Gus: What rattus could not achieve, in 10 years of environmental degradation, is being done right under our noses, under the guiding greased palm of "the law" (created to achieve this specific purpose under the guise of protecting industrial development)...

A beautiful parrot — the fastest flying parrot in the world — is being "extincted" by humans who are destroying its habitat and the most revered "greenie" in the world, Bob Brown, — who helped save a lot of the Tasmanian wilderness as well as many others —  is being crucified for having done his best to protect the future... Shame on us for letting this happen. Shame on our government to let this happen. Shame on humanity for its hypocrisy in having no real respect of other life forms...

Brent Hedges (Letters, June 11) may want to check his facts. Bob Brown did not choose to sue and lose; he sued and won. The Federal Court ruled in his favour in relation to the Wielangta Forest. This ruling was overturned on appeal due to a legal technicality, which was then confirmed by the High Court. A detailed explanation of the legal technicality is all there in black and white - or you could ask Paul Lennon or John Howard, since they were the ones who manufactured it.

Stuart Cranston Coogee

From the SMH letters (15/06/09)

Bob Brown's aberrant behaviour over his long parliamentary career should be referred to the Un-Australian Activities Committee (Letters, June 12). An unfavourable finding should result in his immediate expulsion from Parliament without any retirement benefits.

Senator Brown will have a hard time explaining being the sole opponent of justified pay increases.

Minor infractions such as not rorting his travel allowances, lack of vitriol and behaving in a dignified manner may be forgiven.

However, willingness to support causes with his own money is not what electors voted him into office for. His Senate colleagues have every right to complain they are unlikely to receive donations for any project they undertake. The publicity for Senator Brown is diverting public attention from the important work of other members, such as Steve Fielding's groundbreaking work on the relationship between sun flares and faded curtains.

Entrenched upper house standards must not be challenged by the shenanigans of one member.

Merv McCusker Oatlands

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The only one with no hand ever in the cookie jar gets the blame for the missing cookies...

the future... Their future...

The mild-mannered Burke is one of the Government's best kept secrets and he ripped Turnbull by harking back to 1991 when Turnbull became chairman of Axiom Holdings. The company logged the Solomon Islands to within an inch of its life during the 1990s.

Turnbull bought into the company for $200,000 and sold out a year later at $25 million. He previously described his role as the "company doctor". Burke cited an AusAid report which said the logging on one island was so severe it was akin to clear-felling.

"The people of this former island paradise do not thank the Leader of the Opposition. They live with the cash grab. They live with the resource destruction of a first-class political opportunist," said Burke.

The critically endangered orange-bellied parrot appears to be moving closer to extinction.

Researchers in Melaleuca in south-west Tasmania say the number of birds in the wild is now down to 21, including just eight females.

The endangered parrot makes an annual journey to the region for the breeding season.

Mark Holdsworth from the orange-bellied parrot recovery team says the drought has contributed to a steady decline in the population.

The team is pinning its hopes on a captive breeding program.

They have entranced generations with the beauty of their songs and glimpses of their plumage. But today the sound of the linnet and the vision of a turtle dove are becoming increasingly rare experiences for visitors to the European countryside.

Indeed, according to a new survey, the chances of encountering any one of the 36 species of farmland birds in Europe – species that also include the lapwing, the skylark and the meadow pipit – are now stunningly low. Devastating declines in their numbers have seen overall populations drop from 600 million to 300 million between 1980 and 2009, the study has discovered.

This dramatic decline represents a 50% reduction and is blamed on major changes in farming policies enforced by the EU over the last 30 years.

In order to boost food production across Europe, the wholesale ripping up of hedgerows, draining of wetlands and ploughing over of meadows has robbed farmland birds of their homes and food. Numbers of linnets, turtle doves and lapwings have crashed as a result.

Tasmanian forest considered important for the survival of the critically endangered swift parrot may be bulldozed to build a dam for a fish farm and golf course development.

Glamorgan Spring Bay Council, on Tasmania’s east coast, wants to clear about 40ha of what scientists say is critical swift parrot breeding and foraging habitat to develop a 3,000m-litre-a-year dam near the town of Orford. The environment minister, Melissa Price, will now decide whether the proposal goes ahead.

The dam would provide fresh water to a salmon farm in Okehampton Bay, a planned golf course and housing development and for local towns in the event of drought or climate change-related shortages. Advice to the council from Birdlife Tasmania says all remaining parrot habitat is critical for the species’ survival and must be protected.

A peer-reviewed analysis in 2015 found the parrot was headed for extinction or near extinction within 16 years. It was listed by the federal government’s threatened species commissioner as a protection priority – one of 20 birds that needs to be on an improved trajectory by 2020.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/10/swift-parrot-habitat...

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Humans: any which way to implement the final destruction... for another fucking golf course...

Australia has suffered catastrophic losses of wildlife and habitat, according to the official five-year scorecard on the state of the environment, released on Tuesday, as leading scientists plead with the Albanese government to urgently ramp up protections to halt the escalating rate of extinction.

The latest State of the Environment report says Australia has lost the most mammals of any continent. More than 80 per cent of Australia’s nearly 400 mammal species, from furry greater gliders that fly across treetops to egg-laying, poisonous platypus, are found nowhere else. Tragically, the 39 mammal species that have disappeared since colonisation in 1788 represent 38 per cent of the world’s lost mammals.

READ MORE:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/environment-scorecard-finds-australia-s-habitat-crumbling-rapidly-20220718-p5b2cr.html

READ FROM TOP.

see also: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/stable-population-is-key-to-saving-our-declining-wildlife-20220719-p5b2mr.html

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