Showing posts with label forests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forests. Show all posts
Thursday 2 May 2019
"BURNED- Are Trees the New Coal Roadshow" screening start on NSW
North Coast Environment Council, North East Forest Alliance, Rainforest Information Centre, No Electricity From Forests, Nimbin Environment Centre, Lismore Environment Centre, Bellingen Environment Centre, Coffs Coast Branch of the National Parks Association, Media Release April 30, 2019:
BURNED-
Are Trees the New Coal Roadshow to tour the
North Coast.
This award-winning film
will be screened across the north coast over the next two weeks.
“Many people saw the
film Gaslands and this spear-headed the movement against fracking.People power
in the Northern Rivers region rejected this destructive activity and energy
source. This film is to forests, what Gaslands was to fracking,” said Susie
Russell, who has galvanised the collaboration of the participating
organisations.
“The idea that whole
forests are being cleared and burnt in power stations instead of coal seems
crazy, but increasingly that is what is happening around the world and
Australian governments want to see it happen here too.
“Due to a perversion of
the international greenhouse gas accounting rules, burning wood is considered
to be 'carbon neutral' because it's not a fossil fuel and eventually the carbon
can get taken out of the atmosphere by growing more trees. But that will take
decades, decades we don't have.
“In the meantime,
forests, which are the most effective mechanism we have to capture carbon and
store it, are being destroyed to fuel power stations that actually produce more
CO2 than if they were burning coal! And it's being subsidised as a 'renewable'
industry that is 'clean and green'. Meanwhile the homes of wildlife that depend
on forests are gone, pushing many species of plants and animals closer to
extinction.
“The scale of this
insanity is documented in the film. It shows what is planned for our forests if
people power doesn't stop it. It's a cry from the forests, for our help. We
really have to stop this madness before it kills us all. Burning forests for
electricity must be stopped. The scientific consensus is that saving forests is
absolutely key if we want to stop runaway climate change” Ms Russell said.
See below for schedule
of screenings.
Participating
organisations: North Coast Environment Council, North East Forest Alliance,
Rainforest Information Centre, No Electricity From Forests, Nimbin Environment
Centre, Lismore Environment Centre, Bellingen Environment Centre, Coffs Coast
Branch of the National Parks Association.
Roadshow: Burned-
Are Trees the New Coal
Feature film documenting
the burgeoning 'biomass' or 'bioenergy' industry that is converting forests to
electricity, at enormous cost to the planet!
Coming soon to a forest
near you.
May 1- Bellingen
Memorial Hall from 6pm, food available
May 2- Coffs
Harbour, Norm Jordan Pavilion at Coffs Harbour Showground , Pacific
Highway, 6pm
May 4- Nimbin.
Screenings at 11am, 1pm and 3pm at the Birth and Beyond Room, 54 Cullen
St, close to the pedestrian crossing. Tea and coffee will be available during
screenings.
May 5- Nimbin, Birth and
Beyond. Screenings at 11am and 1pm as above.
May 7- Mullumbimby, The
Mullumbimby Commons, 91/74 Main Arm Rd, 6pm
May 9- Byron Bay,
Pighouse, 1 Skinners Shoot Rd, Byron Bay 6pm.
May 10- Lismore Gallery
Events Space. Rural St/Keen St, Lismore at 6.30pm, food & drink available
Slate Café from 6pm.
Followed by:
May 11- Lismore,
Community Climate Crisis Rally, Peace Park, cnr Bruxner H’way & Keen St.
Speakers, music & stalls 10am.
Screenings are free but
donations towards venue hire and materials would be appreciated.
You can watch a trailer
here: http://watch.burnedthemovie.com/
Labels:
#standup4forests,
forests,
trees
Tuesday 26 March 2019
Australia’s national science agency CSIRO will release a new biocontrol agent in a bid to help save rainforests from an invasive South American weed
Wandering trad (Tradescantia fluminensis) Image: yarraranges.vic.gov.au |
CSIRO, news release, 22 March 2019:
Wandering trad (Tradescantia
fluminensis) has become a significant environmental weed in parts of
eastern Australia where it forms dense carpets on forest floors, smothering
native vegetation and clogging waterways.
