Rous County Council's authoritarian members will ride forth at 9:30 am this morning armed with what can only be described as an anti-democracy revenge motion

Channon Gorge, site of proposed Dunoon Dam.
Photo David Lowe.
Image: Echo, 10 December 2020

It took a long hard campaign on the part of the Widjabul Wia-bal People and the people of Lismore to protect the area known as Channon Gorge and the river which runs though it - rich in cultural heritage as important today as it was thousands of years ago, high in environment values and biodiversity.

However, even when Rous County Council voted to take the proposed Dunoon Dam out of future planning in late 2020, it was obvious that the 'build it it and enough water will fall from the sky' brigade, along with those who appear to take umbrage at the thought of any Aboriginal landscapes escaping destruction, would be returning for another chance to submerge the Channon Gorge.

So the struggle continues and the Widjabul Wia-bal People are not backing down when it comes to protecting the land their ancestors also protected. On 11 February 2022, at their invitation, two members of the NSW Legislative Council met with their representatives at Channon Gorge.

Water Northern Rivers, retrieved from the website 15 February 2022:

Water Northern Rivers Alliance¹

Our region is at a critical point

The current challenge for the Rous region (Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Richmond Valley council areas) is to create a drought-resilient water system without destroying cultural heritage and irreplaceable ecology.

In the face of climate change and projected population growth, the Northern Rivers has become an important testing ground for modern water supply options.

Rous County Council’s revised Integrated Water Catchment Management Plan (revised IWCM 2021) meets the challenge. It is investigating and moving forward with diverse options, instead of the White Elephant Dunoon Dam.

Recent council elections resulted in a new Rous County Councillors being appointed. The new make is predominantly pro-dam, so the time ahead is crucial.

Channon Gorge
Photo David Lowe
Image: Echo, 17 December 2020

Echo, 14 February 2022:

Just when we thought we’d seen the last of the Dunoon Dam, over a year after it was scrapped in 2020, a Rous councillor is moving a motion to put it back on the table.

The 2021 LGA elections saw the Dunoon Dam used as a platform for swaying votes on December 4, often the choice of ‘toilet water’ or the dam the only possibilities offered by candidates.

Now that this term of local government has begun, Ballina, Lismore and Richmond Valley Council have seen pro-dam councillors elected to the Rous Country Council which is made up of eight councillors – two from each of the constituent councils of Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Richmond Valley.

With the swearing-in of this term’s representatives, councils chose Councillors Sharon Cadwallader and Rod Bruem for Ballina, Councillors Michael Lyon and Sarah Ndiaye for Byron, Councillors Andrew Gordon and Big Rob for Lismore and Councillors Robert Mustow and Sandra Humphrys for Richmond Valley.

Ballina’s new Mayor Sharon Cadwallader has been nothing if not desperate to see the dam approved and has gone to extraordinary lengths to see it become a reality.

Ms Cadwallader has been voted on to Rous and she joins at least five other dam supporters on the Council.

Apart from the Byron representation, this group of Councillors have been clear about their support of the dam….

One of the results of this gaggle of duly elected environmental vandals gaining what appears to be a strong foothold on Rous County Council, is the motion set out below authored by a Lismore City councillor with the legal name of Big Rob.^{2, 3} And I have a strong suspicion that this particular motion was not presented (for formal agreement) to a full sitting of councillors on Lismore City Council – the particular local government Cr, Big Rob is legally obliged to represent at Rous County Council meetings.

Rous County Council, Ordinary meeting business paper, Wednesday, 16 February 2022:

Notice of Motion

Council Meeting 16 February 2022

Subject: Dunoon Dam

I hereby move:

That Council:

1. Adopt Revision 7 of the Integrated Water Cycle Management (IWCM) Strategy (Attachment 1) and update Revision 7 of the IWCM to reflect the inclusion of Dunoon dam investigations as part of the Future Water Project 2060

2. Approve the completion of detailed cultural heritage and biodiversity assessments associated with the proposed Dunoon dam in consultation with relevant Traditional Custodians.

3. Defer implementing the resolution associated with the proposed Dunoon dam, resolved by Council at its meeting of 16 December 2020 (resolution [61/20] Item 2), until after Stage 3 options have been determined (Attachment 2)

4. Utilise existing budget allocations for Dunoon dam land management to progress the actions in Item 2.

Signed: Councillor Big Rob

Date: 19 January 2022

The meeting at which this motion will be considered today can be accessed by the wider New South Wales & Northern Rivers general public:

Rous County Council meeting 16 February 2022
Public access, 9.30am – 10.00am: Zoom link.
Council meeting from 10.00am: Zoom link.

