Ecological Blog

The Age ran a great piece today about the Strzeleckis and some of the health problems being caused by Hancock Victorian Plantations and their 'out of control' planting of Shining gum, Eucalyptus Nitens.

It all came to head as a result of research in Tasmania. Have a look at

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/growing-pains-20100311-q1q7.html

Hopefully The Age will do more about the Strzeleckis and will expose the stupid deal between Hancock and ineffective environment minister Gavin Jennings who turned his back on a deal thrashed out by his predecessor John Thwaites and handed Hancock a windfall deal after ignoring Government policy. The company recognised he was a turkey from the start and with a bit of help from his senior advisor, plus the then director of Trust for Nature, the Wilderness Society and the Victorian National Parks Association, he was sucked into a deal which has seen Hancock laughing all the way to the bank.(The Trust for Nature Director has since been sacked,  the Minister's advisor has moved on, the Wilderness Society in is turmoil and the the VNPA director has withdrawn his support for the Strzelecki deal. But  the damage has been done and it was unforgivable for the Minister to shaft the community when the previous Minister recognised...

Tags: gavin jennings, hancock victorian plantations, nitens, strzeleckis

We broadly agree with comments made by Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International in his description of the 'deal' announced at the end of the Copenhagen talkfest.

'Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change. The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through. We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis. During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down. Climate science says...

Tags: climate change, copenhagen talks

We are always optimstic, but it's looking increasingly unlikely that much positive stuff will emerge from the Copenhagen talkfest on climate change.
The decision this week by a United Nations board to allow soya, palm oil and other agrofuel plantations to receive carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an environmental disaster. The agrofuel industry, already boosted by EU and US targets, incentives and subsidies, can now pocket hundreds of millions of dollars in extra subsidies. Vast carbon dioxide emissions from coal power stations in Europe can now be officially ‘offset’ by companies paying for soya plantations in Brazil or palm oil plantations in Indonesia or Thailand, which in turn will cause more deforestation and other ecosystem destruction – and more climate change.

The CDM was set up under the Kyoto Protocol and allows Northern hemisphere countries to ‘offset’ greenhouse gas emissions by paying for projects in the South, instead of cutting their own emissions. There is clear evidence that most of the CDM carbon credits go towards polluting industries in the Southern hemisphere, and in future, more carbon credits will go towards monoculture plantations in the South – now including soya, palm oil and jatropha plantations for agrofuels. The new CDM...

Tags: carbon emissions offsets, clean development mechanism

The silly season is here again with 'fuel reduction' burns underway in many parts of Victoria. We believe that anyone who lit a fire today or yesterday should be treated as an arsonist. In our view it was a criminal act. But this is just a loopy government plan to be seen to be doing something - doesn' t matter what - even though there is no evidence to show that the burns make Victorians any safer.

In fact these burns frequently get out of control and cause widespread damage to private property, public land and our native wildlife. It will be interesing to say the least if the Point Nepean burn gets out of control!

Just imagine how many nestling birds are being fried right now by the Department of Sustainability and Environment and Parks Victoria in their lunatic approach to 'fuel reduction'

WHY LIGHT THE FIRES NOW WHEN EVERYTHING IS NESTING AND CAN'T ESCAPE! The aswer is simple - they don't care and neither do the politicians as long as they con a dumb population into thinking they will be safer.

Humans are the biggest problem for this planet.

Tags: arsonists, fuel reduction burns, parks victoria, pyromanics

This week, ABC Radio Gippsland carried interviews with Friends of Earth campaigner Anthony Amis and Hancock Victorian Plantations General Manager Owen Trumper about replanting in College Creek and the use of herbicides which can affect water supplies.

Here's a transcript of what Owen Trumper said to Celine Foenander - see if you reckon he's believable especilly as Hancocks were asked by email about the use of Terbacil in it's fertiliser mix and chose not to respond. He also seems to think that revegetation is the same as regeneration.

' I’m joined now by Owen Trumper who is the manager of Gippsland’s, Hancock Victorian Plantations, good morning to you.