CSIRO senior research
scientist Dr Louise
Morin said weeds like wandering trad had a significant economic,
environmental and social impact in Australia.
“Weeds are one of the
biggest threats to Australia’s unique environment – in many areas across
Australia they are damaging native vegetation, which threatens whole ecosystems
including native wildlife,” Dr Morin said.
“Last year Australia
spent almost $30 million protecting the natural environment from weeds. In the
agriculture sector, weeds cost the industry more than $4.8 billion per year.”
“The fungus is spread
through spores and needs the leaves of the wandering trad to survive – if there
is no wandering trad to infect, the fungus dies,” Dr Morin said.
“We know from decades of research in this field, that specialised fungi, like the leaf smut, have specific genes that enable them to successfully infect and cause disease only on single or a narrow range of plant species. “So we look at plants that are related to wandering trad including native plants to make sure the fungus will only infect the weed.” Wandering trad has infested native forests across eastern Australia, from eastern parts of NSW and south-east Queensland, to the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria where the biocontrol agent will first be released.
“We know from decades of research in this field, that specialised fungi, like the leaf smut, have specific genes that enable them to successfully infect and cause disease only on single or a narrow range of plant species. “So we look at plants that are related to wandering trad including native plants to make sure the fungus will only infect the weed.” Wandering trad has infested native forests across eastern Australia, from eastern parts of NSW and south-east Queensland, to the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria where the biocontrol agent will first be released.
NOTE
Wandering Trad is not to be confused with a similar looking plant Commelina diffusa which is native to south-east Queensland and north-east NSW. The native plant has blue flowers (usually flowering in autumn) and a slender tapered leaf, unlike the weedy species Tradescantia albiflora (which has fleshier, rounded, glossier leaves). The native plant is not an environmental weed.
Commelina diffusa Image: Qld Dept. of Agriculture and Fisheries |
Labels:
CSIRO,
flora and fauna,
forests,
noxious pests
Saturday 23 March 2019
Listen to a disappearing Australia
Listen to a night soundscape from the rainforest, far north Queensland - https://t.co/FbJzJeDNkJ #wildoz #soundscape #fieldrecording— Marc Anderson (@wildambience) February 12, 2019
Labels:
flora and fauna,
forests
Thursday 7 February 2019
Loggers still breaching their environmental obligations in Northern NSW state forests
North East Forest Alliance, media release,
1 February 2019:
EPA ENCOURAGES ILLEGAL
LOGGING BY REPEATEDLY LETTING FORESTRY OFF
The North East Forest
Alliance is claiming there is no justice for forests after the EPA on
Wednesday confirmed numerous breaches of the Forestry Corporation's Threatened
Species Licence in Gibberagee State Forest (east of Whiporie) but yet again issued
useless cautions and warnings rather than fines and prosecutions for these
serial offenders.
"Over the past
decade NEFA have exposed the Forestry Corporation committing thousands of legal
breaches of their environmental obligations, with the EPA confirming hundreds
more breaches in the last few months from NEFA's audits of Gibberagee and
Sugarloaf State Forest", said NEFA Spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
"Yet the EPA have
never taken the Forest Corporation to court, despite commitments to do so, and
in January 2016 they made the political decision not to issue fines.
"With no
consequences for their blatant breaches of environmental laws, is it surprising
that the Forestry Corporation repeat them time and time again?
"If you or I went
around illegally cutting down oldgrowth trees (hundreds of year old), clearing
rainforest, and bulldozing roads through exclusions around threatened plants
time and time again we would be put in jail, but the Forestry Corporation don't
even get a fine.
"The EPA's
regulation of the Forestry Corporation is farcical, though the biggest problem
is that by their refusal to take meaningful regulatory action the EPA are
fostering what Justice Pepper described in 2011 as "a reckless attitude
towards compliance with its environmental obligations" Mr. Pugh said.
