Wallabies and other macropods face an uncertain future as habitat is cleared. Image greghardwick.com.au

I wish that we could blame the decline of our Australian native species on one major influence such as climate change, but unfortunately that is not the only problem facing our wildlife.

Human impact, in many forms, have been the direct culprit from the moment humans stepped onto this beautiful country.  As the population has increased over the years, so has the devastation and pollution.

Constantly we are bombarded with the fact that habitat destruction is leading to the depletion of wildlife numbers.  Well, it would be imagined that by this time we would have actually done something, instead of just talking.

While Queensland mumbled on about changing legislation regarding clearing practices some years ago, property owners cleared their land ‘just in case’.

On a recent visit to North Queensland, I remembered the impact this proposed legislation had on the tree kangaroo populations up in the Tableland areas.

Wildlife carers see few of these unique animals now.  They became victims of cars and domestic pets as their habitat was cleared at an incredible pace for no purpose other than ‘we might need it cleared sometime in the future’.

Plastic rings at the top of these bottles are often found around birds’ necks.

In our south-eastern area of Queensland we saw the closing of the sugar mill in Nambour, which led to the demise of the cane-growing industry. The Government excelled itself by subsidising fencing so that cattle could be run on this land.

What a pity they didn’t have the sense to stipulate the type of fencing.  Once again, wildlife were given no consideration.  While many property owners are replacing their barbed wire with wildlife friendly fencing, others have been subsidised to install fencing which causes the  slow agonising death of gliders, birds, bats and macropods.

In our normal day-to-day existence, household rubbish holds many items detrimental to our wildlife. Plastic bags are not the only culprit.  Though everyone tries to recycle their plastic bottles, many are unaware of the dangers even when these bottles are properly recycled.  I have seen horrific images of what happens when the plastic rings at the top of these bottles are found around birds’ necks or turtles shells.  As the animal grows these rings do not disintegrate or break.

Hopefully, one day we will see these manufactured so that the rings break when the bottles are opened.  Until then, it is up to us to cut these plastic rings to prevent injuries to our animals.

Last but not least, the safety of all our Australian native wildlife depends on domestic animals being controlled. Another hope for the future is that laws on domestic pets will be updated and enforced.

The future of our wildlife depends on us as responsible human beings.

Several hundred canoeists and supporters turned out to show their energy for battle was undiminished. Image Arkin Mackay stoppress.com.au

Three years to the day since Peter Beattie’s shock announcement of plans to build the dam, several hundred canoeists and supporters turned out to a “floatilla” to show their energy for battle was undiminished. Paddlers were shown lungfish breeding sites and turtle nesting beaches before taking part in ceremony, celebrations, speeches and entertainment.

“Today we’re celebrating the resilience of our community and the wider community,” said Save the Mary River Coordinating Group President Glenda Pickersgill.

“We’re celebrating that we have dug our heels in and mounted a very strong case against damming this river.”

“Peter Beattie may have called it ‘hardly pristine’, Anna Bligh may say it’s been damaged by farming, but the real test has to be what lives in there now and with a number of unique species, this is pretty impressive. International turtle experts are even coming to regard the Mary River as ‘ the turtle river’.

The truth is that the dam presently proposed is much smaller than Peter Beattie originally envisaged. When it became apparent that it would require federal EPBC (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) approval, the proposal was split into two stages. This means that the yield of the proposed Stage 1 is less than a third of the original proposal while the costs have more than doubled.

“This is why Premier Bligh was so keen not to make mention of the dam at her recent election launch.  The irony is that as soon as she was elected, she claimed a mandate to build it. Many in Brisbane remember her ‘delay’ announcement and think it’s on hold,” Ms Pickersgill said.

This was the third “floatilla” on the river, and was the biggest yet. After the first, in 2006, Greens Senator Bob Brown told opponents to be prepared for a long battle. When he visited the area in 2007, Roberto Epple of the European Rivers Network said to expect maybe a seven-year battle. From the looks of it, both pieces of advice have been well-heeded.

