibly dumb and clunky non-solution failed to replace the hydrology that trees provide - in their ability to stabilise the water table, through osmosis and transpiration. It completely ignored the heat and moisture exchanges involved in transpiration above the canopies. It was blind to the remarkable ability of trees to vary the amount of water they pump from the ground and transpire through their leaves according to the weather and the moisture in the ground. After a while I realised that the sitting member and the barristers had absolutely no idea of what transpiration was. What was more they did not intend to find out. That was the point where I gave up on Australia's medieval legal system and just another thing that made me an activist. This kind of self-defeating institution that maintains a fatal system is what Australia is up against.)

Why underground water?

The author retells the story of the importance of Australia's underground water, as part of his theory of Australia as a living continent. Why is so much of our water stored underground? Because of the huge risk of evaporation above the ground. With this principle in mind, he has a whole chapter about farm dams - should we damn them or not? Dig them much deeper and shade them, he suggests, and build them along landscape contours and so that the water can overflow usefully. Make your own little flood-plain. There is much more; simple, practical and effective, in line with his hydrological theories.

At the end of the book Andrews congratulates the reader for coming so far, but I found this a direct and refreshing book. Not a hard read. True, some complex bits, which one can always return to. Secondary school children could and probably should read this book.

Fixing the Murray-Darling

Andrews writes, perhaps tongue in cheek, of "well-intentioned people [who] have come up with proposals for constructing a pipe or canal to transport excess water from the tropics in the north to water deprived areas in the south..." Then he says, "(...) yet the objective - bringing excess water to where it's needed - is certainly a sensible one. What's more, we don't need a pipe or a canal. We already have a conduit capable of moving huge volumes of water from one side of the continent to the other at virtually no cost to anyone. It's called the Darling River."

Peter's recipe for fixing the Murray could be undertaken by the people who live and farm there, together. Once again it isn't top down; but bottom up. It requires careful observation of the natural topography and the lie of clay and sandy soil.

It requires vegetation - trees and reeds. Livestock would have to be managed so that they did not destroy the reeds. Peter Andrews reluctantly suggests that the major part of the early work of fixing the river system could no longer be done by native trees. It could be done by willows - the latest in a series of trees which governments have been ripping out. Remember, our land is dying - any plant is better than man-made desert. If the flood plains were restored, the natives might grow back again; at the moment they are all dying. (For more on natives following willows see Peter Andrews video)

Andrews patiently deals with the issue of trees and reservoirs... Governments have been taking trees away from water-reservoirs in the belief that they use up water. This is totally half-baked, since it completely ignores the greater fact that trees shade water stores above and below ground, preventing evaporation.

As Peter Andrews says, talking elsewhere, about irrigation, "In other words, you want a system where there is transpiration, not evaporation."

Human, not corporate

But he isn't talking about millions of kilometers of expensive pvc pipes and engineering works. That is the only reason, I am sure, that his ideas have not been taken up by government and agribusiness and promoted. The engineering and construction and corporate lobbies want a totally prosthetic environment, paid for by the rest of us, to their great profit. They seem to be trying to turn Australia into a huge concrete drain punctuated by retardant basins. (Consider the North-South pipeline currently being pushed down our throats by the Victorian government, or the costly pipelines they have cruelly inflicted on the Wimera-Mallee farming communities.)

Andrews doesn't say we must relocalise government and economy and get rid of centralised bureaucracies and big-engineering; he doesn't say that we should start using our eyes and ears and stop listening to people who are paid to tell us what their masters want us to believe, but that is the message I get out of this book.

Apparently Peter Andrew's story, when first told as television, was the most popular in the history of the ABC program, Australian Story. Obviously a lot of people care about this message getting out. Andrews has created something very valuable and true, which can unite us, city and country.

Here is Peter Andrew's site, Natural Sequence Farming at http://www.nsfarming.com/principles.html

(1)Alice Friedemann, "Peak Soil" in Sheila Newman, The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Books, UK, 2008

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Developer reveals last minute meeting with Planning Minister and Council bastardry condemns Western Sydney Woodland at ADI Site.

These sites and sounds files reveal just how important and beautiful this site is. Anyone should be able to see that not to preserve it is to defile traditional Australian values as well as environmental integrity.

