Cumberland Plains Woodland has been listed as Critically Endangered Ecological Communities. It is believed that the basis for the Critically Endangered Listing was that CPW had been reduced in area by some 400 hectares. About 400 ha has been lost since CPW was first listed as endangered in 1997/98 and that amount lost has justified the next listing as critically endangered. Yet PM Howard gave Delfin permission to clear practically all the remaining 400 ha at the site in question. The Western Sydney Conservation Alliance is asking Garrett to reverse this terrible decision. Inside: Letter to Peter Garrett.

Has the nature of politics changed over the last few decades into a struggle of the people against the government? How much of our leisure time is now related to environmental struggles, signified by volunteer-manned stalls displaying educational material? Why do local and state government logos now figure in our community events? How much of our leisure-time and our attention has been taken over by ubiquitous commercialised, organised activities for children and adults? No answers in this article , just observations and questions... on a community event, somewhere, which could almost have been anywhere in Australia.

Both the NSW and Australian Government have upgraded Cumberland Plain Woodland from Endangered to Critically Endangered. You would assume any development that proposed to clear over 200 ha of critically endangered bushland would be struggling to get approval. We can assume nothing these days in Australia. Here is another focus where Australians need to unite to help each other get back democracy and protect fauna and flora from the growth lobby. The community has fought to save this area for nearly 20 years.See also related articles.

(Ed. The subject of this article may seem hackneyed, but it is well worth reading.) The word "sustainable" or "sustainability" has been rendered meaningless and oxymoronic by its attachment to the most invasive development proposals and economic activity. But authentic sustainability does not lend itself to semantic pluralism. It can only mean the viablility of the whole, not its constituent parts. There is really only one kind of sustainability.

[Video inside article] The recent Auditor General's Report on the incompetence of the Victorian Government's wildlife statistics collection and maintenance mean that the Victorian government could not logically have the authority to make decisions about sustainable forestry where local fauna habitat is affected, in the opinion of this candobetter.org writer and environmental sociologist. It seems to me that Environment East Gippsland has clearly won its case in advance. But we have to get the information out there so that it cannot be ignored. See also: Damning Auditor General Report on Fauna protection for Victoria

Many population- environment organizations concerned about human population impact on the planet believe they cannot talk about ‘coercive’ population policies, only education and good access to family planning. But are they falling into the same trap as environmental organizations that refuse to acknowledge the overriding evidence that our ever growing numbers are a key part of the problems we face?

This is a great film about corporate farming to pass on. It is not 'anti-farmer' per se. It talks about corporate farming impact on land-tenure and communities, our health, animals' living conditions, and peoples' rights. It will make you laugh. See also "How to make our agricultural sector sustainable"

The Auditor General's report pointed out numerous inefficiencies, duplications and limits of resources. What it missed was to clearly highlight is that huge amount of time and money is spent on listing endangered species and the production of management plans but no further action is taken or enforced to properly rectify the problems. (Hans Brunner, wildlife ecologist, Victoria)

In a press release on April Fools Day 2009, Gavin Jennings interpreted as a 'pat on the back' a terrible report by the Auditor General on the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.[1] The report said "the government's lack of baseline data or output performance measures means that it is not possible to conclude whether or not the Act has achieved its primary objectives. The available data, which is patchy, indicates that it has not," and notes failure to use the conservation and control measures in the Act, inadequate listing of threatened species, failure to develop action statements, to monitor implementation of these, or to assess their effectiveness, and that penalties for offences under the Act have not been reviewed or updated and therefore are not an effective deterrent." So government has no reliable statistical basis to make statements on wildlife numbers and health or to issue cull-permits in Victoria. Local independent counts are potentially more influential - like this one.

Here are some more Auditor General reports on the predicament of wildlife in Australia, due to the cruel negligence and sheer incompetence of Australia's state and Federal governments.

In September 2008 Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare constitutional rights to nature, thus codifying a new system of environmental protection. How about it, Australia?

The growth lobby appears in new guises every day, constantly trying to make itself out to be the good guy. Now a new alliance of religious groups pretends we can go on growing indefinitely, the same way that the Citizens Electoral Lobby, the Australian Property Council, and the Prime Minister of Australia do. But Tim Murray asks, "If each one of God’s 214,000 miracles born each day is precious, what of the tens or hundreds of thousands of non human life forms that are murdered that day by our expansion? Yes, 100 species are lost each day. But many more life forms are killed than that each day. How many? Who knows? Each and every day we are breeding our life support system into the ground."

Penny Wong has started a trend in dieting in Canada, of all places. They call it, "Smart Gluttony". Using Penny Wong's approach to growing population and production whilst simultaneously reducing carbon gas emissions, Tim Murray expects to lose weight by eating more ice-cream, even though his doctor has predicted that his weight will increase by 65% just if he continues with his current one tub a day.

Queensland: Beautiful one day; bulldozed the next. Bligh government's gung-ho populate and develop policy is ill-informed and will destroy the golden goose, not to mention all the other creatures and plants. The development lobby is impossible to satisfy. Its demands are unreasonable and unsustainable.

The author responds to news of some so-called 'Green groups' preventing discussion of population numbers as a factor in carbon emissions. "Women should have the right not to have children. But they have no right, in the context of overshoot, to have as many children as they or their husbands want. The “right to choose” cannot be the right to abuse. Even the most jealously guarded right must be measured against equally fundamental rights, most especially the right of our species, and others, to live."