Dam opponents recently heard of a ‘milestone’ legal challenge to the Paradise Dam fishway which will be heard in the Federal Court in September. The case, mounted by the Wide Bay Burnett Conservation Council and a coalition of Environment groups is significant as the Paradise fishway is intended as the model for use on Traveston Dam should it go ahead.

“We’ve already won this on the science,” says Glenda,  “and it’s defeating itself on the economics. Sometime soon the penny will drop for this government and they’ll realise they can’t cry poor to nurses and teachers and public servants wanting better, fairer, conditions while they pour more money into the black hole that is the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal.”

• World Environment Day Festival news
• Outrage over Sustainable Planning Bill
• Latest Group Profile – PAGE
• Eco Adventures – A tale of two mountains
• Carbon, climate and koalas
• Eco watch – clean coal
• Exploring the past – climbing Mount Coolum in 1927
• Whales and eco tourism
• Other articles
• How to contribute
• The latest print edition
• Past print edition downloads
• Help promote Eco online

For our Queensland readers: Catch up on all the latest news on the Sunshine Coast’s World Environment Day Festival.

Outrage over Sustainable Planning Bill

“Major amendments to the Integrated Planning Act 1997, carrying implications for local planning powers and the critical assessment of applications, have become yet another hallmark of the Bligh Government’s mantra of growth at all costs.

Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchliffe said the Sustainable Planning Bill 2009, approved by Cabinet on June 9, will result in the biggest reform to planning approvals in over a decade.” Sunshine Coast Environment Council Manager, Narelle McCarthy reports. Read the full story.

Group profile

PAGE – the useful acronym doubling for the Powerline Action Group Eumundi and People Advocating Green Energy – was formed in 2007 in response to a proposal which threatens the communities west of Eumundi with high voltage powerlines and pylons marching across an idyllic landscape. Read all about their struggle to protect their local environment.

Eco adventures

Mount Coolum and Mount Ninderry are two very striking peaks visible from many parts of the Sunshine Coast, close to each other – only 10 kilometres as the crow flies – but very different in character and offering very different experiences for the eco adventurer. Read more about John Burrows’ latest adventure.

Carbon, climate and koalas

Recent findings by the Australian National University show that the Eucalypt forests of Australia are some of the richest carbon sinks in the world. The greater the size and density of these koala food trees and the forests they are found in, the greater the carbon sink and the more carbon dioxide that is absorbed. Read the full article by Sophia Walter.

Eco watch

Federal Environment and Climate Change Ministers jointly announced that there was less than 8 hours to submit solar rebate applications before they were stopped 3 weeks before schedule. Environment Minister, Peter Garrett is now clearly in the running as the most disappointing and underachieving environment minister in recent years. Guest writer Lindsay Holt reports.

Exploring the past

Climbing Mount Coolum in 1927. In this breezy account of a clamber up Mount Coolum, Vance Palmer, one of Australia’s most significant writers of the time shares his experience. The story is selected by Dr Deborah Jordan, and is taken from a newspaper cutting held in the Palmer Papers.

Whales and eco tourism

Sunshine Coast Environment Council President, Dr Valerie Lewis takes a look at the growing tourism industry built around whales.

Other articles …

Other articles are available to read online,with more being added in the coming weeks. Read the latest stories from our wildlife carers, green loans and more.

Contribute

If you would like to contribute a story, an image, or a story idea, then feel free to contact us. Contributor’s guidelines are available online.

The latest print edition

The mid-winter print edition, Eco news Issue 12, is now out on the streets. For our readers living outside the distribution area, the digital version will be available for download in July.

Past print edition archives

We are constantly adding more print edition archives for download.

Available for download now are: Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3 and Issue 11. Visit our Past Print Editions page for details and download links. If you have any problems with downloads please let us know.

Help promote Eco online

Have your own website or blog? Perhaps you would like to promote Eco online? We have now provided some graphics for you to download and use on your site.

