Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Advertising 0418 731 691 [email protected] PAGE: 7 March 2016
Available locally
WORKING WITH NATURECAROOLA FARMCAROOLA FARMCAROOLA FARM
Poultry Lamb Beef Pork| | |Organic Vegetables
Poultry Lamb Beef Pork| | |Organic Vegetables
(between Bungendore and Braidwood)
9074 Kings Highway, Mulloon-
-
www.caroolafarm.com.auwww.caroolafarm.com.auwww.caroolafarm.com.au
Available at the On-Farm Shop(3–7pm Fridays, 11–4pm Sundays)
Also at Southern Harvest Farmers Marketin Bungendore, Braidwood FarmersMarket, and Food Lovers Market.
www.missrubysbooks.com.au78 Wallace St, Braidwood
New, secondhand andchildren’s books
OPEN:
Mon, Thurs, Fri: 10-4pm,
Sat, Sun: 10-2pmClosed: Tues, Weds
Passionateabout
reading?
ENVIRONMENT: SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE BULLETIN
SPECIAL REPORT, THE DISTRICT BULLETIN
— Written and compiled, Maria Taylor. Design and layout, Sue Van Homrigh.
Destruction of the Leardand threat to the Pilligaconcerns everyone
Australia’s newest multi-national coal ven-ture, Whitehaven, and Japanese corporationIdemitsu. Their mines are coming towardseach other from either end of the forest, clear-felling the centre for open cut coal pits.
Together Boggabri Coal (Idemitsu),Maules Creek and Tarrawonga mines(Whitehaven) are being allowed to destroyabout 1/3 of Leard State Forest, including1,082ha of the box woodland. (500 hectareswere up for clearing by Whitehaven in 2016
with 800 hectares clearedpreviously. One hectare isabout the size of a foot-ball field).
New coal trains up to80 cars long take the coalthrough the Hunter Valleyto Newcastle and shipsbound for Japan and Korea.
This world class eco-logical vandalism has en-joyed the blessing of both
major political parties state and federal, andmassive loans to Whitehaven from Australia’sfour major banks, just renewed, as well asfrom overseas hedge funds – reflecting bank-ing system that has returned to risky loanssince the 2008 GFC, as coal increasingly isanalysed as a bad bet.
In the nearby Pilliga forest betweenGunnedah and Narrabri a fossil fuel projectof a different kind, Santos’ 850 planned coalseam gas wells, threaten equally to fragmentand pollute a unique forest and the ground-water of the Great Artesian Basin.
A theory is that the companies are firsttargeting public land, public forests and buy-ing out nearby agricultural landholders, tominimise protest (which is not exactly howit’s panned out). Court challenges and civildisobedience campaigns have marked thethree years of Whitehaven’s start up in theforest. Nevertheless major extraction of coalstarted last year.
Old growth box gum woodlands provide a multitudeof hollows that take as long as 100 years to form and provide
homes for many bird, marsupial, reptile and bat species.
It’s true the Leard was designated by poli-ticians in NSW in the early 2000s as a po-tential mining resource but only for an un-derground mine – which still would haveturned the site into an industrial zone.
That was before self-made and now bank-rupt mining mogul Nathan Tinkler and hisAston Resources got involved with theirNational party allies (see story inside) andthrough some unclear dealings got the greenlight for the present open cut mine calledMaules Creek after the nearby community.Aston is still a major shareholder ofWhitehaven following a merger.
Selling the countryside hasnot changedClimate change action pledges notwithstand-ing, NSW and federal politicians continue tofacilitate the onslaught into farmland andpublic reserve land for coal and gas, turningthe bush and farms into an overnight indus-trial site. (Not far to the south near Breeza isthe proposed Shenhua mine in escarpmentthat is prime koala habitat next to Australia’sbest farming soils). Indigenous sacred sitesare also being brushed aside.
