Day: June 1, 2023

Share this page On 15 January 2020 Lyn Gynther, Kangawatch Queensland posted on Facebook: Kangaroos in their hundreds in Queensland are huddled under trees on the Surat to St George Road looking extremely poor because farmers have fenced off their properties and the roos can’t access water … this is absolutely disgusting and it is happening right across other parts of Queensland as well where this cluster fencing is being erected. What is the matter with the government in this country not to mention the RSPCA for not stopping this fencing fracturing the ecosystem to begin with … I’m so angry, I hope every farmer in that area goes broke. And I don’t wish harm to anyone normally but anyone who can stand by and do this is not worth the piece of paper their name is written on. On 16 January Lyn posted: I just rang the Maranoa Council (1300 007 662) about the kangaroos on the Surat–St George Road and asked that they please put out water stations … I was told they would NOT be helping the kangaroos in any way and the council have been in fact funding farmers to erect exclusion fencing and since this has happened, the sheep farmers production rate has increased from 0.1% lambing to 60% lambing as a result of wild dogs [being kept out] but they did admit that exclusion fencing has also been erected on some properties solely to keep macropods locked out. They further told me that it is not their responsibility to worry about wildlife and that the reason they won’t be putting any water out for them is because it will cost them money to do so and they need to spend the rate payers money in line with how the community expect it to be spent … I was then told to contact DPI who deal with the QLD FERAL PEST INITIATIVE program. They said there are 5 water facilities on the stock route (which farmers can also use — so obviously there are also stock on the stock routes eating what little feed there is left for wildlife) and those water facilities are 1 every 10klms … they are aware of 2 that are dry due to the drought but still will not help the animals. Oh, and BioSecurity may also be someone to speak to (I was told), and at the end of the day Agricultural Management has to come before the wildlife. Comment thread to Lyn’s post indicate there are many Australian citizens and ratepayers who agree with Lyn and would not agree with the council. Lyn then wrote to a Brisbane journalist: I contacted the Maranoa Council yesterday [see outcome above] after I got a report that more than 200 kangaroos were locked out with the exclusion fencing on the Surat–St George Road and they were unable to access water. ALSO note that DES [Queensland Dept of Environment and Science] have tried to investigate a number of illegal culls (eg helicopter blasting away the roos; urea in water; illegal shooting) but no one will speak when they get out there … also permits are not being applied for, they are just doing it on a grand scale now … but still the DES are issuing permits to others knowing full well it is going on. — Kanga Watch Inc. Qld Division   www.kangawatch.com Contact Lyn for further information and please support her efforts for the kangaroos (and other wildlife like emus, as seen in this image taken mid-2018) locked out of their usual wildlife corridors. This exclusion fencing (inset) locks out and traps wildlife (then often shot) has become a feature of an opportunistic return in central Queensland to sheep farming as wool prices have recovered. Lyn Gynther — QLD Co-OrdinatorC/- Post Office, Yangan Q 4371 Ph: 07 4664 8383 / M: 0432 022 043 READ MORE on the Queensland situation Us and Them — The End Game?  by Maria Taylor

Share this page It’s not quite over yet folks, stay tuned I’m Penny and I wrote the Mt Lofty koala petition — thank you for sharing it. In response to your query, this is the story!What happened: DHA said that they had withdrawn their Masterplan for 342 houses. This turned out to be sort-of true. They have ditched the big development, but they did not withdraw their plan. They have kept it current under the same development assessment number. This means that they can submit a new plan without going to the public and submissions are disallowed. We have approached council re[garding] this and asked that any new plans must be go out to submission. However, DHA has stated that they will put forward a much smaller development and that they won’t clear all/most of the critical koala habitat. So yes, it is a win. But it also depends what they do next … so we are keeping a good eye on them! — Cheers, Penny. 16 April 2020 UPDATE: Toowoomba koala habitat Mt Lofty A big hello to all our wonderful supporters! Today we woke up to this headline on the front cover of our local paper: DHA Ditches Mt. Lofty Plan.  342 houses will no longer be built on this precious land. There is still some way to go on this, as all this really means is that the original plan has been withdrawn. It remains to be seen what will emerge in its place. However, it’s a win and we are celebrating (we like to think the koalas are too, in their own secret way). This petition shone a light onto our little neck of the woods, onto our koalas, onto our beautiful forested land with its creeks and waterfall, with its mists and endless views. We could NOT have done this without all the people, from all around our bruised planet, who cared enough to support us. Let’s take strength from this and keep on fighting. Lets show the greedy, the thoughtless, the uncaring and powerful that we mean business. We fight. We don’t stop. THANK YOU! — The Save Mt. Lofty Inc Team, 21 February 2020 Petition to local council, ask state and federal officials to say NO. Mount Lofty is a very special place, right on the edge of the Toowoomba Escarpment. It’s a place of forests, permanent springs and Toowoomba’s only waterfall. We, the Mt. Lofty community, see and hear koalas here all the time. Malcolm and Belle have a special place in our hearts because they’re breeding right now. We want to see little baby koalas here. Australia needs that to happen very, very badly. It’s not just koalas either. There are lots of other animals here too, such as echidnas, wallabies, kangaroos, goannas, small mammals, bats, reptiles and frogs. The bird life is amazing. But that’s about to change. This land has escaped the developers only because it’s an ex-Rifle Range and has been owned by the Department of Defence for over 100 years. But now our Federal government wants to clear all the land that’s flat enough to build on, including 38 hectares (that’s 76 football fields) of Critical Koala Habitat. They’ll bulldoze the forest and cram the bare dirt with 342 houses and villas, on blocks down to 300m2. Few of these houses are for the Defence force. An independent consultant says most of them will go to investors and second home-owners. They even want their own special planning code so they can get away with it. It’s not too late though! Right now, the Toowoomba Regional Councillors have this application sitting on their desks. They have the environmental grounds in the planning code to reject this development and save the koalas, and all the animals, on this land. The community has been fighting this for over two years now. Time is running out — the decision could come any time within the next few months. Please tell the people doing this that we just cannot keep on this way. We have lost over a billion animals in the fires. Koalas are slow and many of them were burned to death. We cannot afford to lose more animals, especially when this land was never paid for and doesn’t have to be destroyed for one-off financial gain. MORE INFO HERE