A public meeting is being held before the start of Rous County Council proceedings:

NOTE:

1. Water Northern Rivers, retrieved 15 February 2022, excerpts:

Ecological impacts of Dunoon Dam site – cannot be offset

• Internationally significant ecological remnants are our responsibility

• Only 1% of our region’s Big Scrub rainforest remains. 6.7% is in the proposed dam site & would be destroyed or fragmented.

• These rainforests are part of the Endangered Ecological Community Lowland Rainforest of the NSW North Coast and Sydney Basin Bioregions.

• Water Gums and Grey Myrtles in The Channon Gorge are the largest on record.

• Loss of flora species is cumulative, relentless and ultimately terminal. 

• 52 ha of critical koala habitat and corridors would be destroyed.

• Extinction already seriously threatens multiple species including the iconic platypus.

Why Dunoon Dam would NOT HELP with DROUGHT RESILIENCE

• A second dam would only receive water from the catchment above Rocky Creek Dam when it overspills. But Rocky Creek Dam currently has no provision for overflow and is full only 30% of the time, so a new dam may take years to fill. (Rous does not measure water flows over the spillway).

• Dunoon Dam is 3.5 x the size of Rocky Creek Dam, but has half the catchment size.

• In drought, when overall rainfall decreases, the runoff decreases even more drastically.

• Dunoon Dam’s relatively catchment would deliver very little in a drought.

• Multi-year droughts, predicted with climate change, mean that after a 4.5 year drought we’d have TWO empty dams.  

2. Big Rob Archives – The Echo at https://www.echo.net.au/tag/big-rob/

3. Cr. Big Rob Archives – The Echo at https://www.echo.net.au/tag/cr-big-rob/

Photo of the Week

Section snapshot enlargement of a photograph titled
"Plotting world domination"
by @OzGouldian

Australian Federal Election 2022: second-rate performance artist grabs a koala to cuddle.....

 

This is the image of a former child actor who became Australian Prime Minister, Scott John Morrison. Right now Scott wants Australian voters to believe that he will help save the Koala from extinction. 

IMAGE: Courier Mail, January 2022

However, Morrison is less a prime minister than he is a second-rate performance artist and right now he is playing a set piece role with this particular koala as a prop.  

Here in New South Wales we have some experience of how once the photographers and television cameramen have departed the scene Scott Morrison doesn’t give a damn about koalas - it's called the Regional Forest Agreement. 

Echo, 2 February 2022:

The recently announced $50 million emergency fund for koalas by the Federal Government has been called a ‘smokescreen’ by environmental group North East Forest Alliance (NEFA).

The funding comes from the federal government’s $2 billion bushfire relief fund that was announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on 6 January.

Announcing the koala funding Treasurer Josh Frydenberg referred to the Black Summer fires that raised approximately 10 million hectares of land, with 8.4 million hectares saying that ‘This has been an ecological disaster, a disaster that is still unfolding. We know that our native flora and fauna have been very badly damaged’ (ABC).

A NSW Parliament report in 2020 identified that koala populations across parts of Australia are on track to become extinct before 2050 unless ‘urgent government intervention’. This gives Australian’s now less than 30 years to turn this koala extinction threat around.

However, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that Scott Morrison’s announcement of $50 million for koalas is just a smokescreen to cover-up his Government’s approval for increased logging and clearing of koala habitat, while allowing climate heating to run amok, threatening the future of both koalas and the Great Barrier Reef,

‘Without good policies on habitat protection and climate change no amount of money will save koalas,’ said Mr Pugh.

‘If Scott Morrison was fair dinkum about protecting koala habitat the first thing he would do is to stop their feed and roost trees being logged and cleared. Money is no good for koalas if they have nowhere to live.

Climate action needed

‘The second is to take urgent and meaningful action on climate heating, as koalas and their feed trees have already been decimated by intensifying droughts and heatwaves in western NSW, and bushfires in coastal areas. If the Morrison Government doesn’t take urgent action on climate heating then neither koalas nor the Great Barrier Reef will have a future.

Regional Forest Agreement

‘When the Morrison Government issued an indefinite extension to the north-east NSW Regional Forest Agreement in 2018 they agreed to remove the need for Forestry Corporation to thoroughly search for koalas ahead of logging and protect all identified Koala High Use Areas from logging.

‘They also agreed to overriding the NSW Government’s own expert’s panel recommendations, supported by the EPA, to retain 25 koala feed trees per hectare in modelled high quality habitat, by reducing retention down to just 10 smaller trees.