"On Wednesday, in
response to a NEFA complaint made 2 years ago the EPA confirmed that the
Forestry Corporation failed to adequately mark the boundaries of 50m logging
exclusion zones around numerous individuals of Endangered heath Narrow-leaved
Melichrus, and undertook logging operations and roading within their exclusion
zones.
"The EPA also
confirmed NEFA's complaints of reckless damage to hollow-bearing trees and
recruitment trees, while also confirming that the Forestry Corporation was not
following the requirements for selection of appropriate recruitment trees.
"Though we can't be
sure the EPA found all the breaches we identified because the EPA won't tell us
how many they found, and when the EPA invited us into Gibberagee to be show them
in March 2017, the Forestry Corporation wouldn't let us show the EPA and
ordered us out of the forest.
"When NEFA made its
first complaint over Gibberagee in March 2017 we hoped the EPA would take
action to stop the breaches, yet when NEFA did another assessment 7 months
later we found the same sort of breaches were continuing unabated. We are still
waiting for the EPA to respond to the last complaints.
"In October last
year the EPA confirmed over 86 breaches of the logging rules identified by the
North East Forest Alliance in Sugarloaf State Forest, south of Tabulam, at that
time the EPA issued the Forestry Corporation with a Warning Letter for 72 and
an Official Caution for 1 offence.
"The confirmed
breaches included roading through a wildlife corridor, nine cases of roading in
exclusion areas along streams, failure to retain the required numbers of
habitat trees, and over 70 cases of serious damage to, and inappropriate
selection of, marked habitat trees.
"While failure to
retain the required number of habitat trees is called one offence, in practice
the EPA found that they had retained 200 less hollow-bearing trees than were
legally required.
"There were
numerous other breaches that the Forestry got off scot free for, for example
the EPA confirmed clearing within the marked boundary of the Endangered
Ecological Community Lowland Rainforest but refused to take action on the
grounds that because the "forest structure and species present at this
location have either been totally removed or severely altered/damaged" it
precluded identifying what it had been like before logging.
"The EPA chose to
ignore that they and the Forestry Corporation had jointly mapped it as Lowland
Rainforest some 6 months before it had been logged and cleared.
"These offences are
a repeat of similar offences we reported a year earlier in the nearby Cherry
Tree State Forest. Despite the EPA's assurances they were going to take legal
action there for logging and roading 4.5ha of mapped Lowland Rainforest and
recklessly damaging hundreds of habitat trees, they let the Forestry
Corporation off scot-free.
"NEFA estimated in
that operation around 1,000 habitat trees were likely to have been damaged or
had excessive debris left around their bases, though the EPA justified their
refusal to take any regulatory action on the grounds that while it was "likely"
the damages "were as a result of harvesting operations", they
were not able to prove "beyond reasonable doubt ... that the damage was
[not] caused by some other means".
"There is no justice.
The EPA's sham regulation is encouraging the Forestry Corporation to repeatedly
break logging laws with impunity" Mr. Pugh said.
Labels:
#standup4forests,
environment,
flora and fauna,
forests,
Northern Rivers,
trees
Friday 18 January 2019
As the land grows hotter and drier, the storms and fires more violent, as we watch the rampant greed of the few decimate our forests and destroy our water sources......
..... there is some comfort in knowing that there are still some Australian communities trying to come together to care for country.
North East Forest
Alliance, media release,
30 August 2018:
Githabul Tribe and
Conservation Groups Reach Historic Agreement
The Githabul Tribe,
Githabul Nation Aboriginal Corporation, Githabul Elders and representatives of
conservation groups today launched their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for
the management of Githabul Native Title Lands in the upper Clarence and
Richmond Rivers.
On 29 November 2007 the
Federal Court of Australia made a consent determination recognising the
Githabul People’s Native Title rights and interests over 1120 sq km in 9
National Parks and 13 State Forests.
The MoU proposes:
· Transferring
care and control of 29,700ha State Forests for which Githabul Native Title
rights are recognised, from the NSW government to the Githabul Tribe.