Residents shocked as their democracy trashed for development

Concerned residents sat in amazement last night as Penrith Council voted to condemn hundreds of hectares of Cumberland Plain Woodland which NSW Scientists claim is verging on extinction. Council voted 14/15 to enter into a Planning Agreement with developer Delfin Lend Lease to build 3500 houses and clear approx 300 ha of Cumberland Plain Woodland from the ADI Site.

Penrith Council had recently exhibited Delfins Western and Central Precinct Plans as well as the Planning Agreement. Concurrently the Planning Minister had exhibited amendments to the zoning plan for the ADI site allowing the public to call for radical changes to the development.

Councillors were urged by residents that addressed the meeting to defer their decision to enter into the Planning Agreement if they did not understand fully what it is they were voting on and in any case until after the Planning Minister publicly made her final determination and after Councillors had assessed and adopted the Precinct Plans.

Delfin urges Councillors to dismiss views of residents

Arthur Ilias, Delfin Project Manager, addressed the meeting and urged Councillors to dismiss the views of residents urging the protection of more of the site. He went on to claim a meeting occurred that day with Kristina Keneally the Planning Minister and that she assured Delfin that the NSW Government would not amend the zoning plan to protect any more of the site.

Residents Action Group ADI alleges undeclared vested interest

According to Geoff Brown, spokesman for the Residents' Action group, "Several Councillors who supported Delfin Lend Lease, including the Mayor, failed to declare a pecuniary interest. Council Officers presented a clearly misleading email to Councilors prior to the meeting from Peter Goth, a Dept of Planning bureaucrat, claiming the Planning Minister had limited authority to rezone and protect more bushland. Council officers also led councilors to believe there would be further community consultation on the Agreement and that there was also the spurious claim by Planners that the NSW Government may at any time put restrictions on how Councils can collect and use developer levies and therefore the need to rush and lock in this decision."

Brown claims that "The 6 Liberal Councillors who supported the developer voted in contradiction to NSW Liberal policy which since 2003 has been to seek a 100 ha reduction in Delfins housing development."

In his opinion, “This was one of the worst, most undemocratic decisions of all time. These Councillors had no idea what they were supporting and clearly wanted it that way."

Councillor Kevin Crameri alone stood up for Woodlands

"Only one councillor, Independent Kevin Crameri, voted against it. Crameri declared a 'non-pecuniary interest' in that he lived near the proposed development. Prior to the vote he stood up and peppered the council officers with questions on detail, eliciting very confusing responses."

Brown says Council appeared confused

Geoff Brown, who addressed Council for the Residents Action Group, states that these responses seemed to him to indicate that the Councillors had not gone into the matter seriously. On the morning after the Council meeting he said that it had appeared to him that the council were all confused.

"They showed no concern that in allowing the clearing of hundreds of hectares of endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland that they were pushing it towards extinction. They seemed to have no concern with locking ratepayers into a deal with a developer before they had even debated and adopted the Precinct Plans. They had no concern for the fact the Planning Minister had yet to make a final determination on public submissions calling for more of the site to be protected.”

Mayor is himself a real-estate agent for the region and other councillors have pecuniary links

Brown gave his opinion that, “Jim Aitken the Independent Mayor, who heads the massive Jim Aitken and Partners Real Estate group, should not have voted as he will eventually make money from this development approval." He added, "I think that, arguably, Greg Davies the Labor Clr should have declared a pecuniary interest as he is employed by Diane Beamer the Member for Mulgoa and Delfin have financially supported the re-election campaign of Diane Beamer. The evidence for this is available from NSW electoral office. We intend to explore this dodgy approval process further. This is yet another sorry chapter in this planning debacle.”

Residents Action Group will seek urgent clarification from Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally

“These Councillors did their parties a great political disservice and this may play itself out at the NSW Election. We will seek urgent clarification from the Planning Minister about her position as she told the Sydney media only a week ago she was considering protecting more of the site,” said Brown.

Further Comment Geoff Brown 0431 222602
Source Media Release and interview with Geoff Brown
ADI Residents Action Group

It has been assumed that the natural environment could bear any impact of human activities!

However, according the State of the Environment report, it is very likely that many species won’t be able to adapt. Biodiversity richness, inherited as part of the natural wealth of this country, is being sacrificed on the altar of short-term economic benefits. As a result of mismanagement and ignorance, people and animals will be at risk from extreme weather such as heat waves, drought, fire, floods and storms. We haven't even faced the full impact of climate change yet!

