Yamba at night

Yamba at night - a pic of the roundabout near Yamba's Fountain on the Mountain

(aka the Pacific Hotel)

Pic - thanks to Joe Damage on Flickr

When did you last see a Flame Robin?

Flame Robin at Birds Australia

The NSW North Coast is in the enviable position of being at the meeting between the upper range of southern birds and the lower range of northern birds found in eastern Australia.
This sometimes disguises the fact that biodiversity in the Northern Rivers is also affected by loss of habitat, particularly the clearing of forest cover in our region and the loss of wetlands both here and across the state.

Birds Australia has released its report The State of Australia's Birds 2008 (SOAB).

Birds to watch

Birds to watch, identified by the declining population trends in this report, include: migratory waders such as the Eastern Curlew, Curlew Sandpiper and Latham’s Snipe; resident waders such as Black-winged Stilt, Red-necked Avocet, and Banded and Masked Lapwings; resident coastal species such as the Fairy Tern and Hooded Plover; woodland insectivores such as the Hooded Robin and Jacky Winter; specialised forest and heathland species such as the Western Ground Parrot,whipbirds, bristlebirds and scrub-birds; mallee species such as the Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo and Malleefowl (also the Black-eared Miner); and forest birds such as the Swift Parrot. Pelagic species of concern include the Wandering Albatross and Flesh-footed Shearwater. In addition, upland species (reported on in SOAB 2007 as disappearing from lower parts of their ranges) may be at most immediate risk from climate change; they include the Red-browed Treecreeper, Golden Bowerbird, Mountain Thornbill, Grey-headed Robin and Chowchilla. Data are lacking on other species of concern including the Australasian Bittern and several northern ground-feeders. While the numbers of some of these species are still good nationally, they are falling. For threatened endemic species, such as the heathland birds and Swift Parrot, the declining trends are cause for alarm.

Full report.

Birds Australia wildlife rescue webpage showing how you can help wildlife affected by bushfire.

Saturday's grab bag

As sometimes happens a couple of North Coast Voices authors are off in parts unknown or down and out with a lurgy.
So I'm posting a few links that might keep readers up to date on a few issues:

The Monsanto blog is currently taking exception to 10 Reasons Why We Don't Need GM Food.
The biotech monolith is also on Twitter now as MonsantoCo.

Malcolm Truffles Turnbull unsuccessfully tried a censure motion against the Federal Minister for Defence over the SAS pay bungle.
Joel Fitzgibbon answers on this issue and the Department of Defence sends out a media release.
And yesterday The Australian went with a pay slip which is now in dispute.

The whaling debate continues in the American media which reports Japan's heavy handed approach to Japanese Greenpeace members and Australian Federal Police board the Steve Irwin on its return from Antarctic waters.

The Clarence Valley sends goods and cattle fodder south to communities and farmers in Victorian bushfire areas.

Getup! gets into Rudd Government over its proposed emissions trading scheme.

The Far North Coaster reports that; "The second combined exhibition featuring works from graduating Southern Cross University and TAFE visual arts students will be on show in Lismore from March 3 until March 21."

The Daily Examiner reports on the cost of Clarence Valley localized flooding this month.

Nitpicking Obama's speech

President Obama's speech to the U.S. Congress last Wednesday earned him a few positive reviews in the mainstream media.

The U.K. The Guardian thought that; He received widespread plaudits for a speech in which he discarded the soaring rhetoric of the campaign trail and adopted a more even pace, setting out details of how he would help the country out of recession, possibly as early as next year.

Certainly Obama appears to have had a small bounce in his job approval ratings recently (61 per cent on 24 February) after a steady drop since his inauguration and, I expect that lines like; "Tonight, I want every American to know this: we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," will go down well across America and keep his rating steady.

However, there is always someone to prick that political bubble and, as always FactCheck gives this speech the once over with sometimes amusing results:

President Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements.

• He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
  
• He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
  
• He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
  
• He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
  
• He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.

The president also repeated some strained claims we've critiqued before.

Full FactCheck analysis here.

Don't forget to count the silver as he leaves.........