LEARD STATE FOREST has been the larg-est area of intact remnant vegetation remain-ing in the northern Liverpool Plains. Part ofthis forest is nationally-listed and criticallyendangered box-gum woodland, of whichonly 0.1% remains where once it existedthrough much of the eastern states.
White Box, Yellow Box, Blakeley’s RedGum Woodland is listed as a ‘Critically En-dangered Ecological Community (CEEC)’ ata national level.
As the Bulletin recently visited Gunnedah and Narrabri and the nearby Leard and Pilligaforests that have been home to koalas, the great irony was clear that the open cut coalmines and the proposed coal seam gas fields in these forests, were and will be directcontributors to climate change and the renewed loss of Australia’s koalas. Along withthem go other ‘at risk’ species particularly birds on the ‘endangered’ cliff.
Politicians tell the public, as PremierMike Baird recently did, it’s about jobs inthe bush and royalties to build schools andhospitals.
In Gunnedah we heard how that translatesinto promises and hopes of 20 years of jobsand growth in regional centres that have beenslowly dying, no longer sustained by theirtraditional agricultural, small business andpublic service reasons for being there. Thereare jobs with the mines, hundreds of them inthis start-up and full-bore phase but for howlong and at what cost for everyone, is an-other question.
In the following pages we provide somemore glimpses of what we found on a recenttrip and what research revealed – the animalswho are losing their homes and their lives;the people who are protesting in the publicinterest; what is wrong with the governmentsolution of ‘offsets’; how Whitehaven cameto be in this position and probably won’t stop;and how a revolving door of politicians go-ing from government to industry and backkeeps the fossil fuel status quo in Australiaintact.
Koala populationsin north western NSW have beencrashing due to high temperaturesand drought followed by stress-induced disease. Ecologists who aretrying to save the animals and their habitattold the this is the face of climate change.Bulletin
The extensive and intact Leard woodland/forest area is highly significant as a sanctu-ary of very high biodiversity – a commonestimate is that it is home to 396 species ofplants and animals and provides habitat for34 threatened species and several endangeredecological communities. White Box wood-land is koala habitat.
But now it is being destroyed for threeopen cut coal mines owned respectively by
Nearby Pilliga forest vegetation.
March 2016 PAGE: 8 Advertising 0418 731 691 [email protected]
Stephen Debus, ecologist, Uni-versity of New England. 70 speciesof birds have been identified insuccessive surveys in the Leard.
Notes from the ecologists
Clive Barker, independent consultantecologist who came across the Leardtwo years ago while surveying inlandescarpment country
This ecological communityis irreplaceable, itsdestruction is criminal“The remnant of this woodland at Leard isin good condition because, unusually forthis ecological community, it is State Forest.White Box is not a commercial species, sogrand old growth White Box with numer-ous hollows have been left by the ForestryCorporation. Unlike private land, thiswoodland has been subject to only verylight, intermittent grazing, and there is
practically no history of fire. Consequentlythe understorey is in good condition withfew weeds.
Remnants of this ecological community
greater than 200 hectares are extremelyrare. Almost all surviving remnants of thiscommunity exist as very small degradedfragments on private land, subject to further
degradation from grazing, burning, harvest-ing for firewood and fencing, and the numer-ous ‘edge effects’ impacting small patches.
There are scarcely any examples of thiscommunity in reserves. The Grassy WhiteBox Woodland and in fact the rest of thenative vegetation communities which existsat Leard, are irreplaceable. Destroying nat-ural ecosystems for coal is simply criminaland here it is ‘ecocide’.
The NSW Department of Environmentwhich has tried to intervene in vain has alsocalled the Leard woodland ‘irreplaceable’.The Leard has been called a number onebiodiversity hotspot, identified as such bythe NSW government in the draft NewEngland North West Strategic RegionalLand Use Plan. These areas officially “can-not sustain any further loss” and are“critical to biodiversity persistence”.
