HOW much can a koala bear?

Not much more, says Ray Chambers, who is desperately trying to save the habitat of what is thought to be Caloundra’s last koala.

The male koala has been living on a two-hectare block which backs on to Caloundra Road for about six months.

He has become a favourite with locals, who often see and hear the furry fella.

But if Mr Chambers, co-ordinator of Sunshine Coast Koala Rescue, is right, the koala’s days in paradise may be numbered.

Tell-tale pink ribbons and spray paint on trees indicate the land is set for subdivision, meaning Caloundra’s last koala will be left homeless.

“As far as I knew Caloundra didn’t have any koalas left, so the discovery of this little guy was really exciting,” Mr Chambers said.

“The land has been marked out for about three weeks and, as soon as we heard about it, we got on to the council.

“Caloundra used to have a large koala population, but development has killed them off.

“If this koala is our last furry friend in Caloundra I’ll be doing my darndest to save him.”

The land, which was owned by the Salvation Army, is believed to have been sold to a developer.

Just who, however, remains a mystery.

Mr Chambers said he contacted Sunshine Coast councillor Keryn Jones, who chairs the environmental portfolio, in relation to the matter, which she promised to investigate.

Ms Jones, however, failed to return the Daily’s calls regarding possible action being taken to protect the koala and the land.

“I’m scared the developer is just going to go in and rip down the trees. It’s happened in the past and, with Caloundra’s lax tree-clearing laws, it could happen again,” Mr Chambers said.

“There’s no deterrence to stop a developer destroying the habitat, and action needs to be taken before it’s too late and the koala is left homeless, or worse, dead.”

Two proposed state government planning instruments, to be introduced, aim to increase the protection provided to koalas and their habitats – a State Planning Regulatory Provision (SPRP) and a State Planning Policy (SPP).

Both are to be made under the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 (SPA).

An SPRP is a planning tool which, in the case of any inconsistencies, prevails over any other planning instrument, such as a local government planning scheme.

It sets out requirements local governments and others must use to assess development applications to minimise the impact of new development on koalas.

The draft South East Queensland Koala Conservation State Planning Regulatory Provisions have been released for public comment only and do not yet have regulatory effect.

Mr Chambers said he feared the planning tools could be too little, too late.

Anne-Louise Brown | 2nd January 2010

Source:  http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/01/02/rescue-bid-for-citys-last-koala-as-developers-move/ ]]> http://www.saveeumundi.org/2010/01/rescue-bid-for-citys-last-koala/feed/ http://www.saveeumundi.org/2010/01/consultation-just-a-propaganda-exercise/ http://www.saveeumundi.org/2010/01/consultation-just-a-propaganda-exercise/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:10:33 +0000 Save Eumundi Team http://www.saveeumundi.org/?p=1300 Listen to the recording of Jack Connolly being interviewed by Diet Simon on the EIS and “consultation” on Noosa Community Radio.

From the Noosa Community radio website:

Powerlink the electricity lines builder owned by the bullying Queensland government, has dropped a nasty pre-Christmas present into the laps of the people resisting plans for a 275,000-volt line from close to Gympie to just outside Eumundi. It would run through the picturesque Eerwah Vale, where nature is still pretty pristine; many of its residents have moved into idyllic homesteads for a change of lifestyle. Koala habitat would be destroyed. In their usual steamroller fashion, the seemingly unaccountable Powerlink have left impacted people in the dark, although one rumour has it that building is due to start in January. Diet Simon talked to Jack Connolly, president of PAGE, Powerlines Action Group Eumundi.

Read the article below by Isobel Coleman that appeared in the Noosa Journal on 31 December 2009.

Read more in the attached Noosa News article that appeared on 29 December 2009.

Koala Habitat is Threatened - Glen Elmes

The AKF’s CEO Deborah Tabart said last week she would attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month to highlight declining koala habitat and numbers.

She said she would spend two weeks at Copenhagen telling international media and non-government organisations about the need to preserve existing forests, for the sake of both the environment and koalas.

Ms Tabart said the AKF had formed a partnership with the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) Academy to raise in other countries, the koala’s profile and plight here.

Australian actor and APSA patron, Jack Thompson, announced the partnership at the third annual awards at the Gold Coast last week.

Winner of the Best Actor award, Japan’s Masahiro Motoki, was photographed with a koala and said he would take the message about No Tree, No Me and the Foster-a-Koala programs back to Japan.

Each year, newly inducted academy members will become custodians of their own ‘‘foster koala’’.

