Wildlife friendly fencing
Flying fox on a barbed wire fence. Don't handle flying foxes: call the appropriate wildlife rescue group.
Every year thousands of animals face a cruel death on barbed wire fences. The barbs are a major hazard to wildlife, and the animals die, usually by being entangled on the top strand. More than 70 native species – especially nocturnal ones such as bats, owls and gliders – have been identified as occasional or regular victims of barbed wire fences.
The power is with us
Bob and Barb Harry of Sandon have protected the magnificant bushland on their property forever
‘You have the power to protect the bushland on your land for future generations, even after you sell it or pass it on.’
This is the message that Tim Read will have for landholders in Mount Alexander Shire, be they rural or urban, when he addresses a meeting coordinated by the Castlemaine Landcare Group later this month. For the full story, go to CI’s Landcare page.
Marsupial market forces
Quoll, or 'native cat'. (What would you feed them? Whiskas? Dine? The pet budgie?)
Marsupial-loving reporter Ian Walker grew up wanting a pet like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Could encouraging more native mammals as pets be a canny new ‘anti-extinction strategy’…or a future disaster to be cleaned up by the RSPCA? What happens when we apply market forces to the concept of extinction? The results may surprise you.
Thanks to the ABC. Go to their website and download the audio file here
RAIN! The graph is on a J-curve
Overflow at Expedition Pass Reservoir, Saturday 4 September
For more than 10 years Castlemaine – and south-eastern Australia – has been under drought. The land and all who live on it have been suffering, the wildlife’s been under threat, farms have gone under, we’ve suffered the worst bushfires in living memory.
Now, the skies have opened. Our kids have been treated to what some of them have hardly experienced: steady, teeming rain for days, gutters overflowing, dry creeks flowing, small creeks turning to rivers, reservoirs refilling, the mouth-watering roar of water in the landscape.
According to Coliban Water our reservoirs are now over 56 per cent full, the healthiest level we’ve had in years. The graph is on a J curve.
Enjoy the pictures! Continue Reading »
Right and wrong
Why climate science divides people along political lines.
By George Monbiot. Originally published in the Guardian, reproduced with the kind permission of the author
It was Australia’s second climate change election. Climate change deposed the former leaders of both main parties: Kevin Rudd (Labor) because his position was too weak, Malcolm Turnbull (Liberals) because his position was too strong. When Julia Gillard, the new Labor leader, also flunked the issue, many of her supporters defected to the Greens. Continue Reading »
Farmers asked to save critical native shrub
Critical list: Spiny Rice-flower, Pimelea spinescens
Bendigo farmers may hold the key to the survival of a critically endangered flowering shrub.
PhD student Debbie Reynolds has been monitoring the populations of Spiny Rice-flower at 16 locations around Victoria for the past two years.
Continue Reading »
BPA (Bisphenol A) to be declared toxic in Canada
BPA is a chemical used in polycarbonate drinking and baby bottles.
These are the hard, light-weight plastic bottles popular in the last two decades, including the big spring water bottles delivered by services.
BPA is also in the plastic lining of food and drink cans, and there have been concerns for BPA’s safety. Canada is about to declare it toxic after banning it in babies’ bottles two years ago.
Fiddling while the earth burns
By Richard Eckersley
No more ‘politics as usual’ should mean having enough courage to tackle the sickness of mindless consumption.
Nearly every decade from the 1970s has been declared a decade of reckoning, the time when we must deal decisively with looming national and global environmental crises. And as each decade passes, we postpone the deadline another 10 years. With the failure of the Copenhagen conference on climate change last year, the 2010s are now the critical decade of action.
Six-point plan to avert a global water crisis
The impending global water crisis can be averted if nations rethink how they use their water resources. This is the main message of the book Out of Water: From abundance to scarcity and how to solve the world’s water problems, published by FT Press.