Biggest overall threat towoodland birds“We knew there were threatened species (inthe Pilliga and Leard), a lot listed on the NSWspecies list as vulnerable – Little Eagle,Glossy Black Cockatoo, Little Lorikeet, Tur-quoise Parrot, Barking Owl, Regent HoneyEater with Brown Tree-creeper and Grey-Crowned Babblers in the Leard additionally.
“Pilliga: a network of cleared sites in theforest totally fragments the habitat which al-lows exotics like Noisy Miners to thrive inthe fragmented patches. Fire becomes a bigrisk too. The development would be all con-nected by service roads, there’s pollution ofthe waterways that the birds drink from.
“Leard: what they find when they knockover the trees with hollows – reptiles, mam-mals like squirrel gliders, bats. There wasevidence of koalas in the last survey.”
Found animals are supposedly relocated,somewhere [by some of the 28 ecologists thatWhitehaven or NSW Planning claim to havehired to be on board and on site, althoughno-one remembers having met any of themwhen we asked].
“They (the animals) really have nowhereto go. This is the myth that a lot of develop-ers have: oh let’s just move them to other bushor ‘offsets’ when places like Leard and Pilligaare already the best that is there, that theanimals are adapted to.
“The remaining remnant of the forest andother ‘like for like’ places are already inhab-ited. There are no free hollows or other habi-tat. And some of the proposed offsets forLeard are different elevation and vegetationtype. They don’t replace White Box, YellowBox Grassy Woodland, where for exampleolder trees provide the best blossoms fornectar and songbirds need native tussocksand fallen logs.”
“I was present at a clearing event and sawthe last tree to fall. A Brown Tree-Creeperwas keeping ahead of the bulldozer from tree
Independent ecologist Phil Sparks hascriticised the validity of the proposedoffsets and says most are in non-matching environments but consultantshave approved them. In 2013 therewas a Supreme Court challenge to theproposed offsets that was overruled bythe court.
to tree, until the only place to land was apatch of woodchips. There was nowhereto go, facing hundreds of metres of prettybleak landscape to the next unclearedpatch. 200 metres is the limit of woodland-dependent birds. Also there is no cover andthere are birds of prey waiting.”
How can they allow this withthreatened species?The legislated test says that the gov-ernment only has to assess if there is‘significant’ impact on a local populationand decide there is no threat of extinction.This is where modern solutions like‘somewhere else’ come in: offsets andbiobanking make the decision-makersfeel better and tick the boxes bothstate and federal.
Offsets, koalas andclimate change“When the companies’ developments havepassed all the environmental tests it’s easyfor the banks to greenlight. There are consult-ants who are willing to do that. The wholeenvironmental assessment process is justan approval process.”
Sparks is working on a project lookingat the koala population in the GunnedahBasin, with the town wanting to call itselfthe koala capital of the world.
“There has been pretty severe decline
of koalas; the key cause is climate change,heat and drought. In 2013–2014 we’ve hadrecord heatwaves, very dry winds. We lost25% of the population in those two events.From 2009 we’ve seen chlamydia diseaseas well which could be stress related.”
Koalassitting up intrees aremore expos-ed than otherspecies toheat and dry.Sparks saidkoalas didamazingthingsseeking
shelter in gardens, homes and sheds insearch of coolness and moisture.
“We’ve underestimated how vulnerablenative fauna are to climate change.”
* * * * *
BrownTreecreeper*
SpottedHarrier*
Pale-headed Snake
Squirrel Glider
Spotted Tailed Quoll
Mardo
PygmyPossum* Corbens Long-eared Bat
Grey-headed Flying FoxesGrey-headed Flying FoxesRed-necked Wallaby
Grey-crownedBabbler*
Turquoise Parrot*
HoodedRobin*
SpeckledWarbler*
RegentHoneyeater
BarkingOwl*
MIC
HA
EL
DA
HL
EM
*
RO
GE
RS
MIT
H
Advertising 0418 731 691 [email protected] PAGE: 9 March 2016
Great Artesian Basin and the fossil fuel projects
Why are people
willing to get
arrested to stop
coal machinery?