· Preparing
a comprehensive Plan of Management to safeguard conservation and cultural
values and prioritise rehabilitation works.
· Achieving
an adequately funded comprehensive 15 year rehabilitation plan to arrest and
repair forest dieback as part of a Githabul caring for country program.
· Creating
more NPWS positions and training for Githabul Working on Country in National
Parks in the Kyogle area.
· Transferring
the care and control of Crown lands around the Tooloom Falls Aboriginal Place
to the Githabul Tribe.
· Promoting
the establishment of a Cultural and Tourism Centre at Roseberry Creek.
· Obtaining
World Heritage Listing for the National Parks in the region.
30 August 2018 |
Githabul spokesperson
Rob Williams said:
It is important to
understand and acknowledge that the health of the Githabul people in general is
directly related to the health of the surrounding country and vice versa.
This philosophy
underpins the Githabul wish to immediately arrest what is seen as a decline in
the health of the forests and waterways over many decades now.
Such is our connection
to country that we all suffer - along with the plants and animals. We still
feel we have a direct responsibility to maintain the natural balance between
all inter- related species including ourselves, as was done for millennia
before the colonial invasion.
North East Forest Alliance
spokesperson Dailan Pugh said:
The Forestry Corporation
has already abandoned 11,000 hectares of these State Forests for timber
production because of the chronic dieback they are suffering from past logging,
and the balance of the Githabul lands are in an equally parlous state.
Already the Government
is proposing that 5,600 ha of State Forests around Mount Lindesay be
transferred to the management of NPWS as a Koala reserve, but without the
massive funding needed to rehabilitate the forests.
The Githabul have a
proven track-record in rehabilitating dieback areas and we are excited by the
prospect of supporting their native title rights while helping to obtain the
funding needed to scale up their rehabilitation works to stop the ongoing
degradation and begin to restore the health of these internationally
significant forests.
National Parks
Association CEO Alix Goodwin said:
NPA is committed to
protecting NSW public native forests for their biodiversity conservation values
for future generations. Working with the Githabul to rehabilitate and restore
almost 30,000 hectares on the north coast is a great start to achieving this
vision.
The MOU also marks an
important milestone in achieving the protection of important koala habitat in
the Western Border Ranges, the connection of seven existing World Heritage
properties and a recognised biodiversity hotspot under the stewardship of the
local Aboriginal community.
We look forward to
working with the Githabul to implement this MOU, the first NPA agreement with an
Aboriginal community in over a decade.
Nature Conservation
Council CEO Kate Smolksi said:
We believe that
effective nature conservation and land justice for Indigenous Australians go
hand in hand.
We welcome today’s
announcement and hope this proves to be a successful model that can be adopted
in other areas.
The MoU is an agreement
between the Githabul Nation Aboriginal Corporation and Githabul Elders, and the
North East Forest Alliance, North Coast Environment Council, National Parks
Association, Nature Conservation Council, Nimbin Environment Centre, Lismore
Environment Centre and Casino Environment Centre.
Tuesday 23 October 2018
This private member's bill signals an ongoing threat to forests on the NSW North Coast and elsewhere in the state
This is Austin William Evans, NSW Nationals MP
for Murray since 14 October 2018 when he won the seat on the back of a by-election after fellow Nationals Adrian Piccoli resigned.
On 18 October
2018 Evans introduced a private member’s bill in the NSW Legislative Assembly titled,
National
Parks and Wildlife Legislation Amendment (Riverina) Bill 2018 or An Act with respect to certain lands in the
Riverina region reserved under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 or
dedicated under the Forestry Act 2012; and for other purposes.
As yet no
text of this bill is publicly available.
However,
there are no prizes for having guessed that this bill seeks to revert the Murray Valley
National Park to a state forest to allow timber harvesters back in.
According to
state parliamentary records the Bill
lapses in accordance with Standing Orders on 19/4/2019.
Austin Evans
has told the media he
hopes to have a second recording of the bill before the end of the year and
expects Berejiklian Government MPs to support it.
