National Tree Day Sunday 27 July 2008

On Sunday 27th July 2008, Australians will come together once again to plant native trees in their local areas for National Tree Day.

School's Tree Day will be held two days earlier on Friday 25th July 2008.

So don't forget to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and get involved.

Last year trees were planted all over the NSW Northern Rivers region.
Contact your local council or Planet Ark to see where you can join in the plantings this year.

Photograph found at Ecostruction

Big Brother dies - hurrah, hooray!

That Channel 10 program Big Brother, which notoriously ran overtime again and again as well as having the dumbest premise of any teev show, is finally ending next week.
Television bosses now have an opportunity to fill around 120 hours of air time with decent viewing.
When last I looked the Herald Sun poll was running at 87% agreement with the proposition that television would be better off without Big Brother.
Oi Nick, mate, you're Ten's chairman - make sure that something decent is purchased for that vacant space.
Ten's pitching to the lowest common denominator is enough to bore the pelt off a dingo.

Interpretation of an Internet moment

LOL from I can has Cheezburger

Is this the future of the Murray Darling Basin?

Satellite image from Environmental Graffiti

This is an image taken from space of the Great Sandy Desert.

Drainage is limited to short ephemeral creeks and rivers, which only flow after heavy rainfalls. The bioregion comprises two ancient inactive river basins that are divided by a low watershed. The watershed is a lateritic surface that forms the Anketell Range in the west and Southwest Tableland in the east. North of the watershed Sturt Creek (now only visible from satellite imagery) once flowed across the desert to Mandora on the 80 Mile Beach. The southern basin contains Percival Lakes which represent a river system from the past (Beard, 1990). Calcrete and evaporite outcrops are associated with palaeodrainage systems that traverse the desert.
The headwaters of the Rudall and Cotton Rivers are in the northern limits of the bioregion in Western Australia. The Rudall River is a significant wetland/ecological refuge, which contains major permanent waterholes and soaks. The Rudall River flows approximately 120km into Lake Dora (30, 000ha) in the Western Australian sector of the bioregion.
In the northwest of the bioregion is Dragon Tree Soak, a 5ha swamp regarded as a relict of the riverine vegetation found along the palaeo-river in the wetter climates of the early to mid Holocene. The soak is a fresh water spring that supplies freshwater to the marsh and peatland.
Lake Amadeus is a massive saline lake in the Northern Territory, which has no significant surface inflow. The main inflow of water is via groundwater seepage.

Are we looking at a window into the future showing us all what will become of the southern half of the Murray Darling Basin?

It is now a minute past midnight and it looks as if we have missed the chance to save the Murray Darling.