AUSTRALIA is the driest inhabited con-tinent on earth and the greatest resourcethe country has is the Great ArtesianBasin (actually a series of interconnectedbasins), underlying 22% of Australia.According to the Great Artesian BasinAdvisory Committee this ancient ground-water (which supports river systems andfarmland further south) is rapidly beingdepleted.
It is only recharged at 10mm a year,and bores and gas wells are causingfractures and pollution. Therefore therecharge areas are critical and drilling inthe Pilliga (Santos has a plan for 850wells) would affect a major one. As oneobserver noted: “it’s like pricking a hun-dred holes in a balloon.”
The slow recharge, groundwaterdepletion and pollution also affect the
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST CSG in February:Gamilaraay man Paul Spearim, with Yuin man LyleDavis from the saltwater south coast, locked ontogether to protect Gamilaraay sacred lands.Meanwhile, knitting nanas and others blockingthe access road into the site, holding up Santostraffic for hours, were met with a heavy policeresponse.
A day earlier, more than 300 people defied apolice roadblock to protest the construction ofSantos’ controversial Leewood CSG waste watertreatment facility in the Pilliga, between Narrabriand Gunnedah. They want Santos to pull out ofunconventional gas in north west NSW, with 850wells currently earmarked to fragment the forest.
remaining farmers around the Leard coalmines. Independent reports have shown thatthe coal seams and the basins are hydrauli-cally connected.
“Between 30,000 and 60,000 litres ofdrilling fluids are used to drill each CGSwell and up to 40% stay down in the wellsand are never brought back to the surface.Once these fluids have gone into a permeablerock, then it’s gone into an aquifer or waterbody and has contaminated it. Once theaquifers have been polluted, they can neverbe cleaned up. Once they have been drilled orfractured they can never be repaired.”
Fleeing into the farmland“I first met a family of kangaroos living on theedge of the Leard State Forest two years agobut they have probably lived here for gener-ations, coming out onto the surrounding farm-land to feed. They don’t know it but White-haven coal is going to destroy their home,nobody is going to try to relocate them, theywill simply get stuck in with bulldozers. As theforest gets smaller they and every other livingthing will have no choice but to flee into thesurrounding farmland. Dispatch by DavidMould citizen non-violent protester.
Mid 2015 the Gunnedah paper reportedthat a mob of kangaroos had been hunted outof the forest by mine activities and weresubsequently shot by farmers concerned fortheir crops.
ANNETTE SCHNEIDER from Burra is ahorsewoman and artist and lives on a smallfarm. She said: “I’m a 55-year-old farmerand mother. I often have difficulty concen-trating on everyday life and local problemsbecause the science I have read has mademe aware of what a mess we have made ofthe planet with coal-based industry.
“I get depressed at the thought that mychildren may never reach my own agebecause of the effect of climate change.The cure for depression is action.
“The science is in and there is no doubtthat if we don’t stop expanding the coalindustry we will destroy all complex life on
CLIFF WALLACE ofWandoo near Maules Creek,one of the remaining farmersafter the mines bought up 80properties in the region, sayshe has been fighting localpolitical corruption for 25years and says that NationalParty Leader Barnaby Joyce“sold us out”.
On his farm he provided a camp for non-locals protesting the mine until the localcouncil said he could not accommodatecampers on his 400 hectares of extensivelyre-treed grazing and cropping land.
Once the mines have lowered the ground-
Earth. My currentcomfort is not worthdestroying the future ofall I love. I am fightingthe corruption of White-haven Coal because theyare killing the forests andoceans. They are destroyingour food, water and the airwe breathe.”
Dr Kerry Clarke, University ofNew England, who is on White-haven’s Community ConsultativeCommittee told us that concernsinclude hugely increased fire riskthanks to the mines and coalseam gas operations and possiblyspontaneous combustion in coalwith less people around to volun-teer for the RFS.