A giant Ecualyptus tree named Propinqua at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, with a girth of 2.7 metres, was ‘‘pledged’’ as a reminder of the role trees have in protecting the environment and in providing koalas with food and shelter.

Ms Tabart said the tree stored about 289 tonnes of carbon in its trunk and to replace the carbon if the tree were cut down would require 579,000 saplings and 58 hectares of land.

“Research has shown that Eucalypt forests are some of the most valuable carbon sinks in the world,” Ms Tabart said.

“Without these trees, there will be no koalas. Australia could lead the way in the international fight against climate change by making a commitment to protecting the koala and its habitat.

“Instead, our political leaders remain stuck in a robber baron mentality, actively pursuing activities which increase Australia’s carbon emissions, whilst ignoring the benefits of protecting existing forests.”

Source:  Brisbane Times and The Sun-Herald

Hear what Peter Garrett, Federal Environment Minister, is doing about listing the Koala as an endangered species.  Also interviewed is Deborah Tabart from the Australian Koala Foundation.

Or use this link Koala Under Threat - 7pm Project - The Koala Coverage starts at around the 6 minute mark.

Peter Garrett can be contacted as follows:

T: 02 6277 7640   F: 02 6273 6101

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts

PO Box 6022

Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

To send an email, go to www.aph.gov.au/P_Garrett_MP/ then click ‘contact form’.

September 24, 2009: A Current Affair reveals what dangers overhead powerlines are really inflicting on nearby residents, and show you the affects in our high voltage experiment.

Click on the image to be taken thorugh to the video shown last night on Channel 9’s A Current Affair.

Source:  Channel 9’s - A Current Affair (24 September 2009)

http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/

This is an opportunity to publicly raise the plight of our native flora and fauna largely due to habitat destruction from rampant development.

Please contact us for further information and for bookings on the Rally bus.

Your conservation efforts are really appreciated and joining together in this action would send a strong message from the Sunshine Coast about how much the natural environment is valued.

Many thanks & regards
Sunshine Coast Environment Council
3 Porters Lane, Nambour QLD 4560. PO Box 269
Ph: 07 5441 5747 Fax: 07 5441 7478
Email: info@scec.org.au Website: www.scec.org.au

Despite high levels of wealth and education, the nation’s heavy-polluting coal-fired electricity, its energy-intensive exports like aluminium and its high levels of car ownership make it one of the developed countries least able to generate prosperity in a future marked by drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

The report, commissioned by the Climate Institute and the European environmental group E3G, compared the performance of the Group of 20 countries, including Australia, the US, China and India, as their leaders prepared to meet in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this month.

Climate change and clean energy investment will be high on the agenda at the G20 meeting, on September 24-25. G20 economies account for almost 70 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

The report, G20 Low Carbon Competitiveness, placed Australia as the ”lowest ranked” major industrialised country in terms of its ability to generate material prosperity for its people in a world that limits greenhouse gas emissions. China, Russia and Turkey outranked Australia.

The only G20 countries to sit below Australia were Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

France topped the list of nations able to compete in a clean energy world. The report found that while the French and Australian economies are broadly similar in size, France gets three times as much gross domestic product for each tonne of its carbon emissions as Australia.

”I didn’t think we would be as far behind as this,” said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute. ”Many of our trading partners are moving faster than us, and we risk missing opportunities for investment, jobs and profits in emerging clean-energy industries”.

Yesterday protesters converged on Australia’s most heavily polluting coal-fired power plant, Hazelwood, in the La Trobe Valley, calling for it to be shut down and replaced with renewable energy.

A heavy police contingent moved in when demonstrators began to scale the fence around the plant to present a ”community decommission order” to its owners, the British company International Power.

A spokeswoman for the protest, Louise Morris, said police arrested 22 people, including doctors, teachers and scientists, and charged them with trespass.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will attend the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, at which leaders will also discuss the Copenhagen climate negotiations and the fallout from the financial crisis.

Next week Mr Rudd will attend a summit of world leaders in New York hosted by the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, aimed at revitalising the global climate negotiations.

The New York summit will be the first opportunity for the US President, Barack Obama, to make a big pitch on climate change. He is expected to urge developed and developing countries to invest in clean energy. He is also expected to press the US Senate to pass a clean energy bill by the end of the year that aims to limit US greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, his special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, told Congress the effort to reach a new climate agreement in Copenhagen was about the development of clean energy, too.

”Countries that would cling to the old developing world adage that development must precede the environment make a fundamental error,” he said. ”In the world we inhabit now, the only sustainable development is low-carbon development.”

Source:  MARIAN WILKINSON - http://www.smh.com.au/