Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Australian Environment Foundation Update

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Australian Environment Foundation Chairman Don Burke will be attending the Great Aussie Breakfast at Federation Square in Melbourne on Wednesday October 4th as a guest of the Victorian Farmers Federation. The breakfast runs from 7 – 10am .

The first AEF Conference & AGM held over the weekend of 23rd and 24th September was a huge success. Most of the papers are now available online: http://www.aefweb.info/display/conference2006.html including the paper by forester Mark Poynter mentioned at a recent blog post.

Giving an environmental award to timber company Gunns Ltd has proven a bit controversial with the Wilderness Society objecting, see http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/weblog/comments/breathtaking-hypocrisy/

Planning has already started for the 2007 AEF conference to be held in Melbourne during spring.

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I’m a Director of the AEF.

How Are Plastic Bags a Symbol of Inefficiency?

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Plastic bags are free, convenient, versatile, re-usable and through a voluntary program Australians apparently use nearly 50 percent less of them than we did three years ago.

But from 2009 you will need to pay for every plastic bag you take from a supermarket if you live in Victoria. Why? Because they are apparently a “as symbol of our inefficient use of resources”.

I’ve glean this information from an article in yesterday’s The Australian entitled Plastic Bagging by their new environment reporter Matthew Warren.

The article also mentions that even with generous definitions of environmental hazard for plastic bags, the cost of imposing various bans on their use is about four times greater than the environmental benefit.

So why is the Victorian government going to ban their free distribution from 2009 and how are plastic bags a symbol of inefficient resource use?

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I’ve previously blogged on biodegradable plastic bags: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000993.html .

Pharming in Denmark: A Note from Roger Kalla

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Jennifer,

During my trawls of the www I came across the following blog which purports to describe a future where Denmark has transformed its agriculture and land use in through large scale adaptation of molecular pharming .

The blog is at
http://pruned.blogspot.com/2006/09/pharmland.html
and if you scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see

“For more on this wondrously pragmatic utopia, view the presentation
slideshow” and the slideshow link,
http://www.nord-web.dk/pharmland_2.htm

Takes you to a new website where you can view a “documentary” movie
online presented by a fictitious Minister of Health and Agriculture at
http://www.nord-web.dk/pharmland_movie.htm

This future scenario is not that outlandish since Denmark has got a large biotech industry (Novo Nordisk is the major producer of recombinant insulin) and the Danish Government has recently adopted coexistence laws which will allow for growing GM and non-GM side by side.

Interesting view of a possible future for Denmark and possibly Tasmania which is growing pharmaceutical crops already (poppies) and are exempting poppies from its GM Crops ban.

Roger

Roger Kalla, PhD
Director Korn Technologies
www.korntechnologies.com

Switch to Concrete Railway Sleepers, Negates Wind Farm Savings

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There is much community concern about global warming and an expectation we will all do our bit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So why did the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) decide to transfer its annual requirement for 400,000 railway sleepers from timber to concrete?

According to Mark Poynter* this will result in an extra 190,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year that could otherwise have been negated by carbon sequestered in forest regrowth and saved by avoiding concrete manufacture.

At the recent AEF conference Poynter said:

“To put this in perspective, the Victorian government has firmly embraced windfarms as part of its renewable energy strategy. They are estimated to be saving 250,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Some 75 percent of this has been negated by the ARTC preference for concrete sleepers.”

According to Minister Warren Truss back in April:

“This contract will provide a massive and ongoing boost to the Australian concrete and cement industry … the concrete sleepers can carry heavier loads and incur less maintenance costs. They provide a more consistent, stable and reliable track and have a longer life, with less degradation than timber, he said.

No mention of the greenhouse cost?

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* Mark Poynter is a member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia, he spoke at the recent AEF conference as part of a panel on ‘Saving Australia’s Forests’. ABC Online mentioned the conference last Friday, and in particular the AEF award to timber company Gunns Ltd.

The Campaign to Jail Richard Ness

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A new movie ‘Mine Your Own Business’ details how environmental campaigner have stopped development in parts of the world that crave development. How they have denied poor people opportunity.

The same activists have also run campaigns against foreigners who have dared develop projects in remote and environmentally sensitive parts of the world. In the case of Richard Ness they are destroying his life.

As his son Eric explains at RichardNess.org, a website dedicated to his father:

“My father, Richard Ness is currently on trial in Indonesia for a crime that never happened and is currently facing ten years in prison and a US$ 60,000 fine. He is accused of polluting the environment and causing illnesses when over 30 independent studies* have repeatedly confirmed that there is no environmental damage and most importantly medical analysis have established that there is no incidence of arsenic or mercury poisoning among the local community.”

I wrote about the case a year ago in a blog piece entitled ‘Did Newmont Do It?’.

Just the other day I received an email from Richard Ness:

“Jennifer,

I found your article of November 16, of last year very interesting (sorry it took me a year to find it on the web). While missing a few details which are hard to figure out in this part of the world, your write up is very close to reality. Your blog is one of the best short analysis I have seen on the subject.

With regard to your comment : “In many ways it is a pity the case is not going to trial, so all the evidence could be laid out. But then again, who gets a fair trial in Indonesia?”

For your information, the case did go to trial and the trial is still continuing after over one year in court. What you picked up on as the bases for your story was a civil charge for which Newmont basically agreed to form a foundation to fund a scientific panel to conduct independent monitoring for 10 years to prove to the world Buyat Bay was not, nor is polluted.

What has came out so far in court has been a sad story of manipulation of people and communities funded by a political party through select NGO’s. Even the baby the group was using as a “poster child” was blocked from proper medical treatment so they could parade her around as a banner of pollution.

That poor baby died as a result of lack of care and treatment from a dermatitis and upper respiratory infection. After the babies death, it was found that the prescribed medications for a common illness were never administered.

What has come out from court ordered resampling of the bay was that the Waters of Buyat are cleaner then on average, the Atlantic, Pacific and English Channel.

My oldest son, Eric who lives in the USA has created a blog to keep friends and the public up to speed on the latest case developments. The site he created is at www.richardness.org. You may find it interesting reading if you have the time as it bridges the time period of your last Novembers blog until now of ongoing developments in the case.

All the best,
Richard Ness
President Director
Newmont Minahasa Raya”

I am reminded of some words from Phelim McAleer:

“Remove the collar from the man with the evangelical zeal and make him a member of an environmental organisation and suddenly we start paying serious attention to these modern day prophets of doom.

Once, according to our religious leaders, it was our sins that were leading us to damnation. Now, according to our environmental leaders, it is polluting actions of man that will lead to our damnation.

How little we have all progressed and how we still love to listen to harbingers of doom would be mildly amusing if it were not for the pernicious effects of such beliefs on the poorest people in some of the poorest countries in the world.”

…and Richard Ness.

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* Including reports from the United Nations World Health Organization, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia and National Institute for Minamata Disease. The CSIRO report can be downloaded from RichardNess.org, but beware it is 16MB.