Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Plants and Animals

How the Prime Minister Can Save the Great Barrier Reef

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EVERYONE claims to be concerned about the health of the Great Barrier Reef. Last week a joint UNESCO World Heritage Centre and International Union for the Conservation of Nature report was released claiming the reef could be “in danger”.

Earlier this week the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, wrote to Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman, expressing concern about approval for a coal mine at Alpha and the potential impact of runoff on dugongs. [1]

Ha. It’s many hundreds of kilometres from Alpha to the coast. In between is the Burdekin dam and a long way further downstream more than 20,000 hectares of sugarcane and then the wetlands of Bowling Green Bay.

It’s absurd to suggest that the mine is going to have any impact on dugongs.

Maybe the concern wasn’t so much about the mine but about the associated development, in particular the railway and plans to expand the port at Abbot Point? Maybe.

But the Great Barrier Reef covers a vast area and dugongs aren’t going to congregate about a port development.

Dugongs congregate where there are seagrass meadows and there is no evidence that seagrass meadows are generally in decline around the Australian coastline.

Dugongs numbers, however, are in decline.

And it has everything to do with something the Prime Minister can stop.

There are perhaps only 14,000 dugongs left in Great Barrier Reef waters, and some estimates suggest that about 1,000 are slaughtered each year.

If the Prime Minister really cared about the Great Barrier Reef and its dugongs she would immediately ban the slaughter of dugongs by aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Great Barrier Reef waters.

 

[Read more…] about How the Prime Minister Can Save the Great Barrier Reef

One Big Quoll

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Jen,

Have a look at the size of this male quoll we saw in Boonoo Boonoo National Park near Stanthorpe a few days ago.

It is currently mating season for quolls and he was quite aggressive as well as curious.


They are rare in southeastern Queensland these days. As you would know, these Dasyurus maculatus go by the common names of Spotted Tail Quoll, Tiger Quoll and Tiger Cat. Their habitat runs from southeastern Queensland to Tasmania with another sub-species up north.

An old bloke who lived in the New England ranges as a kid once told me that these male quolls would bale him up on his way to and from school and he was terrified of them.

When I saw this quoll, I initially thought it was a feral cat running behind a tree. But the feral morphed into this magnificent native cat when he appeared the other side.

A truly magic moment: Fair took my breath away.

Jim

WWF & The REDD Menace in Tanzania: Christopher Booker

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“LAST November, Prince Charles, as president of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK, flew to Tanzania to hand out Living Planet awards to five community leaders involved in WWF projects around the delta of the Rufiji River, which holds the world’s largest mangrove forest. Part of their intention has been to halt further damage to the forest by local farmers, who have been clearing it to grow rice and coconuts. This is because the mangroves store unusual amounts of carbon (CO2), viewed as the major contributor to global warming…

“Shortly before the Prince’s arrival, it was revealed that thousands of villagers had been evicted from the forest, their huts in the paddy fields torched and their coconut palms felled. This was carried out by the Tanzanian government’s Forestry and Beekeeping Division, with which WWF has been working. But Stephen Makiri, the head of WWF Tanzania, was quick to insist that WWF had never advocated expelling communities from the delta, and that the evictions were carried out by government agencies”.

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9246853/How-climate-change-has-got-Worldwide-Fund-for-Nature-bamboozled.html

How climate change has got Worldwide Fund for Nature bamboozled
The Telegraph, May 5, 2012 by Christopher Booker

New Daintree Rainforest Website: Neil Hewett

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HAVE  you had a chance to check out the spectacular new Daintree Rainforest website?  Magnificent beauty and extraordinary biodiversity presented through a gallery of images in full-screen format.   The complexities of the oldest surviving rainforest in the world continue to challenge humanity as it strives to comprehend the continuity of growth, the intricate relationships and the incredible diversity established over 160 million years.  The image gallery is partitioned into aerial, fauna, flora, forest, insect and spider lists, for your convenience…

The relictual Gondwanan portion of the world-famous Daintree Rainforest, exists exclusively within the central three valleys off the eastern flank of Thornton Peak, with the Cooper Valley at its centrepiece. Here the highest biodiversity and concentration of ancient, rare, primitive and endemic species, impress visitors with exceptional richness, amid magnificent fan palm galleries and rainforest giants…

Daintree Rainforest demonstrates that cost effective conservation and carbon neutral operation on the land, can be fully-funded by sustainable eco-tourism at no cost to the public purse.

Neil Hewett.

Dugong Slaughter: Finally Some Reporting of the Issue

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Dugongs are large marine mammals that swim about northern Australian waters. Indigenous Australians are allowed to hunt dugongs even though their numbers are probably in serious decline.

There are two criteria that should be applied to the harvest of an animal species: 1. Are the numbers taken sustainable, and 2. Is the method of killing humane?

But these criteria do not apply to the slaughter of native animals under native title legislation in Queensland.

I’ve written on the issue before, but not much since 2008. [1]

There has been a campaign wagged out of Cairns to get this issue on the national agenda and finally tonight there was some reporting of the inhumane slaughter of dugongs in northern Australian waters by the ABC TV 7.30 Report.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3448943.htm

Well done to Sarah Dingle and Lesley Robinson for following up on a story documented by Ruphert Imhoff.

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[1] https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/2008/01/ignoring-the-slaughter-of-dugongs-in-northern-australia/