It's finally been announced that Sol Trujillo is quitting as Telstra's CEO in June 2009, after a less than stellar career which also saw him receive salary packages which turned many an Aussie corporate type green with envy:
Notwithstanding his substantial wealth, the Telstra board authorised payments to Trujillo of $8.7 million in 2006, $11.78 million in 2007 and $13.39 million in 2008 (Trujillo's 2009 remuneration will be revealed later this year). Remarkably, Trujillo also managed to receive between 86 and 88 percent of his short-term cash bonus in any of those three years, despite Telstra's share price underperforming rivals such as AT&T and SingTel.
Here in the Northern Rivers Telstra's mobile phone service is still patchy, Big Pond internet connections frequently don't operate at advertised speeds and retirees who included telecommunications stock as part of their nest egg are severely disappointed because Telstra share prices went down under Trujillo and stayed there.
When Sol left US West Communications he was said to have walked away with a cool US $72 million in his pocket.
We don't know how much Sol will get in his latest golden handshake, but will someone please count the family silver as he exits the country.

Monsanto According To Monsanto: no blog is too big or small, we read all of them

No blog is too big or small, we read all of them says Monsanto on its new blog Monsanto According to Monsanto.

On the first post by Kathleen our blog North Coast Voices gets not one but two links within the text.

So if all blogs are read - does someone also go out on behalf of Monsanto and take notes at any protest rally or town meeting?

Spin Watch tells us a little about corporate strategy in relation to the Internet.
Source Watch tells a similar story and Gene Watch records Monsanto's alleged attempts to deceive as well as quotes a section of the book Don't Worry, It's Safe to Eat .

Kathleen may like to think that she is the 'nice' face of a 'good' company.
Sadly for Kathleen I am too old to for fall for the froth and spin, when court transcripts and research papers (some discussed elsewhere on North Coast Voices) tell of a socially and environmentally irresponsible, destructive multinational who doesn't give a toss about the rest of the world.

Graphic is Kathleen's avatar

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Clarence Valley Council gets one decision right and another so very, very wrong

Maclean protestors with Nikki Holmes in the foreground.

Picture: The Daily Examiner

Reported in The Daily Examiner on Wednesday:

RESIDENTS of Maclean will wake up this morning sure of two things. The Maclean carpark is not for sale and the debate is finally over.

After months of heated debate within the community, at last night's council meeting councillors Tiley, Hughes, Dinham, Comben and Howe voted down the rescission motion that called for the carpark debate to be re-opened.

Their actions have effectively closed the door on any plans the council had to sell or lease the carpark to developers for the construction of a full sized supermarket on the site.

“I just think democracy prevailed,” Bruce Apps of Maclean said following the decision.

Another Maclean resident at the meeting, Jean Everson was also pleased with the result.

“I'm very thankful that our local councillors stuck to their word from the November meeting,” Mrs Everson said.

“We're third generation in Maclean and we don't want public land sold in this town.”

Unfortunately Clarence Valley Council also voted to continue with the urban development of natural flood storage land at West Yamba vulnerable to innundation and bushfire, when it endorsed the latest West Yamba Local Environmental Plan.

This move by councillors is not surprising given the estimated $7.3 million involvement of Billabong owner Gordon Merchant and the relentless political pressure brought to bear by local developers in the Mitchell family.

When Yamba feels the full effect of less adjoining land to absorb flood water, when more people may need to evacuate over a single narrow bridge due to adverse weather events or bushfire due to climate change, the names Merchant and Mitchell will be mud amongst residents.

Followed by the names of all those councillors and council staff who continued to push this development in the face of known risks.

Unfortunately, under the leadership of Nationals protégée Mayor Richie Williamson, this council thinks that throwing one sop to the Lower Clarence offsets the environmental and social vandalism it is advocating for West Yamba.
Even former mayor Ian Tiley appears to have lost his way in relation to the big picture.

No level of government in Australia is taking the potential impact of climate change (on the 7 kilometre-wide coastal edge of the continent) seriously.
The posturing and prevarication is bordering on a lack of care for coastal communities.