"I was reminded of what John Kenneth Galbraith said, that the ruling caste of any country will just blithely identify its interests with those of the nation." Bob Carr to the Property Council of Australia's Nation Building Congress 2008

If Australia's current growth rate continues, the population will double in 35 years. That means our population would be 44 million by 2045. Only one Australian politician - Kelvin Thomson - is trying to do something to stop this democratically. If you would like to help, come along NOVEMBER 29 and give support and discuss. If you support this, so will other people and the other politicians and parties will have to listen. See also: http://candobetter.org/taxonomy/term/1325 Update - film of the speech!

(Australian shelduck)
Australia was one of the first countries to sign the Ramsar Convention and designated the world's first Wetland of International importance. A report from the previous government says Australia has 65 wetlands of world significance listed under the Ramsar treaty, but water management requirements of only 11 sites are known in any detail. Roughly half of Australia's Ramsar wetlands are not adequately mapped, and information is so disorganised.
A member of the Ramsar task force says the lower lakes of the drought-hit Murray could be delisted along with the Coorong.

With just six weeks until the 2009 Kobenhavn Climate Conference, the global community has not much time to review and assess the failures of well-intentioned multilateral undertakings, commitments and promises at such global talkfests of living memory.

Poaching skilled workers and removing political activists; dividing and conquering; restructuring communities to remove democratic organisation, multiculturalism as a cover for big business links with politicians

Mr Rudd has set his reckless course and will not be diverted. See also "Normalising endless immigration and coupling it to nuclear power in Oz"

Venue: Belmore Park, Eddie Avenue end, opposite Central Railway; Date: Saturday, 24th October
Time: 11.30am to set up, 12.00pm - 2.00pm for the rally
"In the last decade, permits have been issued to allow the commercial slaughter of 49.6 million kangaroos primarily to give household pets a bit of variety in their diet. That is but one instance of a set of behaviours that suggests that, with a population of 22 million people, we haven’t managed to find accommodation with our environment. Our record has been poor and in my view we are not well placed to deal effectively with the environmental challenges posed by a population of 35 million." (Australian Secretary of Treasury, Ken Henry)

"Mr Rudd is responsible for one of the highest immigration rates in decades so his line on the current influx of asylum seekers is simply a smoke screen to avoid public discussion on the bigger issue of the immigration blow-out."
"Were Australia a compassionate nation, it would be taking in more asylum seekers and fewer skilled migrants, according to Australia’s only environment group dedicated to lower population, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA)." (Sandra Kanck, SPA National President)

A political poem by Walter Grahame in the fine old Australian tradition.
"Sure, we are girt by sea and girt by c02 and girt by bloody methane to put into the brew.
We're girt by politicians who won't de bloody bate that overpopulation will be our terminal fate
We've species loss, degraded soils and environmental squalor, and bloody blind self serving bastards in it for a dollar!"

EDO Seminar Series 2009
New road, rail and port development fast track: Victoria's new major transport projects laws - What do they mean?
Tuesday 29 September 2009
5.45pm for 6pm start
BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL
RSVP: EDO (03) 8341 3100
or edovic@edo.org.au

New research looks at the impact of immigration on social housing in the United Kingdom. Proportion of foreign born in social housing rises 50% in ten years. This is relevant to Australia and most English speaking countries since they have inherited from the United Kingdom housing and population and citizenship policies and laws.

Proposed law will exempt the State Government from its own laws and concentrate decision making power into one or two Ministers. A draconian piece of legislation, the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Bill 2009, has been brought into the Parliament . Your help is necessary to have this bill stopped in the upper house. Only the Liberal-National Coalition, by voting with the Greens, can stop this bill in the upper house. Victoria is under almost constant assault from a despotic government, which is seeking more and more power beyond the control of the people. But all is not lost. It is possible to beat them by supporting opposition review in the upper house of the Victorian Parliament. We have done it before.

Through incompetence and neglect 110 ha which was recently added to the Pines Flora and Fauna reserve was mismanaged by Parks Victoria and Department of Sustainability Victoria to the point where nearly all the species it contained have become extinct. Now this land is due to be separated by a huge tollway from the rest of the reserve, despite many bitter protests and submissions from residents and other concerned people, whose hearts are nearly broken. See also related articles

We publish and answer here pro-rally comments from "Jack," accusing "Greenies" of violence. Perhaps this is a classical case of "People in glass houses should not throw stones" - only who is in the glass house here? It is hard to deal with behaviour which has rightly been accused of causing threat to human life when you know that the situation which probably caused it left any protesters few if any legal or safe alternatives. Did Repco's and the NSW Government's actions place citizens in an untenable position by suspending environmental protection and democratic rights?

The Brumby government has, even before the results of the bushfire commission, jumped in and passed draconian legislation with less than one day's notice, which allows unprecedented clearing of bushlands and gardens, on the pretext that it will prevent fires. The removal of vegetation is the primary factor connected with warming of the earth and loss of rainfall. It not only releases huge amounts of carbon gases from the organisms in the soil as they die, but it removes shade, decreases humidity, dries out the earth and affects winds and rainfall, including rainfall inland. This law is ecologically insane and very very stupid. Victorians should be frightened by the ignorance of their government and they should also be suspicious of its motives, since it is virtually a commercial property development corporation in its own right, thus an advocate of moonscaping. Website - http://livingwiththebush.org/dp/