The fossil fuel operations havedivided the communities(Boggabri, Gunnedah, Narrabri)and with most of the nearbyfarms around Maules Creekbought up by the mining compa-nies, remaining farmers arefeeling defeated. They are nowjust considered ‘collateral dam-age’ by the companies.
Nationals, Lib-erals, Labor —mining has goodmates (and itworked forWhitehaven)AUSTRALIAN politics has a revolving doorfuelled by money and self-interest.
“Into it go former politicians and theirstaffers and out pop even more highly paidmining company executives and fossil fuellobbyists,” writes Greens Senator LarissaWaters in a recent piece that named a lengthylist of politicians and their advisers who keepthe fossil fuel status quo in favour.
“The revolving door in part explains whythere has never been a coal mine or gasproject refused under our federal laws.”
Massive political donations make up an-other reason for the tick-and-flick approach.
“For every dollar of their $3.7m contri-bution to the election war chests of the bigparties (federally and more at state level),they get more than $2,000 back from the tax-payer purse,” writes Waters.
Subsidies and tax breaks totalled $14 bil-lion over four years, according to the Greens.Some examples of the revolving door
>> next pg
Former politicians and familiar companies• Former Nationals leader and deputy prime
minister John Anderson became chairmanof Eastern Star Gas, the company behindthe Narrabri Gas Project (now owned bySantos).
• Former Nationals leader and deputy primeminister Mark Vaile became a director andthen chairman of Whitehaven coal.
• Former Labor resources minister MartinFerguson became chairman of the APPEAAdvisory Board (oil and gas lobby) just sixmonths after leaving office.
• Craig Emerson, former federal Labor trademinister became consultant for AGL Energyand Santos.
From: The Plundering of Pilliga and LeardForests and the surrounding farmlands, by PatShultz, 2015. Many other aspects of this story aswell as referral to documentaries and additionalreading can be found in Pat’s book. Contact: Pat0428 725 852; email [email protected]
Pilliga and Leard ForestTag Along Tours
These non-profit tours organised by PatShultz allow people to take in the beautyand magnitude of Leard and PilligaForests, while addressing the issues ofcoal and coal-seam gas mining in thisvital recharge region for the AustralianGreat Artesian Basin. Learn of theimpacts on vulnerable habitat, watertables, local communities and farmlandand how to get involved.
TOUR DATES 2016April: Fri 15th, Sat 16th, Sun 17th,May: Fri 20th, Sat 21st, Sun 22nd,June: Fri 17th, Sat 18th, Sun 19thJuly: Fri 15th Sat 16th, Sun 17thContact: Pat 0428 725 852Email [email protected]
“There are no available niches fordisplaced animals and most ofthem are going to die. Reports I
saw from the first round of clear-ing indicated an unbelievable high
number of animals, gliders,Barking Owls, bats, lizards.”
— Phil Sparks
water table sufficiently so thatit impacts on their supply,they will take Wallace’swater allocation. “The minegets first go at water versusthe town or farming,” he says.A major pollution event isalso just around the corner, hebelieves, from the localcreeks affected by the mine
that flow into the Namoi catchment.He sees the great irony as he reflects
on the landscape destruction. “None ofthese mines are making money. They arejust chasing the easy bits as our coal isclose to the surface.”
“I’m glad I have no kids,wife or aged parent to bepicked on (for opposing themine and town jobs).” Otherfarmers who have and did“have suffered terribly”.
Annette and her dog Flac out-side the Whitehaven mine gateprior to 2016 clearing starting.On 27 February we heard thatAnnette “locked on for over fivehours stopping a Whitehavenbulldozer in the Leard StateForest. Currently in NarrabriPolice Station.”
She is one of 350 peoplewho have been arrested overa three-year period includingfootballer David Pocock and
people from many walksof life including religious
leaders.
For more information about Leard/Pilligawww.frontlineaction.org
March 2016 PAGE: 10 Advertising 0418 731 691 [email protected]
• Greg Combet, former federal Labor cli-mate change minister, became consultantto AGL Energy and Santos.
