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WELCOME TO THE NEWS THAT RARELY MAKES THE NEWS!______________________________________________________ NEW REPORT SHOWS VICFORESTS INSOLVENT
VicForests righteously claims a net profit of $11.6 million over eight years. But it has also received gifts of $24.75 million - a net cost to the taxpayer of over $13 million. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/vicforests-cash-flow-under-fire-201306... ------- NATIONAL PARKS - NEXT ON THEIR LIST!Did you know – National Parks are set to be developed, mined, logged, grazed and shot in – the works! So one face to face meeting means you represent 1000 emailers! We need you urgently - to help fight off major land pillagers before 17th June. It’s painless to call and express how important this issue is – to insist the message is passed on or to even go and tell them in person. Help stymie the thrust of the rapacious National Parks ravagers from turning our parks into playgrounds for shooters, and profit boosters for the big end of town. Parks are sacred! Federal Labor can stop this vandalism. The pressure from us needs to be greater than the pressure they’re getting from these lobby groups. Then to contact the office of your Senator A receptionist or staff will answer. Please leave a strong message (but polite) or better still ask to see them before the 17th. Take along a few friends or family members. Keep it simple and honest. You don’t need to be an expert. You do need to be clear, genuine and passionate. It’s not important to have all the answers. It is important to ask the questions. Get personal and tell your Labor MP or Senator about how much you love our National Parks. The ask is: • National Parks are brought under the protection of the Act. In technical terms, this means inserting a "National Park trigger" so that any proposal for development or destructive activities in a national park "triggers" protection by the Federal Environment Minister. • Approval powers under the Act will always remain with the Federal Government and can never be handed over to State Governments. Without this second point, the first could be overturned by a future government. Please don’t leave this one to someone else to act on. Get some practice in. Your MP is only there because of their voters. You have power! Government burns outdo bushfiresThe bushfires of 2012-13 in Victoria covered around 130,000 ha. The government has just proudly announced they have now burnt 250,000 ha of forest this Autumn (May 2013)! As well they have pumped about 18.3 million tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere. So what does this mean? Besides this being one massive unscientific experiment based on politicians trying to placate nervous electorates, rather than effective asset protection, it has also: *This C02 figure is more than agriculture's but just under the transport sector’s annual figures (2007) and around what Victoria’s dirtiest power station, Hazelwood pumps out every year! ------ We’re suing the government again!
We have commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court (21/5/13) to sue the Department of Environment and Primary Industries for years of failure to protect Victoria’s threatened wildlife. We are alleging in Court that the State Government has violated the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act by not preparing protection plans called Action Statements for four threatened species: the Glossy Black Cockatoo, the Long-nosed Potoroo, the Eastern She-oak Skink and the Large Brown Tree Frog. These four struggling heroes represent the other 370 listed species that also have no legal protection despite them being extremely rare. There’s is a big difference between being listed as threatened and actually being protected. We proved that the govt. logging agency had failed to survey for and protect endangered forest wildlife for decades, when we won the last Supreme Court case in 2010. But we learnt that VicForests can survey and identify rare animals, but still destroy them, their homes and food. Although they’re in deep trouble, the govt has not written up plans to protect all listed wildlife. We have amazing animals that exist nowhere else on earth, but laws to protect them are violated daily by the government. The way the state government is applying the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act is instead guaranteeing their extinction. Environment East Gippsland, is being represented by the Environment Defenders Office. This case will cost us thousands of dollars and we are asking for any assistance you can offer. Tax deductible donations for 2012/13 can be made to EEG via GiveNow: http://www.givenow.com.au/environmenteastgippsland or hit the 'donate' button on the top left of this page. --------------- UPDATE on the Law to gift our public forests to private profiteers
On Tuesday (7.5.13) there was a presence all afternoon from 1-5pm on the steps of Parliament House. But the appalling new logging law Bill went through the upper house without amendment. It will now be sent to the lower house possibly in the week of 28 May. It will likely pass without any difficulty – unless someone crosses the floor. John Lenders (Labor) moved that it be referred to committee but the vote was split 18-18, so failed. He then tried to propose 3 amendments but each was defeated. Greg Barber (Greens) spoke strongly against it and asked questions that the Lib/Nats couldn’t answer. Lenders spoke up too. Greg thanked all the forest supporters who attended. He says it's rare to get such public interest and he really appreciates it. People who tried to get into the PUBLIC gallery were told only friends of Dr Napthine's could get in! The Greens sorted out security and about 40 supporters sat and heard the debate. Please keep promoting the petition (http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/defer-the-bill-that-would-lock-in-...) - we have almost 4000 signatures. Hitting double digits will help convince Geoff Shaw to cross the floor. If people are in Geoff Shaw’s electorate – we desperately need you to gather friends/family and go see him, write a letter or call him. This could be the only chance to stop this Bill going through. ----- ‘Infinity logging’ is the new law proposed by the Napthine Government.Please click here and send a message to the pollies ... http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/defer-the-bill-that-would-lock-in-... If passed the Bill will formalise a new ‘cut-out-and-get-out’ style of forest management in the short term as well as pay millions to the logging industry in the long term. The proposed Amendments to this law governing native forest logging will hand full powers to VicForests (the profit-driven semi government entity in charge of logging public forests) and it will expose the state of Victoria to payouts to the industry players of hundreds of millions. This change to the law mirrors closely what the logging lobby group, AFPA’s submission demanded.