Current measures of growth such as GDP and population ignore environmental degradation and the social wellbeing of inhabitants. Bulging growth boundaries may be good for land developers and corporations but are detrimental for most people who are not only threatened by the collapse of our ecosystem and climate change, but by traffic congestion, increasing pollution, higher costs and charges, water restrictions, housing stress and poor public transport and infrastructures.

Business as usual isn’t going to work! Brumby's government should step down and a caretaker administrator take over until State elections.

This was only the first shot in the war on unsustainable growth.

Australians and the world now have on record where their so-called leaders stand on this question. The 'nay group' carries the names of the people Australians may hold responsible for thirst, starvation and slavery, if the future continues to unfold according to their plan to continue population growth.

S.A. Senator Minchin about-face

In passing I note that the elderly Liberal Senator Minchin, South Australia, failed to support this motion. Minchin made his maiden speech congratulating ex-NSW leader, Bob Carr, on his ostentatious (and curiously ineffective) stance against population growth.

Young South Australian Senators, Xenophon & Hanson-Young vote for the population motion

However, Independent, Nick Xenophon, did support the motion.

And so did the youngest member of Federal Parliament in Australia's history, Sarah Hanson-Young, also in South Australia.

Now South Australians have a real choice in the Federal Senate!

West Australian based Greens Rachel Siewert and Scott Ludlum also supported the motion.

And so did Christine Milne, who represents Tasmania in the Senate. (She is informed on peak oil and other energy issues and has some good discussions on her site.)

Pressure for growth comes mainly from the property & infrastructure development lobby

I have been studying this political problem of obdurate growthism and the pressure for growth from the infrastructure development lobby now for years. It is a threat to our democracy. I will be watching with great interest from now on. I can only urge those six senators who showed the ability to think for themselves and to strongly represent Australia's welfare not to give up. The mass media is pro-growth because it is really part of the corporate sector, so the senators won't derive benefit there for their courage. In fact the only source of support they may find is in the broad Australian population. The Greens seem to be the only ones attuned to the cries of warning from people in Australia who can see things getting so bad so quickly as we place more and more pressure on this fragile country's natural resources, wildlife and trees, democracy and social structure. It is good to see that they have managed to shake themselves loose from whatever was holding them back from confronting the issue of population in previous years.

Details below:

http://www.aph.gov.au/HANSARD/senate/dailys/ds131108.pdf

Senate Hansard November 13th 2008 p.3.

WHITE PAPER ON GLOBAL POPULATION
Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (9.37 am)—I move:
That the Senate calls on the Government to develop a white paper on population during this period of government which takes into account:

(a) projections of a global population of between 9 to 10 billion people by 2050;
(b) the inability of the Earth to provide for 9 to 10 billion people if average resource consumption is to be at
current levels in Australia;
(c) climate change;
(d) Australia’s inability to host exponential population growth; and
(e) the wellbeing of future generations and life on Earth.

Question put.

The Senate divided. [9.41 am]
(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)

Motion defeated 6 to 47

(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)

Ayes………… 6
Noes………… 47
Majority……… 41

AYES

Brown, B.J.
Hanson-Young, S.C.
Ludlam, S.
Milne, C.
Siewert, R.
* Xenophon, N.

NOES

Adams, J. Bernardi, C.
Bilyk, C.L. Boswell, R.L.D.
Boyce, S. Brandis, G.H.
Brown, C.L. Cameron, D.N.
Cash, M.C. Colbeck, R.
Collins, J. Conroy, S.M.
Coonan, H.L. Cormann, M.H.P.
Crossin, P.M. Eggleston, A.
Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D.
Ferguson, A.B. Fielding, S.
Fierravanti-Wells, C. Fifield, M.P.
Fisher, M.J. Forshaw, M.G.
Furner, M.L. Hogg, J.J.
Humphries, G. Hurley, A.
Hutchins, S.P. Ludwig, J.W.
Lundy, K.A. Macdonald, I.
Marshall, G. McEwen, A.
McGauran, J.J.J. McLucas, J.E.
Minchin, N.H. Moore, C.
Nash, F. Parry, S. *
Polley, H. Pratt, L.C.
Stephens, U. Sterle, G.
Williams, J.R. Wong, P.
Wortley, D.
* denotes teller
Question negatived.