The latest community group to become a member of SCEC, PAGE is fighting to protect community members and at the same time playing an active role in reducing carbon emissions on the Sunshine Coast.

PAGE – the useful acronym doubling for the Powerline Action Group Eumundi and People Advocating Green Energy – was formed in 2007 in response to a proposal which threatens the communities west of Eumundi with high voltage powerlines and pylons marching across an idyllic landscape.

What to expect - transmission towers, power lines and their easement cut a swathe through Beerburrum State Forest. Photograph: John Burrows

The proposal comes from Powerlink, the government agency responsible for Queensland’s power transmission network, and involves power lines connecting a present substation at Woolooga, up past Gympie, with a new substation close to Eumundi.

It’s all part of a larger scheme to extend new transmission lines on wide easements the length of the Sunshine Coast. Exact details aren’t readily available, but it’s clear that the scheme will lock the Coast into a carbon dependent future.

Most of the new line from Woolooga is planned to run alongside an existing easement, but it’s the final nine kilometres, running through Eerwah Vale, which will have a profound effect on community and environment.

PAGE has been fighting the proposal from the outset. They make the compelling point that it’s just another large-scale old-world engineering solution to current climate change challenges and argue strongly for alternatives.

Demand management could see power use by many businesses and households reduced by up to 30 per cent. During Brisbane’s water crisis, a public awareness campaign plus regulation resulted in water use being cut dramatically – up to 54 per cent in 18 months. Why not try the same approach with power?

Powerlink also seems to disregard renewable energy. PAGE promoted a plan by Sanctuary Energy Ltd to provide power on the Sunshine Coast using solar thermal generators, a plan which our Transmission Network Service Provider casually dismissed.

PAGE also supports SCEC’s 1000 Solar Roofs Project, a successful community initiative to provide solar panels to roofs on the Sunshine Coast – there are over 800 households signed up at the time of writing, demonstrating the huge potential for renewable energy.

Recognising that political support is vital, PAGE has met with the Minister for Mines & Energy and the Opposition. They also organised a State Election candidate’s forum, held at Eumundi which was very well attended. There was support from the former Noosa Council, and PAGE is planning a presentation to the Sunshine Coast Regional Council for its backing.

PAGE has an informative website, and has held community meetings and information days. Affected residents had the benefit of workshops to help them respond to documents required under the community consultation process – the draft Terms of Reference and recently the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The draft EIS was 1900 pages long and widely seen as being too complex, not to mention daunting in size, for most people to digest.

Community members got together with an environmental scientist and other specialists to respond to the draft EIS, and produced a comprehensive and hard hitting document, concluding that the assessment and the assessment process were fundamentally flawed.

“The draft EIS can be characterised as misleading, incorrect, inadequate and lacking in critical detail,” said PAGE coordinator Graham Smith.

“It clearly lacks any independence in its analysis, conclusions or recommendations.

“Unfortunately, this is consistent with the woeful consultation and poorly detailed studies undertaken by Powerlink and their paid consultants.”

In their response to the draft EIS, PAGE emphasised their desire to one day make clean, sustainable energies a reality in the power profile of the Sunshine Coast and Queensland.

Along with many other crucial issues, the assessment of environmental impacts was seen as totally inadequate.

The Richmond Birdwing Butterfly - a local colony faces extinction if Powerlink has its way. Photograph by Jennifer Broomhall

A case in point — the beautiful but endangered Richmond Birdwing Butterfly has only a few small pockets of suitable habitat remaining, and the most northern of these, right in the path of the proposed powerlines, could be compromised if Powerlink gets its way.

Koalas too are set to suffer – a loss of 20 hectares of koala habitat at a time when their numbers in SEQ are plummeting.

Both of these species have special interest for photographer Jennifer Broomhall and husband Fred who live on a property which will be affected if the powerlines come through.

Registered under the Land for Wildlife programme – along with 21 other properties which will be affected – the Broomhall’s block straddles a ridge which is a watershed for the Mary and Maroochy River catchments. There is high plant diversity with areas of riparian rain forest and remnant vine forest.

