f passed the Bill will formalise a new ‘cut-out-and-get-out’ style of forest management in the short term as well as pay millions to the logging industry in the long term. The proposed Amendments to this law governing native forest logging will hand full powers to VicForests (the profit-driven semi government entity in charge of logging …
So Julia Gillard has declared that she wants the parties who started the so-called Tasmanian forest peace process “to do everything they can to use their abilities to silence those who haven’t gone with the mainstream consensus”. To silence. I lived with the silence of Tasmania for too many years. And now the leaders of …
“Dad, the world is missing amazing animals. I wish extinction wasn’t forever”. Despite my wife and I working as biologists, our five-year-old son came to make this statement independently. He is highlighting what I and many others consider to be society’s biggest challenge, and arguably failure: the continuing loss of species from Earth. The massive …
THERE are no plans to save most Victorian animals and plants that are at risk of becoming extinct. This is despite new data revealing more animals are becoming threatened. The latest list of threatened animals, released by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, found one animal had become extinct in the wild in the past …
The draft Action Statement (protection plan) for the Long-nosed Potoroo is now out for public comment. This was one of our 4 species used to legally challenge the government recently over its inaction on threatened species protection. The draft plan’s recommended actions are very thick with motherhood statements and very thin on detail, funding commitments …
Should burning forest waste count under the renewable energy target? Not when the forests serve us better while they’re in the ground, writes Senator Lee Rhiannon Woodchipping of Australia’s native forests continues across the country, despite feeble woodchip prices and shrinking markets. The industry is desperately looking for ways to extend its life by generating …
The Climate Change Authority recently recommended changing the rules so burning forests for electricity could be termed ‘renewable” (with all the associated financial help!), but the Gillard Government has just said no! Huge thanks to The Greens again. This has stymied the industry’s plans to have burning forests take place of woodchipping to keep the …
Isn’t it reassuring to know our forests are bulldozed, chainsawed and burnt in a 100% natural way – no artificial colours or flavours. *image above from VicForests media release – (5/3/13) We wonder what their “100% natural” napalm is made of, polystyrene and benzine or naphthenic acid and palmitic acid? VicForests is a …
The Climate Commission released a report this week called The Critical Decade, which makes the threats facing Australia abundantly clear. It spells out the drastic increase in extreme weather and its severity, and points to the increase in extreme heat and extreme bushfire weather. In my time as deputy commissioner of Fire and Rescue …
A new study undertaken by a diverse group of scientists in Sweden has found that contrary to popular belief, most of the carbon that is sequestered in northern boreal forests comes about due to fungi that live on and in tree roots, rather than via dead needles, moss and leaf matter. In their paper published …