"(...)I consider it a grotesque piece of arrogance on our part as a human race that we think we have the right to destroy other species—plants, birds and animals—on our way to affluence. While some species have prospered as a result of human activity, the vast majority have not, and many species are now threatened with extinction.

In December 2005, the USA based National Academy of Sciences reported that human activities are leading to a wave of extinctions that is over a hundred times greater than natural rates. According to the World Conservation Union, almost 800 species have become extinct since the year 1500, when more accurate records began. The Alliance for Zero Extinction has identified a further 800 species on the brink of oblivion. These species are confined to around 600 sites around the world. Only one-third of them enjoy legal protection, and most are surrounded by human population densities approximately three times the global average.

Human activity has increased extinction by between 1,000 and 10,000 times the normal level in rainforests as a result of reduction in area alone. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the earth is down to its last five per cent of tropical forest cover and is losing that at a rate of over 200,000 square kilometres a year, with the rate of loss increasing. The world has entered the 21st century with little more than 10 per cent of its original forest cover intact and, according to the anthropologists Richard Leakey and Roger Lewis, all the forest cover will be largely gone by the year 2050.

The country which has the world’s worst record for species extinction turns out to be Australia: 27 mammal species, 23 bird species and four frog species have become extinct over the past 200 years. Our wildlife is some of the most beautiful and unusual in the world.

We are known around the world for our unique wildlife but, unfortunately, we have a very poor track record of protecting it. Everyone knows about the loss of the Tasmanian tiger, a stunning animal which is now sadly extinct, but people are less well aware of just how bad our overall track record is. We have the worst rate of mammal extinction in the world. Since European colonisation, about 10 per cent of Australia’s mammals have become extinct. In fact, almost half the mammals that have become extinct globally in the past 200 yearshave been Australian.

The World Wildlife Fund says—and they are right— that we urgently need to build a safety net of terrestrial and marine protected areas to help our unique and threatened wildlife weather the upheavals of climate change. We need to reduce the impact of invasive species like foxes and cats on our native species, we need to assist Indigenous Australians to manage fire on their country and prevent late hot dry-season fires wiping out species and their habitats and, above all, everyone needs to commit to reducing carbon emissions to prevent a wave of mass species extinctions in Australia. I believe there is an opportunity to strengthen the protection for threatened species and their habitats in the review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which the Labor government has promised.

The last government failed to keep the EPBC Act list of threatened ecological communities up to date because it was pandering to National Party pressure. This has meant that large tracts of threatened habitat across the country are not receiving the protection that is warranted from the federal government under the legislation. We need to recognise the importance of biodiversity protection; it is a crucial part of this country’s climate change mitigation efforts. We need a major national biodiversity action plan and a national biodiversity initiative. I commend for the consideration of the government, the parliament and the people of Australia such an initiative, which has been put forward by the Humane Society International. I commend the Humane Society International and WWF for their essential work. I urge all Australians to support their efforts at work. I urge us to ensure that we will not allow other species to become extinct on our watch during our lifetimes."

From a speech on "Threatened and Extinct Species" to the House of Representatives
by Kelvin Thomson MP (ALP), Federal Member for Wills, Thursday 14th February 2008

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr140208.pdf [Accessed House of Representatives Hansards]

Kelvin Thomson is a member of the Federal Labor Party and has been the member for Wills since 1996.
His home page is: http://www.alp.org.au/people/thomson_kelvin.php

Wills was previously held by:
Cleary, P.R. (An Independent) 1993-1996
Hawke, R.J.L. (Ex Prime Minister, ALP)1980-1992
Bryant, G.M. (ALP) 1955-1980
Electorate Profile of Wills:
State: Victoria
Area and Location Description: Wills covers an area of approximately 57 sq km from Fawkner and Glenroy in the north to Brunswick in the south and also includes Essendon Airport. The main suburbs include Glenroy, Gowanbrae, Hadfield, Oak Park, Pascoe Vale, Strathmore and parts of Brunswick, Coburg and Fawkner.

Demographic Rating: Inner Metropolitan

Members:

* THOMSON, K (ALP) 1996-
* CLEARY, P R (IND) 1993-1996
* HAWKE, R J L (ALP) 1980-1992
* BRYANT, G M (ALP) 1955-1980
* BRYSON, W G (ALP) 1949-1955

France will soon become President of the European Union.

The French Parliament is scheduled to vote on the first of a new set of environmental laws, springing from an environmental summit - La Grenelle - profoundly reviewing the state of the Environment, before mid July 2008.