Political staffers:• Bil l Shorten’s current chief of staff,
former Queensland Labor state secretaryCameron Milner, previously providedconsultant advice to Adani of the Car-michael Coal project.
• Stephen Galilee, former chief of staff toLiberal federal resources minister IanMacfarlane and chief of staff to MikeBaird as NSW treasurer and shadowtreasurer, went on to be CEO of the NSWMinerals Council.
• Lisa Harrington was a senior adviser toMike Baird before becoming the head ofgovernment relations at AGL Energy.
L to R: Outside Whitehaven gates into the Leard. Mine private ‘security’ on a public road around the Leard State Forest, 23 February 2016.
Tangled web of influencewith the go ahead todestroy Leard forestBUSINESS journalist Paddy Manning (alsothe author of a book about Nathan Tinkler)offers a quick trip through the murky gen-esis of the Maule’s Creek Mine and NSWgovernment – planning sprinkled withNational Party politicians, Nathan Tinklerand his Aston Resources.
One theory is that Maules Creek, afterrelentless lobbying led by former NationalParty leader and Aston chairman Mark Vaile,was given the green light by the NSW Coali-tion government under Barry O’Farrell in2012 as a consolation prize for losing aNewcastle coal loader bid that itself stirredmajor controversy. Below is a taste of whatManning has outlined. You can read thewhole piece at
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/08/28/the-murky-world-of-tinklers-maules-creek-approval-revealed/
“While the loader was rejected, twomonths later the Planning AssessmentCommission finally gave approval to theMaules Creek project near Narrabri, whichTinkler’s Aston Resources had bought fromRio Tinto in 2009, floated on the stockexchange at a tidy profit and then mergedinto Whitehaven Coal.
“Donations made by former Aston chiefexecutive Todd Hannigan and CFO TomTodd to the National Party, made at the sug-gestion of Aston chairman (and former
The tragedy of a mine that never should have beenokayed and makes no economic sense
• Robert Underdown former senioradviser to federal resources ministerIan Macfarlane became manager of thegovernment and public policy group atSantos.
• Caroline Hutcherson former seniormedia adviser to then Liberal NSWresources minister Chris Hartcher, thenworked as senior adviser to Santos,before working as a senior adviser to NSWLiberal premier Mike Baird.
There’s a lot more like this revolvingbetween lobbying groups, and state andfederal resource offices and statepremier’s office.
Nationals’ leader and deputy PM) MarkVaile, were never disclosed. The companylater pleaded guilty and paid a $20,000 fine.(Note Aston was not a prohibited donor andthere is no suggestion these donations wereillegal – they simply should have been dis-closed during the planning process.)
“After then-Labor federal environmentminister Tony Burke toured the MaulesCreek site in late 2012, he grew concernedabout the adequacy of offsets and extendedthe time frame for approval pending furtherinvestigation. In an unprecedented act, now-disgraced NSW resources minister ChrisHartcher forced Burke’s hand just days laterby leaking a letter indicating the federalgovernment intended to approve the minesubject to conditions.
“Burke issued a partial conditionalapproval saying he had no idea whether themine would go ahead. This approval was later
upheld in court after a challenge by the North-ern Inland Council for the Environment.
“The federal Environment Departmenttold the Senate estimates hearing earlier thisyear [2014] it was investigating a criminalmatter to do with the offsets, but nothingcame of it. The conditions set down by the
first PAC were dropped and the mine wasfinally approved with the void allowed (it willform an increasingly salty lake hundreds ofmetres deep), and construction went ahead.”[The ‘void’ is the pit produced by the miningand its rehabilitation was an early conditionthat was later dropped.]
WHITEHAVEN corporate presentationscall their location the only “emerging highquality coal basin” in Australia and them-selves the future face of the Gunnedah regionfor the next 30 years, with another mineproposal already in the pipeline.