OT: Good morning Celine

Owen Trumper you would have heard Anthony Amis’s comments there. Are you using Terbacil?

OT: thankyou for the opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding. The fact of the matter is that we are not using terbacil or any herbicides up in the college creek area and the misunderstanding comes from a generic sign that we have created for our fertiliser bins, which is due to our infrequent times which we do put chemicals in our fertiliser, and we do it for OH&S reasons, so for people who are handling the...

Tags: college creek, hancock victorian plantations, terbacil

It's hard to believe, but the vast majority of people around the world don't understand that the growing number of extinctions of plant and animal species is a cause for concern.  They seem to think that human beings are somehow separate from the world around us.                     

• Here's what most people don't know:
  
  � Up to 30,000 species per year are going extinct: three per hour.
  � 50 percent of all primates and 100 percent of all great apes are threatened with extinction.
  � Three of the world's eight tiger subspecies became extinct in the past 60 years; the remaining five are all endangered.
  � Humans have already driven 20 percent of all birds extinct.
  � 12 percent of mammals, 12 percent of birds, 31 percent of reptiles, 30 percent of amphibians, and 37 percent of fish are threatened with extinction.
  
  The consequences of thoughtless consumption and weak environmental policies here and overseas are bound to bite us on the backside!.

Tags: speciesextinctions

Tags: candowie, water quality, westernport water

The Wilderness Society (or more particularly Gavan McFadzean, one of its senior campaigners) needs a foot up the backside for its latest nonsense.

In an earlier edition of the Friends of the Earth publication Chain Reaction, FoE camaigner Anthony Amis presented a reasoned explanation for the community's disappointment with the actions of TWS in endorsing the flawed deal between the State Government and Hancock Victorian Plantations over the Strzeleckis Cores and Links.

Gavan McFadzean replied with an implausible defence of his actions. Here is the response to his tirade by Friends of Bass Valley Bush:

I can't let Gavan McFadzean's letter about the Strzeleckis in the last issue of Chain Reaction go unanswered. In a joint Wilderness Society (TWS) / Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) press release welcoming the secret deal negotiated by Minister Jennings and Hancock Victorian Plantations, Mr McFadzean said "We are pleased to see the Victorian Government moving to protect native forests in the Strzelecki Ranges."

In his latest response to comments by Anthony Amis from Friends of the Earth, Mr McFadzean made the statement that "the precious College Creek is under immediate threat from the chainsaws". But the destruction of College Creek is a direct result...

Tags: friends of the earth, strzeleckis, the wilderness society

We've suffered some significant internet problems over the past couple of months. First, despite running Norton Internet Security, we had a meltdown from a virus attack. Once that was sorted and we dumped Norton Internet Security in favour of eScan (which we are assured offers far better protection) our main computer still couldn't access the internet.

Our ISP (DCSI based in Warragul, Victoria) sent a new modem but that still didn't work. After a month of fiddling around I replaced the ADSL line filter and low and behold the system was up and running!

It seems likely that a power surge (possibly caused by lightning) damaged the filter and the orginal modem. The only issue left now if how to get the wireless network up as the new modem only has one ethernet port (the old one had four).    

Tags: internet, norton internet security

Melbourne University experts agree with us that in some cases, fuel reduction burns increase fire risks in native forests.

Professor David Karoly and Dr Kevin Tolhurst told a bushfire seminar called to discuss proposed fuel reduction burns in the Otways that over time any burning starts to change the ecology of rainforest gullies so that they cease to be wet rainforest gullies and become dry fuel gullies which no longer protect the community or the forest.

"Increased fuel-reduction burning, as advocated by some sectors of the forest industry and associated lobby groups, will further exacerbate the situation," they said

Dr Tolhurst said extreme weather, caused by global warming, was a greater threat than fuel. Fuel load is not as important a factor as weather."

This is not confined to the Otways - the same applies around Grantville and in the Strzeleckis. We have great fears that the Royal Commission currently investigating the latest wildfires will be hoodwinked by the numbers of people who want to cut down all the trees and 'burn the bush'.

Tags: fire risk, fuel reduction burns, native vegetation