And not so good news.
Birthday week.
Rod.
Happy Birthday.
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Flying fox.
Usually there are a couple who live here all year, I hear them chattering to each other some nights. Now I must try and record.
5 minutes of rain, now I have to sweat it out.
A tribute. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/andrew-mcgahan-queensland-author-of-praise-and-the-white-earth-dies-aged-52
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A comment I wrote a year ago.
This comment I wrote in the Guardian a year ago was posted back to me today, with compliments, by a Green group in the USA.
24 Recommend
Caring for our wild-life and nature is beyond most Australians. Our cities sprawl, our houses are too big, modern media is full of ads urging us to buy more rubbish or renovate every couple of years. Our cooking shows are all about imported and local produce which all seem to be about gluttony.
Most people who do want to do something think applying a poison to an ‘invasive’ species on our flora is the cure.
Few have bothered to look at how many birds ect have adapted to our changing environment which gathered pace as soon as Europeans set foot on this land.
We work methodically here with a brush hook and machete slashing and mulching lantana. Slowly, because we witness what we see and gradually so adaptation for the creature who uses the so called invasive can relocate. Getting the right worker is the problem. Physical activity is more likely to be watched on a screen or played out in a gym.
I see how our efforts here over 20 years have brought more birds, more wallabies, more snakes, lizards ect to occupy this end of the valley.
When the introduced Coral trees were poisoned down our valleys I watch many more honey eaters, lorikeets flock into my remaining Coral trees for the winter flowering.
Now the camphor is being targeted with glyphosate poisoning despite the camphor now being a major source of food and habitat for many birds, butterflies and insects. Video footage of koalas feasting on the camphor leaves proves adaptation means survival.
Short sighedness, easy short term feel good approaches and funds, which favour herbicide use, is a major contributor to our environments rapid decline.
I recommend Fred Pearce’s THE NEW WILD where he documents the niches and evolution introduced plants are playing in the niches human activity has provided.
And it can be done as we witness here but it will depend on real on the ground physical labour as it was done when the first red cedar worker came and removed all the hard wood a century ago.
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How out of touch we are.
Photographs taken by Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick of cotton farms on the Moonie River in southern Queensland. The South Australian royal commission into the Murray Darling Basin plan is expected to deliver a scathing assessment of the plan that was meant to save the river system from ecological disaster. Photograph: Rex Patrick
These photos were taken by the Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick from a light plane over southern Queensland near Goondiwindi, on Wednesday.
They show rivers such as the Condamine relatively full, and storages on cotton farms holding thousands of megalitres of water.
Yet three hours away in north-west New South Wales, the Barwon and Darling rivers are a series of muddy pools.
Darling River crisis: the farms without safe drinking or washing water
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Fish are dying in their hundreds of thousands at Menindee and people living in towns and on properties along the Barwon-Darling are battling to secure water fit to drink, bath in and feed their stock.
https://civileats.com/2019/01/30/a-green-new-deal-must-include-food-and-farming/
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From PAN.
https://civileats.com/2019/01/28/australia-might-have-the-answer-to-herbicide-resistant-superweeds/
Councils say lack of funding and rock-bottom recycling prices is hampering efforts to build better infrastructure and reinvigorate dying market.
‘You can only recycle something or a product if there is a market for it. If there is no market for it, then of course you have to send it to landfill.’ Photograph: Carly Earl for the Guardian
Recycling is being stockpiled and council authorities fear it will soon head to landfill, as Australia’s recycling crisis continues to take its toll on the industry.
More than a year after China refused to accept 99% of the world’s recycling, halting the export of more than one million tonnes of Australian waste each year, the heads of local government warn the recycling market is still in trouble.
Waste crisis: where’s your recycling going now?
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On 1 January 2018, China’s National Sword policy forced Australia to rethink its decade-long reliance on exporting thousands of tonnes of plastic, paper and cardboard.
While the obvious solution would be to better develop the domestic recycling industry, councils say a lack of funding, coupled with rock-bottom recycling prices, is hampering efforts to build better infrastructure and reinvigorate a dying market.
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Sun.
A third fish kill has occurred near Menindee on the Darling River overnight after temperatures plummeted following days of hot weather.
The latest fish kill follows an incident on 6 and 7 January in which hundreds of thousands of native fish, including Murray cod, golden perch and bony bream died around the Menindee weir.
There was also another mass kill before Christmas.
“This is likely worse than the last time,” said local Graeme McCrabb, who on Monday morning was down at the water’s edge at the back of the township, above Weir 32.
Murray-Darling fish kill: extreme weather and low river flow led to drop in oxygen levels
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“I’ve just picked up a 50cm golden perch, and there are tens of thousands of little bony bream, dead.
“There are fish all around me just gasping for breath,” he said.
McCrabb said he had not spotted any Murray cod, which can grow to a metre and be up to 40 or 50 years old. But he said that during the previous fish kill the Murray cod had been the last to surface.
The Byron Environment Centre is holding it’s chemical-free bush regen and boardwalk maintenance next Wednesday 30th January from 9.30 to 12.30 at the Cumbebin Wetland Sanctuary (next to the toilet block of the Byron Market site) weather permitting.
We will be removing weeds from around native plants along the most NE side, up the hill and down into the shaded areas. We will also be replacing decking as required. Cool drinks provided.
Please wear sturdy shoes and protective clothing from sun and mosquitoes. See map attached.
Hope to see you there – come anytime even for an hour or two.
Let Sharon (securry@outlook.com) know if you can come and please pass the word around.
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