During the French presidential elections, which Sarkozy won, he promised to hold an important environmental summit founded on an historic 1968 one, Les accords de la Grenelle. The 1968 Grenelle (Summit) is remembered for having led to a 25% increase in social security benefits, marking the beginning of the famous “social dialogue” in France.

On France2 Public News of Thursday June 5, Nicolas Hulot, film-maker, t.v. star, and ecological militant, head of the Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Man, was asked to comment on progress made since the recent French summit on environmental law, which his Foundation provided much of the impetus for. Hulot said that the proposed laws were, “too little and too slow,” and he commented on the amount of resistance and lobbying.

He said that he must be careful not to disrupt a good dynamic. “In France’s summit we got a sum of objectives and measures that we have never had before and we are in a position that no country has been in before ; the country has come together and is readying itself for action, so I have to be objective.” He added, however, that France still has to look at things as they are and not kid herself.

“At the moment every environmental indicator shows that the situation is accelerating, so that, whatever becomes of the summit objectives, anything we achieve will be a catch-up.”

“A number of things agreed to in the Summit have lost ground, for example carbon taxes have been delayed … And, renovation of old buildings - because new construction is only 9% of the building stock - the rest is all old - renovation of old buildings was supposed to become the standard. And green wedges; there were supposed to be connections between all the ecological zones; this was supposed to be put in place, but it hasn’t happened. These things could be brought up the list again by the members of Parliament (les deputés).”

Hulot said that he hoped that Members of Parliament would not descend into the depths they did over Genetically modified crops law, and instead will vote responsibly together by unanimously voting the Environment summit law (la loi Grenelle)… and perhaps bring some things forward, because so much has been scheduled too far ahead, to 2015, 2020 etc.

Hulot was asked by the announcer on the French News: “It’s true that the context of things has changed, the process has accelerated. Take for example, the cost of petroleum, would you accede to the demands of the occupations that are angry about this… by softening the taxes to reduce the amount they pay?”

Hulot: “Of course not, although that is easy to say if one is not specifically suffering. The point is that everyone needs to get real. We are now in food crisis, energy crisis, crisis of natural resources and primary resources, all combined with the economic crisis, bringing us to one of the greatest crises that the world has ever known. So, what do we do? Do we wait until we run into dead-ends everywhere, or do we take strong measures? France cannot all by herself be virtuous.”

She could, however, improve the situation by leading the European community.

“France could do it with La Grenelle… correcting and enriching a number of provisions. She could find legitimacy at the moment when she enters the Presidency of the European Union to lead our partners into still more structured measures…more radical…”

Asked to talk about petroleum in this context, Hulot, exclaimed, “Excuse me, but on Petrol, we still don’t have a Plan B. Petrol has still not hit bottom. We cannot take short term measures permanently. Petrol is going to become rarer and rarer and therefore more and more expensive. Therefore, for example, in a number of sectors regulation will become necessary, and probably reconversion.”

The announcer asked, “So there is no point in trying to soften the pain of high prices in petrol…?”

Using the French metaphor, ‘Reculer pour mieux sauter’, Hulot said that, “We have to step back in order to be able to advance all together. To move in a united way.”

He was then asked, “But what should we say to the occupations that are hardest hit?”

Hulot: “Well, in the first place you have to look at their problems case by case, for instance, in fishing, 3 or 4% of the sector is responsible for the greatest draw-down on oil … this can be discussed…For road transports, we need to look at the overall transport situation …We cannot only look at road transport alone. All cannot be as it was before. If people think that everything can go on as it has done, and we react constantly in crisis mode, we are going to finish up in a massive recession. We know that those who will be hit hardest are those who are already in difficulty. For example, the fishing industry, agriculturalists, and truckies..”

“Now we need a real Marshall Plan, at the level of France and Europe, to orientate massively our investments in our economies for this transition, and for solidarity (mutual cooperation).”

(re-edited 7 June for clarity.)
Source: France2 8pm television news of 5 June 2008; "Grenelle de l'Environnement: Nicolas Hulot veut que le projet de loi de programmation soit "amendé à la hausse"", AP, 05.06.2008, 12:57 and "Le Grenelle de l’environnement, mode d’emploi", http://www.biodiversite2012.org/spip.php?article228, 12 February, 2008
Journalist and Translator: Sheila Newman