The 41,601ha Murray Valley National Park was
declared in July 2010 and is part
of the largest continuous red gum forest in the world, this region hosts a
unique ecosystem with over 60 threatened native animal species and 40
threatened plant species. It is also an important place for Aboriginal people.
Make no
mistake Evans’ bill represents the unsustainable native timber industry’s desire
to make inroads into the wider national park system.
In fact it
made sure it never really left the Murray Valley National Park, having received
milling timber via so-called ''ecological
thinning'' of sections of the park since 2012.
Given the number of national parks and reserves in the Northern Rivers region it is time to put pen to paper and remind Premier Gladys Berejiklian that growing the total area covered by the national park system, as well as reining in broad scale land clearance and/or extensive logging in rural and regional areas, is one of the easiest ways to mitigate against rising state greenhouse gas emissions.
The Berejiklian Government has already walked back from the transfer of 23,000 hectares of low productivity state forests to the national park estate and presented a whittled down version of the National Park Estate (Reservations) Bill 2018 which passed both Houses on 17 October 2018.
Although under this passed bill an est. 2,200ha of state forest will become part of the national park estate in January 2019 and and further est. 1,791 of state forest will be rededicated as state conservation areas, the total amount of protected viable koala habitat is limited.
In an effort to redress this, amendments were proposed which include the creation of the Great Koala National Park.
As of 18 October 2018 both NSW Greens and NSW Labor support the Great Koala National Park proposal and, if there is a change of government at the 23 March 2019 state election, we should see a genuine start to placing protection on enough viable habitat to begin to reverse the koala's decline towards local extinctions.
The Berejiklian Government has already walked back from the transfer of 23,000 hectares of low productivity state forests to the national park estate and presented a whittled down version of the National Park Estate (Reservations) Bill 2018 which passed both Houses on 17 October 2018.
Although under this passed bill an est. 2,200ha of state forest will become part of the national park estate in January 2019 and and further est. 1,791 of state forest will be rededicated as state conservation areas, the total amount of protected viable koala habitat is limited.
In an effort to redress this, amendments were proposed which include the creation of the Great Koala National Park.
As of 18 October 2018 both NSW Greens and NSW Labor support the Great Koala National Park proposal and, if there is a change of government at the 23 March 2019 state election, we should see a genuine start to placing protection on enough viable habitat to begin to reverse the koala's decline towards local extinctions.
Thursday 4 October 2018
Wednesday 5 September 2018
Berejiklian Government accused of timber fraud on NSW North Coast
North East Forest Alliance
(NEFA), 27 August
2018:
The North East Forest Alliance has accused the
NSW Government of fraudulently claiming a shortfall in high quality logs
available from State Forests in north-east NSW to justify their wind-back of
environmental protections and intention to log oldgrowth forest and rainforest.
NEFA today released
a review of timber
yields and modelling for north-east NSW over the past 20 years that
has identified a number of serious problems with yield estimations and
allocations from the region that will be referred to the Auditor General.
"The most
significant issue revealed is that the Government has removed hardwood
plantations from yield calculations to concoct a yield shortfall to justify
removing environmental protections, while apparently intending to reallocate
plantation timber to low value products for export" says report author
Dailan Pugh.
"According to the
Government's data there is absolutely no need to log oldgrowth forests, or to
remove other existing environmental protections to satisfy current timber
commitments.
"The Natural
Resources Commission (NRC) turned an identified surplus of 37,000 cubic metres
per annum of high quality sawlogs from State Forests in north-east NSW over the
next hundred years into a claimed deficit of 8,600 cubic metres per annum by
simply excluding hardwood plantations from their calculations.
"The NRC's claim
that 'it is not possible to meet the Government’s commitments around both
environmental values and wood supply' is based on a lie. Nowhere do they
identify that they excluded plantations. They did this to create the pretence
of a shortfall.
"Plantations
already provide some 30,000 cubic metres(14%) of high quality hardwood log
commitments per annum, with yields projected to increase up
to 75,000 cubic meters of high quality logs per annum into the
future.