But Whitehaven share price had report-edly dropped from $6.86 in 2012 to 0.53cents in January 2016, and 0.41 centsreported by the 5 February, not exactly avote of investor confidence over time.
Whitehaven appears to be dealing withalmost a billion dollars net debt which pro-vides an incentive to maximise extractionand try to lessen debt even while the marketprice for the coal stays stubbornly low.
Business reporter Paddy Manning, in a2014-piece for Crikey supports that argu-ment saying analysts have called Whitehaven“half-pregnant” and it simply must proceed… If it was a bigger company, Whitehavenmight shelve Maules Creek, or even writeit off…
“A lose-lose-lose scenario is unfolding:the forest is cleared, the groundwater usedby local farmers fills up an increasinglysalty pit lake, and nobody even makes money
out of it. Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Minemakes no economic sense.”
Two years later, it’s the same story. TheSydney Morning Herald reported on 5 Feb-ruary that Macquarie analyst Andrew Hodgetold clients that Whitehaven “cannot countermacroeconomic headwinds” and was likelyto struggle to reduce its debt.
“With spot thermal prices hovering at$US50 per tonne, lower than what White-haven received for the quarter, a forwardcurve implying $US43.6 a tonne by year’send and $US42 per tonne in 2017 as wellas a general momentum against coal, we seelittle to hope for ahead,” Mr Hodge said.
“We believe Whitehaven will be unableto meaningfully reduce their $900 millionplus debt facility, and do not see themachieving net cash until 2025, almost a fulldecade away.”
Despite the good news here for anti-fossil-fuel campaigners, the tragi-comicoutcome is that Whitehaven will dig everharder in order to reduce its debt at theseprices. The big loss for the rest of us isAustralia’s biodiversity, water and air qual-ity, while no-one in power is looking.
Source: http://gu.com/p/4h6pc/sblBan donations from mining companies and stopministers working for them by Larissa Waters
From p9
Biodiversity – ourgreatest loss
AUSTRALIA’s corpo-rate media and thepublic broadcasters stayfirmly fixated on urbansocial problems, humanon human crime andviolence, the shenani-gans of politicians, even
floating debris in the Indian Ocean while acatastrophe that affects us all is unfoldinglargely unreported in the rural hinterland.
That is the accelerating assault forprofit on what remains of biodiversity,wildlife habitat and naturally-growing treesthat offset greenhouse gas emissions. Com-ing up is the NSW government’s efforts towater down or dismantle native vegetationprotection laws.
Independent media like the Bulletin isable to bring these state and national
From the Editor ... stories to the local level, hence this specialreport. It is our business too as citizens.What would we say if the National Gallerywere vandalised for example?
On the Leard and Pilliga destruction,the only slightly balancing argument is thatpeople in country towns are caught withfew job options these days – not leastthrough the loss of small town governmentjobs with council amalgamations. The‘keep the status quo’ lobbyists and theirpolitical mates offer no alternatives in thebush besides shipping out natural resources(and that includes the disgraceful kangarooindustry).Rural residential haven forwildlifeOn a much happier note, we are lucky tohave a lot of returning wildlife on the smallacreages surrounding the ACT, where thebiodiversity is being rebuilt. We forget thatwildlife is mostly absent and invisible asyou drive through the wider countryside.
We are seeing threatened species likethe Rosenberg’s Monitor goanna returning
in numbers, many redneck wallabies andeastern greys, shy swamp wallabies, wom-bats on the creeks, possums and a profu-sion of birdlife as well as native plants (alllargely absent 20 years ago).
Rural residential provides a sanctuary
that more and more people appear to enjoy(excepting a few criminals, one of whomshot and then ran over a wombat in Wamboinlast month). Facebook comments show thatpeople have even reached co-existencewith the snakes about.
Here are two images of our returned wildlife: a large male red neck wallaby that cruised thelawn with his little mob and a nectar eater on the bottlebrush.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DistrictBulletinhttps://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DistrictBulletin