Labor’s war on locusts
‘The scourge I’m referring to will come in the form of DPI spray planes and helicopters, which are set to dump deadly pesticides over vast areas of our state, as part of Brumby’s $43.5 million “War On Locusts”.’
‘This terribly misguided campaign will pose a significant risk to human health, and will be devastating for the environment.’
Oil: what will it take?
What will it really take for us to start moving away from an oil-dependent economy? This 17-minute talk by Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation Energy Policy Initiative was recorded in June. Continue Reading »
Swimming upstream like a tadpole
Gen Blades. 'Who knows where consciousness raising goes?'
By Andrew McKenna
‘It’s our own inner fragmentation that we see in polluted landscapes and corrupted environments. Before we can heal the earth we need to heal ourselves.’
Gen Blades has been in town for about four weeks after moving here from Bendigo, on a circuitous route via Tibet, northern India and Queensland. She works as an outdoor educator at Bendigo’s Outdoor and Environmental Education School, and came to her interview complete with backpack, weatherproof jacket and leggings, after walking to the Theatre Royal from her home out of town. The walk took her an hour and a quarter. Continue Reading »
Climate change lecture challenges deniers
Lies, damn lies and climate change deniers: What has caused recent global warming? a public lecture to be presented by Professor David Karoly.
Professor Karoly, from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, will discuss the two main conclusions from the 2007 fourth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For the full story go to CI’s Nature page
Resistance to poker machines takes off
By Andrew McKenna
Upwards of 80 people swelled a classroom at Winters Flat PS last night in the first public meeting in town for residents to express their dismay at and opposition to the proposed poker machine venue in Kennedy Street.
One you have to read: Gambling hurts, a true story
By Anonymous
Do people know what gambling can do to a life? Do people know how addictive pokies are? Do people think – ‘Well, it’s a harmless pastime, just take as much as you are prepared to lose and have some fun, you might win’?
Do some people think it is a hobby for ignorant people, and that very few become addicted?
If you enjoy spending an evening on the poker machines, it’s highly likely that in the long term, you won’t stop until you have lost everything. Not just money – but friends, house, family, health – everything.
There’s a whiff in the air from Chewton
By a Castlemaine resident
(Editor’s note: some readers may be tired of the Chewton Pool debate, but the issue is not going away and this piece proposes the theory that Council has cultivated the seeds of deep resentment, confrontation, economic discrimination, and community disaffection …)
There’s been something ‘whiffy’ about the Chewton Pool debate, which until I read the most recent Mayor’s message I hadn’t quite been able to put my finger on.
The Mayor’s message (20 August) suggests ‘fair and open processes’ – but omits facts that don’t suggest it happened, such as: the illusory debate in response to community question time at the determining council meeting. Continue Reading »
Yasur blows!
Here CI is letting the cat out of the bag again with our soft spot for volcanoes.
There was Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in Iceland, and then Tungurahua in Ecuador (and see the Nature page). Is it the way the earth moves, darling? Maybe it was because we read books by Willard Price as kids. Who knows?
Go to the Nature page for more pics.
Rocky Riders Castlemaine Six-Hour Enduro
Lachlan Norris takes a break from the Enduro
Six hours, sausage sizzles, mountain bikes, great fun and a great community event.
On Sunday around 300 men and women in lycra and cotton assembled outside Campbell’s Creek for the Rocky Riders Enduro. For the uninitiated – and it is a niche sport – it’s a nine kilometre course for mountain bike riders, through bush, over rocks and bushes, round tough corners and up and down unbelievable terrain.
Go to CI’s Sport page for the full story
Cultivating the way of the Sacred Earth
Sensitive Permaculture, by Alanna Moore
Book review by Linda Marold (lindamarold@yahoo.co.au)
Once again Alanna Moore has published a book that combines practical knowledge with a completely unselfconscious spirituality. Her seamless combination of these two elements make her book unique in an area that is largely dominated by the strictly secular. Continue Reading »