"NSW Taxpayers have
spent $27 million just since 2000 establishing hardwood plantations explicitly
to provide high quality logs to take the pressure off native forests.
"It is outrageous
that the Government has excluded plantations to concoct a shortfall in timber
from State Forests in order to justify increasing logging intensity, reducing
retention of habitat trees, removing protections for numerous threatened
species, halving buffers on headwater streams, as well as now opening up
oldgrowth forest and rainforest protected in the Comprehensive Adequate and
Representative (CAR) reserve system for logging.
"The Government
recently issued an Expression of Interest for 416,851 tonnes per annum of low
quality logs from north-east NSW, of which 219,000 tonnes (53%) is apparently
to be obtained by downgrading all timber from the 35,000 ha of north-east NSW's
hardwood plantations to low quality logs and committing them in new Wood Supply
Agreements aimed at the export market.
"Three NSW
Environment Ministers (Parker, Stokes and Speakman), along with the Environment
Protection Authority, repeatedly promised that the new logging rules
(Integrated Forestry Operations Approval) would result in no net change to wood
supply, no erosion of environmental values, and no reductions in the CAR
reserve system.
"Instead of
honouring their promises, in a blatant ploy the Government has changed the wood
supply, by surreptitiously excluding plantations, to justify erosion of
environmental values and reductions in the reserve system.
"NEFA calls upon
the NSW Government to honour their promises by reinstating the intended role of
plantations in providing high quality sawlogs to take the pressure off native
forests, and to use the resultant timber surplus to reinstate the environmental
protections they are intending to remove", Mr. Pugh said.
Port
News, 28
August 2018:
I noticed in the report
by the NSW Government DPI’s principal research scientist, Dr Brad Law, which
was published in the Port News on August 1that he claims recent
audio recordings of male koalas in the hinterland of our state forests revealed
evidence of up to 10 times the previously estimated occupancy.
Well obviously if this
was the first time audio study of male koalas in the breeding season had been
carried surely finding any koalas at all would be an increase in findings. The
Australia Koala Foundation showed that one male koala 'Arnie' a dominant male
occupied a home range of 43 hectares in area so no doubt the study took
precautions to not record the same koala in other of the 171 sites.
Each site however did
not always record even one or two scats. The evidence proves only 65% of the
171 sites tested held one koala and the scats do not prove in any way a home
colony had even once existed at these sites.
Dr Law rejoices that in
his study that heavily logged, lightly logged and old growth forest areas
showed similar results which seemed to suggest that logging of our NSW State
Forests has no effect on koala numbers.
Really?
In a study by the
recognised koala expert, Dr Steve Phillips, commissioned by our own PMHC he
found that most of the suitably sized koala food trees have already been logged
out.
So WTF do they eat?
This no harm heavily
logged forest claim by Dr Law will get a real test soon when the NSW Government
introduces intensive logging in “Regrowth B” area. A map obtained under GIPA by
the North Coast Environment Centre indicates 142,818 ha. of our north coast
state forests between Taree and Grafton will be clear-felled.
Any small trees left
will be hauled away to the soon be established Biomass Plants at Taree, Kempsey
and Grafton and now it seems a new “renewable energy” diesel manufacturing
plant at Heron’s Creek. “Renewable” meaning over the next 100 years.
Any regrowth in the
intensively logged forests will likely be sprayed and Blackbutt monocultures
planted.
Oh, and so no damage is
done to the forest populations of koalas and protected animals and plants small
clumps of forest will be left.
How a male koala will
roam to the next paradise island of the living dead to breed without being
attacked by wild dogs or run over by logging trucks is not discussed in the
literature.
Even Dr Law did not
bother to defend his government’s offset scheme which will according to
evidence presented at the PMHC Koala Roundtable result in local extinction of
koalas in the Port Macquarie local government area…..
Thursday 28 June 2018
Conservationists Alarmed at NSW Government Plans for our Forests
Conservationists
are alarmed about the NSW Government’s proposals to increase logging intensity
in our public forests.