‘Thanks to the Morrison Government we now have a shoddy process where a few small trees are protected in inaccurately modelled habitat, while loggers rampage through koala’s homes, and if a koala is seen in a tree then all they need to do is wait until it leaves before cutting its tree down.

‘Now Scott Morrison is allowing the Forestry Corporation to log identified refuges in burnt forests where koalas survived the fires.

‘The situation on private lands is just as dire. Morrison did nothing to save koala habitat when his State National Party colleagues declared war on koalas in mid 2020 and forced his Liberal colleagues to agree to remove protection for mapped core koala habitat and to open up protected environmental zones for logging. This too is covered by Morrison’s Regional Forest Agreement.’

‘If he really cared about the future of koalas the first thing Morrison needs to do is amend the Regional Forest Agreement to ensure there are surveys by independent experts to identify core koala habitat for protection before clearing or logging…...

‘The second thing is to stop new coal and gas projects, because to have any chance of saving koalas and the Great Barrier Reef we must act urgently to reduce our CO2 emissions, rather than increasing them.....

Clarence Native Bees Landcare Group begins its activities for 2022

Blue-banded Bee
Image: ABC News, January 2019

The previously postponed Annual General Meeting of the Clarence Native Bees Landcare Group will be held on Thursday, 13 January 2022 commencing 5:30pm at the South Grafton District Ex-Servicemen’s Club at 2 Wharf Street, South Grafton. Office holders will be voted on during this meeting.

Single day native bee workshops will be held with Tobias Smith on both Australian solitary and social bees for both members and the general public on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 March 2022 at 18-26 Victoria Street Grafton (Clarence Valley Aboriginal Healing Centre/Gurehlgam Corporation building).

Each workshop is limited to 45 people and lunch is supplied.

Cost:

Non-members - $45 including lunch

Members – cost of lunch only.

Please contact Carol on 6643.3750 if wishing to attended.

Advice on how to rescue a fallen native stingless beehive:

We have also received reports of fallen trees and branches with native beehives exposed on the ground. If the nest is split open and accessible, advice would be to remove and place the brood/egg structure with the queen bee who is usually hiding in the egg spiral, along with any worker bees, into a box as soon as possible very gently. This can be wooden, plastic, cardboard, polystyrene foam, tin can or even an Esky. Scissors are handy for cutting the egg spiral away from damaged sections of the hive and broken wax structure. Wax without any honey or pollen can be included for repair material for the bees. Don’t include anything with spilt honey on it as this attracts insect predators that attempt to lay their eggs in the damaged hive. If there are unbroken pots of honey or pollen you can include 4 or 5 of each, but if the damaged hive has been exposed for even a short amount of time, predators may have laid their eggs on the pots, so it becomes an unwarranted risk to include them. Don’t be too concerned about the bees starving. If the weather is suitable, the workers will quickly resume foraging and start constructing and filling pots and the queen will resume egg laying. Seal any gaps or cracks in the new box with masking/duct tape, gap filler or even mud/clay in a pinch, to exclude predators. Make or leave a single entrance hole 6-10mm in diameter for the bees to enter/exit and more easily defend. Drilling a hole or poking a hole through the tape with a small stick is an easy option. Reducing the entrance hole size with some of their wax to about 4mm diameter, will make it very easy for even a single bee to defend and the bees can adjust this to their preference. Leave the box near where the hive fell but shaded from direct sunlight, so loose bees can find their way into the new hive box. They will zero in on the scent of the brood/queen. The more workers you can save, the faster the hive recovers and better chance of survival.

Order of priority: queen, workers, brood. If you must, choose two out of the three, queen and workers. If you can’t find the queen, concentrate on saving the brood and workers. There are usually several slightly larger queen eggs in the brood located on the outer edge of the spiral. They also keep very sticky resin in stockpiles around the hive, that is a valuable resource for defense. If you spot any of that, include in the new hive.

After a few weeks or months, once the hive is stabilized and out of immediate danger, they can be transferred to a more substantial box if needed.

For any urgent native bee rescue enquiries or assistance, please call Bronwynn 0427 690 971 (rescue hotline)

Or visit our website www.clarencenativebees.org or email clarencenativebees.info@gmail.com

Bronwynn Lusted [writing in Clarence Valley Independent, 15 December 2021]

It was the Baird Coalition Government which created the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS) and successive NSW Liberal-Nationals governments have allowed it to become a trojan horse for unsustainable development and financial rorting

It was the Baird Coalition Government which created the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS) which was established under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. 