Share this page Management mania’s lethal path in Australia. 360 degrees counter to Aboriginal use of patchwork cool burns for land management. Story and photo by Ian McCallan from Hinchinbrook Island and Cardwell NATIONAL PARKS QUEENSLAND continue to ignore their charter: To manage our forests using “Minimum human interference”; protect from all interference other than essential management practices so that natural attributes are preserved and parks are actively managed to conserve wildlife. National Parks are now ‘landscaping’ wilderness to their preferred designs and the tool they use to achieve their aims is fire. They are managing our forest by continually burning them despite the obvious cruelty to wildlife and the extremely dangerous airborne pollution threat. Hinchinbrook Island, off the east coast north of Townsville, is Australia’s largest Island National Park and World-heritage listed. Home to the rare and endangered Blue Banksia, (falsely claimed by QPWS to require fire to germinate) the Island has over the past few years been subjected to repeated major destructive interference by National Parks. Hinchinbrook Island, pristine landscape. Tourism promotion. Fire from the sky destroys kilometres of forest National Parks senior management have kept silent about a series of hot burns largely from incendiaries dropped from helicopters which we believe began in September 2014 on Hinchinbrook Island and continued into 2019 when nearby Gould Island was also included. It is extraordinary, but Hinchinbrook Island together with all the other tropical islands off the north Queensland coast (with the exception of Dunk Island) have been deliberately burnt for many years. The Hinchinbrook fires, planned and ignited by National Parks in September of 2014 destroyed about eighteen square kilometres of forest on the steep slopes of the Island right in the centre of the most attractive part of the Thorsborne Trail. Subsequent fires have enveloped even more of the Island and destroyed more Blue Banksia. the wet tropical vegetation on Hinchinbrook needs no fires to survive; hazard reduction burns out of control While the wet tropical vegetation on Hinchinbrook needs no fires to survive, the eucalypt forest favoured by National Parks “needs” cruel maintenance burns every five or so years. These burns kill rainforest species which National Parks describe as “Invasive rain forest”. Natural vegetation has been replaced by an intensely thickened Wattle dominated forest in the burn areas. The subsequent airborne pollution kills native wildlife and the people who have the misfortune to live in the path of these huge and deadly smoke plumes. The majority of native animals unable to fly endure extreme cruelty. Months after the 2014 Hinchinbrook fire, we were contacted by an expert witness who reported that a very hot fire had caused catastrophic irreparable damage to the forests of magnificent Hinchinbrook Island. At that stage we did not know the cause of this fire. Investigations rapidly uncovered that this was yet another hazard reduction burn that went out of control and will take many, many years to repair. It was many months before we were able to get to the island to investigate, the damage was horrific with virtually every living thing killed. Hot fires out of control on other islands, without regard to ecology, cyclone recovery Last year (2019) Gould Island — just to the north of Hinchinbrook Island — was also burnt at the worst possible time, creating a hot-burn right in the middle of the nesting season for the Pied Imperial Pigeon. Large numbers of chicks together with most other native animals would have been incinerated. The protection of rare species such as the Blue Banksia should be of paramount importance. The burn area contained significant numbers of saplings and many mature trees in the process of recovery from cyclone Yasi in 2011, the vast majority of this species were destroyed. On our first visit, we searched for living specimens but could only find two tiny seedlings. The damage to both fauna and flora has resulted in substantial alterations to the natural biodiversity of these islands. National Parks destruction of rain forest species which do not burn readily, has resulted in dry eucalypt forests that are substantially more flammable than the forest it replaces. In 2019, more fires were lit in extremely dry conditions at the beginning of November. These burnt fiercely for over four weeks causing extreme levels of life-threatening airborne pollution affecting the health and well-being of people in Port Douglas, Cairns, Innisfail and Mission Beach in the north to Ingham in the South. For the duration of this fire Hinchinbrook Island could not be seen from the adjacent mainland such was the level of dangerous airborne pollution. Fire followed by heavy rainfall = erosion. Who is making these decisions? Subsequent heavy tropical rainfall will have caused serious erosion of the now unprotected thin layer of topsoil on the very steep slopes at the top of some of the mountains. Twenty years ago, it would be unheard of to ignite major fires in the beginning of the wet [season] pointing the finger at inexperienced staff making decisions they were not capable of making. National Parks have kept quiet about this and despite the carnage the people responsible still work for National Parks and plan further burns for this magnificent and very important World Heritage Area. As far as we know and despite the serious nature of the damage, no prosecutions are planned by the minister, Wet Tropics Management Authority or QPWS. An informal Cardwell-based group was formed to combat the destruction of our wet tropics forests and wildlife by continual burning and to make the public aware of the extreme dangers of breathing heavily polluted air. Air quality in the wet tropical regions is dangerously compromised by months of heavy smoke from National Parks ignited forest fires. Despite the fact that airborne pollution is responsible for over 3,000 premature deaths in Australia every year (over double the road toll), the local town of Cardwell is blanketed in thick smog usually for several weeks at a time. This pollution is apparently necessary for National Parks landscaping. They started burning Cardwell a few days ago and