And while the
Government is proposing drastic changes weakening logging rules, it is avoiding
holding meaningful public consultations about their plans. North Coast
conservationists had wanted to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to visit
local forests to see first hand the damage that has already resulted from the
current logging practices. The EPA refused to participate.
This is
probably not surprising given that the EPA, which is charged with monitoring
and ensuring compliance of logging operations in the State Forests, has failed
in ensuring that the current regulations have been adhered to. And on those occasions when it has determined
that there have been breaches, the penalties it imposed have been of the “slap
on the wrist” nature. So it is no wonder that the current rules have frequently
been ignored.
The North
Coast Environment Council (NCEC) and the North East Forests Alliance (NEFA) are
countering the Government’s current consultation failure by holding their own
meetings to explain to the community exactly what the Government has in mind
for the future of our public forests. Several meetings have already been held
on the North Coast with more planned, including one for Grafton at the Grafton
District Services Club (upstairs) on Saturday June 30.
In a recent
statement NCEC Vice-President Susie Russell outlined the consequences of the
Government’s proposed changes.
“If the
proposed rules are implemented, every population centre on the north coast will
see its water yields drop as intensive land clearfell logging dries out the
catchments. There will be increased erosion and sedimentation of streams from
decreased stream buffers.
“The
extinction cliff for many of our native animals and plants will be reached
faster as there will no longer be a requirement to look for them prior to
logging.
“The carbon storage
capacity of our forest estate will be greatly diminished as logging intensity
increases and the dense, young regrowth is more flammable than the mature
forests it replaces.
“All this at
a time when climate change is accelerating and the planet's temperature is
rising. We need now to be protecting our future by maximising the shade,
natural water and carbon storage, while connecting habitats to enable animals
to move to more suitable areas,” she said.
The NCEC is
concerned that areas that have been off-limits to logging for 20 years - old
growth forest, stream protection buffers, and high quality koala habitat – will
be sacrificed to meet wood contracts.
Our state
Government needs to be reminded that State Forests belong to the people of this
state – not to the timber industry or to a Government that seems hell-bent on
damaging as much of the natural environment as it can while it is in office.
- Leonie Blain
Sunday 10 June 2018
The political endorsements of extinction by Turnbull, Berejiklian and Palaszczuk governments continue
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
5 June 2018:
Wild fish stocks in
Australian waters shrank by about a third in the decade to 2015, declining in
all regions except strictly protected marine zones, according to data collected
by scientists and public divers.
The research, based on
underwater reef monitoring at 533 sites around the nation and published in
the Aquatic Conservation journal, claims to be the first
large-scale independent survey of fisheries. It found declining numbers tracked
the drop in total reported catch for 213 Australian fisheries for the 1992-2014
period.
The biomass of larger
fish fell 36 per cent on fished reefs during 2005-15 and dropped 18 per cent in
marine park zones allowing limited fishing, the researchers said. There was a
small increase in targeted fish species in zones that barred fishing
altogether.
"Most of the
numbers are pretty shocking," said David Booth, a marine ecologist at the
University of Technology Sydney. “This paper really nails down the fact that
fishing or the removal of large fish is one of the causes” of their decline.
Over-fished stocks
include the eastern jackass morwong, eastern gemfish, greenlip abalone, school
shark, warehou and the grey nurse shark. The morwong catch, once as common as
flathead in the trawl fishery, dived about 95 per cent from the 1960s to 109
tonnes in the 2015-16 year to become basically a bycatch species……
…Peter Whish-Wilson, the
Greens ocean spokesman, said the new research was largely based on actual
underwater identification – including the Reef Life Survey using citizen
scientists. It suggests fishing stocks "are not as rosy as the industry or
government would like us all to think".
"This study also
shows that marine parks can be successful fisheries management tools but we
simply don’t have enough of them or enough protection within them to deliver
widespread benefits," he said.
"The new
Commonwealth Marine Reserves are woefully inadequate and won’t do anything to
stop the continuing decline in the health of our oceans."
