"To keep stable and just replace itself, a relatively young population like Australia’s would currently need something even lower than Western Europe’s rate of around 1.3 children per completed family. More like 0.93. And that’s without immigration!"

In the last whaling season, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society with its one fast ship, the Steve Irwin prevented Japanese whalers from catching 50% of their quota. Captain Paul Watson has appealed to the GreenPeace Foundation for their cooperation in the 2008-2009 Antarctic summer whaling season in order to be able to save 80-100% of the planned Japanese whaling quota.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society media release, 5 Jun 08

See also: Queensland to give green light to shark extermination of 1 Jun 08

What you can do: Donate to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Nearly all funds go to saving whales and other endangered marine species and little is spent on bureaucracy.

Whilst former President of the Australian Conservation Foundation Peter Garrett, now Federal Minister against the Environment looks the other way, primary school children petition the Victorian Government to stop the destruction by dredging of the pristine marine environment at Port Phillip Heads.

See also www.operationquarrantine.com, www.bluewedges.org, "Time to 'count cost' in Bay" (Mornington Peninsula Leader, 7 Apr 08) "Port Phillip Bay dredge protesters fight fines" (Herald Sun, 10 08)

It seems that even the almighty profit motive will bow to the spiritual, if it is pursued on a community scale by people rooted in that community.

On Friday September 7, 2007, the venerable Canadian environmental author Farley Mowat made a boldly generous but stunningly futile gesture. He donated 200 acres of his Cape Breton land to "Nova Scotia Nature Trust".

On top of the hazards of nuclear fission electricity generation, even more environmental threats are posed by mining of uranium, enrichment, reprocessing and disposal of nuclear wastes. A likely consequence of the expansion of uranium mining in Central Australia is that the Eastern seaboard stands to be exposed to clouds bearing poisonous radioactive uranium and other toxic metals blown from the mine tailings dumps (see David Bradbury's film "Blowin' in the wind" for a graphic illustration of this threat).

South East Queensland residents are using World Population Day, 11th July, to urge the Queensland Government to reverse the over-allocation of land and resources committed to development in the region.

"Today has been designated World Population Day by the UN, but you will not see any of the big environment and development groups mounting a campaign on population. Indeed, you will be lucky if they even mention the P-word."

Water crisis, housing crisis, transport infrastructure crisis, hospital crisis and continued destruction of open space and bushland are all the hallmarks that show growth is out of control in South East Queensland, say environmentalists.

HI All

There is another protest against the super quarry, (to be built at Mt Cotton) this
Wednesday 11th July at 9.30 am. We will be standing out the front of the Redlands Council,
on Bloomfield St, at Cleveland to remind the councillors that people matter, and we care about the loss of this valuable and wonderful part of Mt Cotton.
Please join us if you have a spare hour or so. We do not heckle, or disrupt, but we stand quietly and pass out informations leaflets and offer people the chance to sign petitions.

log onto candobetter to find out more.

Julia Buch.

All too many 'discussions' on India and China have in the past have been dominated by innumerate economists with a Cargo Cult mind-set. All we had to do, they would have had us believe, was allow all of our manufacturing industry to be exported to China, export our non-renewable mineral resources and (unsustainably grown) rural produce as well and boundless wealth and prosperity was sure to flow back to us.

Conservation groups throughout South East Queensland are asking the State Government to review the SEQ Regional Plan so that it reflects environmental concerns and sets sustainable levels for dwelling targets and habitat protection.

Gecko – Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council spokesperson, Lois Levy, says that members have concerns that the projected figure of 1.2million residents has not been updated to reflect the carrying capacity of
South East Queensland.

Residents of Mudgeeraba and Reedy Creek still don't know how their suburbs will grow following a public meeting on the Gold Coast's Local Growth Management Strategy held in Mudgeeraba last week.

A recent publication of the Council of Mayors South East Queensland highlights that the mayors of SEQ are seeking help from developers to push the Local Growth Management Strategies (LGMS). These are legal planning documents that force each local government area in South East Queensland to accept unsustainable growth.

The Queensland Government does not pursue its environmently reckless course of encouraging endless population growth with the support of Queensland's existing population, who are overwhelmingly opposed. Rather it is being done to suit the interests of property developers and land speculators and dependent industries who are able to paradoxically exploit circumstances, in which all members of society must necessarily, on average, become poorer, in order to enrich themselves.

BRUSSELS – The European Parliament condemned Spain for the environmental damage which over-development had caused in Madrid and along the Mediterranean coast.

Motorway magic tricks, 2 Nov 2006

Crikey! The RTA people must be magicians. They say they can improve the quality of Ballina’s drinking water by constructing a motorway through the Emigrant Creek water catchment (environment protected). This is what they will do on only two of the 63 properties impacted. (A selection of magic tricks).

29th September is Save the Koala Day but what is there to celebrate about?

Since the beginning of the twentieth century we have placed koalas survival at risk. In Queensland there was several open hunting seasons, 1915, 1917 and 1919, with one million taken in 1919. In 1927 the Queensland government allowed 584,738 koalas to be taken for skins. By the 1930s the koala was extinct in South Australia and since then we have had tollways and now urban expansion, with the SEQ koala declining from Common to vulnerable.