 Under this scheme, applications for development or clearing approvals must set out how impacts on biodiversity will be avoided and minimised. The remaining residual impacts can be offset by the purchase and/or retirement of biodiversity credits or payment to the Biodiversity Conservation Fund. 

 Landholders can enter into Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements to create offset sites on their land to generate biodiversity credits. These credits are then available to the market for purchase by developers, landholders or the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to offset the impacts of development or clearing. 

However it was a scheme loathed by the mining industry from the start as an impediment on its commercial interests and by the industry's supporters, such as National Party political robber baron and then Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro. It was also a scheme heartily disliked by local government areas fighting to retain biodiversity, maintain healthy water sources and protect remaining forest.

Clarence Valley Independent, 15 December 2021:

A report tabled at the August 24 Clarence Valley Council (CVC) meeting warns that the NSW Biodiversity Offset Scheme (BOS) has had the opposite effect to its intention: instead of protecting the valley’s natural environment, it has “ensured a net loss to biodiversity, often of our most threatened flora and fauna”.... 

Staff advised councillors of four key issues: “a net loss of biodiversity across the LGA, a lack of stewardship sites in the Clarence (currently, there are only two stewardship sites in the Clarence), a lack of transparency in the BOS, and inconsistencies in offset prices. 

 “There is little confidence in this legislation for biodiversity conservation as offsets can be facilitated outside of the CVC local government area,” staff wrote. 

 “…credit suppliers are located all over the state, hence, if a developer can source credits, they are unlikely to be sourced within the Clarence, creating a ‘net loss’ of biodiversity.” 

On the lack of transparency, staff wrote: “Many plant community types on the floodplain, which comprises a large percentage of land being developed in the Clarence, are threatened ecological communities (TEC), which are to be offset for the same TEC, forcing developers to pay into the fund as the sole way to offset credits, as there are no locally available credits. 

“There is no way to determine if this money deposited in the trust is then used to facilitate recovery or protection of TECs in the Clarence – creating biodiversity loss.”....

Clarence Valley Council was not alone in expressing Northern NSW concerns as the Inquiry's submissions list confirmed. 

The NSW Parliament Portfolio Committee No. 7 - Environment and Planning's Inquiry into the Integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme will not report until 1 March 2022, so the jury is still out on the Perrottet Coalition Government's response to its yet to be completed investigation.

However, one issue is being addressed.......

Environment reporter Lisa Fox (left)writing in The Guardian, 10 December 2021:

Officials working on conservation matters in the New South Wales environment department have been barred from holding financial interests in the state’s biodiversity offset scheme.

This follows an investigation of the department’s management of potential conflicts of interest.

Senior officials told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday that staff who work on the offset scheme or in the department’s biodiversity, conservation and science sections had been told they could not work in those roles and hold personal interests in properties and companies that were involved in the financial trade of offset credits.

It follows two external investigations that were commissioned by the department after Guardian Australia uncovered a series of failures in offset programs.

Offsets exist to allow developers to compensate for environmental damage in one area by delivering an equivalent environmental benefit in another.

But there have been problems with the system, including in one case a 20-year delay in delivering environmental protection and so-called “double-dipping” by developers in areas of urban sprawl.

Guardian Australia also revealed the state and federal governments bought tens of millions of dollars in offset credits from properties linked to consultants whose company advised the government on development in western Sydney.

The reporting triggered a string of reviews, including one by the legal firm Maddocks and one by the consultancy Centium examining how the environment department had managed potential conflicts of interest associated with staff holding financial interests in offset sites….

Dean Knudsen, the deputy secretary for biodiversity, conservation and science, told Friday’s hearing of the offset inquiry there had been fewer than five officials with such financial interests.

After the reviews, the department has introduced a new conflict of interest protocol that deems some investments “high risk” and presenting an “unacceptable risk to the integrity” of the scheme.

Knudsen said as a result, staff in certain sections could no longer participate in the scheme and those with historic interests had 12 months to divest.

“For departmental staff we’ve effectively said you’re not supposed to be participating in the scheme,” he said.

“If you have historically, we’ve told them what you have to do to effectively distance them from that.”

The Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann, who is chairing the inquiry, said the changes were welcome.

“This should have happened at the start of the scheme to help prevent the types of windfall gains by a few individuals with detailed knowledge of the offset industry,” she said.

“However, we also need to see a tightening of conflicts of interest [rules] within the industry itself, including within ecological consultancies.”

Officials were also asked about delays in securing permanent protection of offset sites to compensate for habitat destruction caused by coalmines in NSW.