Environmental Defender's Office NSW, July 2017:
Humane Society
International Australia (HSI), represented by EDO NSW, is seeking independent
review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s (GBRMPA) decision to
approve a lethal shark control program in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
HSI has lodged an appeal
in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) which will require a full
reconsideration of the approval of the shark control program. The 10 year
lethal control program targets 26 shark species in the Marine Park, including
threatened and protected species. The appeal is based on the public interest in
protecting the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.....
As apex predators,
sharks play a vital role in maintaining the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
HSI is concerned about the ongoing impacts caused by the use of lethal
drumlines which are known to impact not only on shark species but also
dolphins, turtles and rays. HSI is calling for non-lethal alternatives for
bather protection.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
27 May 2018:
Forest covering an area
more than 50 times the size of the combined central business districts of
Sydney and Melbourne is set to be bulldozed near the Great Barrier Reef,
official data shows, triggering claims the Turnbull government is thwarting its
$500 million reef survival package.
Figures provided to
Fairfax Media by Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy
show that 36,600 hectares of land in Great Barrier Reef water catchments has
been approved for tree clearing and is awaiting destruction.
The office of
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg did not say if his government was
comfortable with the extent of land clearing approved in Queensland, or if it
would use its powers to cancel permits.
The approvals were
granted by the Queensland government over the past five years. About 9000
hectares under those approvals has already been cleared.
Despite the dire
consequences of land clearing for the Great Barrier Reef – and billions of
dollars of public money spent over the years to tackle the problem – neither
Labor nor the government would commit to intervening to stop the mass
deforestation.
Environmental Defender's Office NSW, 25 May 2018:
Freedom of information
laws are an important mechanism for making government decisions transparent and
accountable. But the existence of such laws doesn’t mean access to information
is easy.
It took a three-year legal
process for the Humane Society International (HSI), represented by EDO NSW,
to access
documents about how the Australian Government came to accredit a NSW
biodiversity offsets policy for major projects.
The NSW policy in question
allowed significant biodiversity trade-offs (that is, permitting developers to
clear habitat in return for compensatory actions elsewhere) seemingly
inconsistent with national biodiversity offset standards. HSI wanted to know how
the national government could accredit a policy that didn’t meet its own
standards.
Despite Australia being
a signatory to important international environmental agreements and accepting
international obligations to protect biodiversity, in recent years it has been
proposed that the national government should delegate its environmental
assessment and approval powers to the states, creating a ‘one stop shop’ for
developers.
The original FOI request
in this case was submitted in early 2015, during a time when Federal and State
and Territory Governments were actively in consultation on handing over federal
approval powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This was to be done in the name of
efficiency, with the assurance that national standards would be upheld by the
states.
Over 60 documents
finally accessed by HSI show this was a false promise. The documents reveal
that federal bureaucrats in the environment department identified key areas of
the NSW policy that differed from federal standards.
Despite this, the policy
was accredited.
Accreditation meant that
the NSW policy could be used when approving developments with impacts on
nationally threatened species found in NSW, instead of applying the more
rigorous national offsets policy.
In the time it took to
argue for access to the documents, NSW developed a new biodiversity offsets
policy as part of broader legislative reforms for biodiversity and land
clearing. Unfortunately, the new NSW biodiversity offsets policy continues to
entrench many of the weaker standards. For example, mine site rehabilitation
decades in the future can count as an offset now; offset requirements may be
discounted if other socio-economic factors are considered; and supplementary
measures - such as research or paying cash - are an alternative to finding a
direct offset (that is, protecting the actual plant or animal that has been
impacted by a development).
While there have been
some tweaks to the new policy for nationally listed threatened species, there
is still a clear divergence in standards. The new policy, and the new NSW
biodiversity laws, are now awaiting accreditation by the Australian Government.
How our unique and
irreplaceable biodiversity is managed (and traded off) is clearly a matter of
public interest. And on the eve of a hearing at the Administrative Appeals
Tribunal, the federal environment department agreed and released over 60
documents. While it was a heartening win for transparency and the value of FOI
laws, it was a depressing read when these documents revealed the political
endorsement of extinction.
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