The changes would: Environmental regulation of the native forest logging industry should be increased as VicForests has been found to be consistently over-logging, logging unlawfully, unaccountably and in the face of enormous and escalating community opposition. This proposed change of the law is a desperate attempt to maintain a dying industry that is losing its traditional markets for sawn hardwood timber and export woodchips. It hopes to encourage even more destructive industries to use forests as a feedstock for biomass burning for electricity and processing into fuel. (Timber Industry Action Plan. Dec 2011). Hence this ‘overkill Bill’ to entice prospective investors and industries that want wood as a raw material. ---- Alexander Downer joins Gina Rinehart in jamming their big feet in Gippsland's door!
Native forest-based bioenergy projects a climate risk: reportThere is significant risk in establishing native forest-based bioenergy projects to substitute for Australia’s ailing woodchip export trade, including adverse climate impacts, according to a new report by environment group Markets For Change. It says such a move would involve loss of carbon stores that would likely take decades or even centuries to recover. The report authors also suggest biomass extraction for bioenergy will be the same as woodchipping, an enabler and driver of continued native forest logging, and just as contentious. Woodchipping has underpinned the assault of industrial logging on Australia’s native forests, and it will be the same with plans to continue broad scale logging to feed the bulk of the felled trees into electricity or liquid biofuel production, said CEO of Markets For Change, Peg Putt. Besides destroying wildlife habitat it would also exacerbate global warming. This report scuttles the claim that native forest bioenergy projects would merely use waste, the research also revealing that they are risky developments dependent on public subsidies. Report available here: http://www.marketsforchange.org/biomassacre-logging-for-bioenergy/ Export Woodchip pile at bursting pointThe woodchip piles are just about at capacity at Eden. If the chipmill doesn't sell some woodchips soon they will have to stop chipping (and hopefully logging!) ---- BIOMASSACRE - Don't trash our forests for energyThe logging, woodchipping and energy industries are poised to unleash plans to use native forests to produce electricity, and to convert forests into liquid bio-fuels.
CYBER ACTIONwww.biomassacre.com has a cyber action that you can easily be part of. Sign the online action now to ask electricity retailers if they plan to boycott selling power that has been generated from burning native forests. More details at http://biomassacre.com/ Beyond HopeSet hope aside to become a better activist for the environment and social justice. ‘Hope’ is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless. When hope dies action begins. Derrick Jensen is the author of 'Endgame', published in June 2006. He wrote this amazing piece on 'hope' and how we should ditch it. Some quotes I especially like: "Because I’m in love. With salmon, with trees outside my window, with baby lampreys living in sandy stream bottoms, with slender salamanders crawling through the duff. And if you love, you act to defend your beloved. Of course results matter to you, but they don’t determine whether or not you make the effort. You don’t simply hope your beloved survives and thrives. You do what it takes. If my love doesn’t cause me to protect those I love, it’s not love". "You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died." "And when you quit relying on hope, and instead begin to protect the people, things, and places you love, you become very dangerous indeed to those in power." Read the full Orion Magazine article here. ------ This short video explains how forests and our climate are so closely connected. Forests are our greatest land based carbon stores, shade the earth, moderate our climate and provide clouds and rainfall. __________________________________________________________________  
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