Responses to questions on notice in the parliament from the independent MLC Justin Field state that of the 41 coalmines approved in New South Wales in the past decade, one did not require offsets, 14 had not yet triggered the requirement to deliver their offsets, nine had land set aside but permanent protections were not yet in place, and 17 had “substantially finalised” their offsets.

….but certain aspects – such as finalisation of some of the legal arrangements protecting the site – were outstanding.

Officials agreed the process for securing offsets for mines had not been “as timely as [they] should be”.

Field said it was not good enough that “not one single coalmine approved in the last decade has secured their required offsets through finalised in-perpetuity arrangements”.

“The government needs to improve the transparency around what the hold-up is, put a deadline on finalising these arrangements and hold these mine operators to that deadline,” he said. 

Read the full article here.

Alleged 70 per cent hazard reduction burn over two days planned for the biodiverse Billinudgel Nature Reserve in June 2021

Echo NetDaily, 11 June 2021:

Local Minjungbal Indigenous leaders are asking the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to consult with them over a planned hazard reduction burn at Billinudgel Nature Reserve but a scheduled meeting was cancelled by NPWS. 

Billinudgel Nature Reserve where the hazard reduction
burn is planned by National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The hazard reduction burn was originally scheduled for the Billinudgel Nature Reserve on 3 June with neighbours being informed by letter on 2 June.

‘We got notification that Billinudgel was going to have a hazard reduction burn which gave me time to get in touch with NPWS to discuss some options and ask them to sit down with traditional owners to look at cultural issues in the reserve,’ said Rachael Cavanagh, a Minjungbal woman and traditional owner that covers the Billinudgel Nature Reserve.

Rachael said a meeting was originally set up but was then cancelled by the NPWS who said that they would only speak to the Tweed Byron Aboriginal Land Council (TB ALC).

‘They are not the traditional owners,’ Rachael pointed out. ‘Everyone deserves a voice. We are on the Native Title claim for the Five Rivers and the Tweed Bundjalung people. We are the traditional owners who hold the cultural knowledge on the land values. We still have fire law that has been continued in our family,’ she told The Echo. 

Billinudgel Nature Reserve.

‘NPWS legislation states that they need to engage with traditional owners and knowledge holders. By their own legislation they are supposed to meet all registered parties.’

Rachael has been a fire fighter for 20 years with the Queensland National Parks and Forestry Corporation and is engaged with the Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation.

‘I am in a senior leadership team for National Fire Sticks Alliance. We support and build capacity with Indigenous groups nationally to support cultural fire practices and traditional land management for people on country. We look at the whole picture.’

Having been denied the option to meet with NPWS Rachael told The Echo that their lawyer has now sent a letter to NPWS to seek a meeting between the traditional owners and NPWS in relation to the burn.

‘Pretty much our family are fighting to be at the table and be part the discussion,’ she said.

‘They are planning to for a 70 per cent hazard reduction burn over two days which means it will be very hot, raging and overall health of the forest and the cultural values will be at risk, the understory will be and the canopy will be scorched, the animals will have nowhere to go to.

‘Regardless of whether it is Billinudgel or Cudgen. I will be fighting to have a say over the management of Minyungbal Country.’

‘Regardless of whether it is Billinudgel or Cudgen. I will be fighting to have a seat at the table.’…... 

BACKGROUND

Billinudgel Nature Reserve was created in April 1996. It's current size is 789 ha. Approximately 75% of the Reserve is within Byron Shire with the remainder in Tweed Shire in the NSW Northern Rivers region.

The Reserve protects the following features: 

· a large tract of natural lowland coastal vegetation, a significant remnant in an otherwise highly modified environment; 

· an extensive wetland containing Melaleuca swamp forest; 

· a diversity of habitat which supports a wide range of fauna and flora including rare, threatened, significant and migratory species; 

· Aboriginal sites and landscapes of significance; and 

· features of scientific interest. 

In the 2016 Byron Coast Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management the North Byron Koala Management Area encompasses an area of approximately 2,814ha located to the north of the Brunswick River and includes the Billinudgel Nature Reserve along with the localities of South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Billinudgel.

localities of South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Billinudgel as indicated by Figure 3 of the

Northern Rivers Region Billinudgel, Marshalls Creek, Jinangong, and Brunswick Heads (north) Nature Reserves Fire Management Strategy (Type 2) 2016 at:

https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/Fire-management-strategies/billinudgel-marshalls-creek-jinangong-brunswick-heads-reserves-fire-management-strategy-160705.pdf