Koalas are seen (or heard) frequently, thanks in part to koala food trees planted since the couple moved there 32 years ago.

The Richmond Birdwing Butterfly occurs there as well, and like the koalas is much photographed. It only has one food source – the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly vine. There’s a fine specimen of the vine on the next door block, unfortunately right in the path of Powerlink’s easement.

The draft EIS recommends that this vine be translocated, even though scientific opinion is adamant that it doesn’t survive replanting. So the local population of the butterfly is doomed if the Powerlink proposal goes ahead.

PAGE has found many deficiencies like this in the draft EIS. With the final EIS due by the end of this year, the group plans to continue campaigning and gaining community support, and intends to lobby the Minister for Mines & Energy highlighting the many inadequacies in the process.

In most cases, dam opposition has invaded every aspect of life in the Mary Valley - this poignant black bean pod boat is an entry in the Moy Pocket Brown Water Classic. Image: Arkin Mackay stoppress.com.au

Since 1988 the Brownwater Classic at Moy Pocket has lured both locals and those involved in the environment movement to a patch of riverine forest near Pickering Bridge on the Mary River.

It’s been a celebration of the river, in particular the blackbean tree, for it is the seed pods of this tree that provide the raw material for the tiny craft that enter the prestigious race. The Trophy, the Numabulla Cup (gold on plywood) is highly coveted.

In addition to the main race, there is a candle-lit evening event as well as a hotly contested rock-skipping contest.

This being the twentieth such event, the Commodore of the Moy Pocket Yacht Club is keen to invite past participants (as well as any who have consistently missed it) to this year’s memorable event on Saturday July 11 from 1pm.

Boats must be biodegradable and can be constructed on-site before the race which is scheduled for 3pm.  All boatbuilding material is provided. Barbecues and fires are also on hand but all food and drink requirements need to be brought along by participants, as well as chairs and warm clothing.

For enquiries contact the Commodore, Ian Mackay (07) 54460124 evenings.

(Pickering Bridge is three kilometres along Moy Pocket Road after it leaves the Kenilworth –Eumundi Road at Gheerulla Hall.  Gheerulla Hall is about 24 kilometres from Eumundi, or eight kilometres from Kenilworth.)

They’re closely connected in the Dreamtime tale of the Gubbi Gubbi (Kabi Kabi) people. Both were rivals for the affection of Maroochy, a beautiful young woman. A fierce battle saw Coolum’s head knocked off into the ocean to become Mudjimba Island, Ninderry turned to rock, and Maroochy’s copious flow of tears forming the Maroochy River.

In geological parlance, they are remnants of past volcanic activity. They’re rough and rocky outcrops with near vertical sides and caution is needed if exploring close to their edges.

Looking south from the summit of Mt Coolum. Image John Burrows

Mt Coolum is the most accessible and the most popular. Many thousands take the reasonably easy climb to the top each year to enjoy a great vista – Cooloola National Park to the north, the Glasshouse Mountains to the south, Mt Ninderry and the Blackall Range to the west, and the vast infinity of the Pacific Ocean.

The mountain is 208 metres high, and only 1500 metres from the beach, and you probably won’t find such a high lookout so close to the ocean anywhere else in Queensland.

The starting point for the climb is in Tanah Street West, just off the David Low Way, five minutes walk from the bus stop. Sunbus has an excellent service – the 620 – which runs between Maroochydore and Noosa Heads every half hour.

A National Park information board mentions that Mt Coolum’s cliff edges provides habitat for the peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on earth. It can reach 200 kilometres per hour while diving on prey, and you may be lucky enough to witness this.

The track to the summit can be a little steep and rocky, but won’t present difficulties for anyone of average fitness and agility. It may be slippery if wet. Do observe warning signs where the track nears cliff edges. It’s about 800 metres to the top; allow two hours for the return trip.

There are some interesting rock formations as you ascend. Higher up there is montane heath, a rare vegetation type which occurs where the soil is too thin to support large shrubs and trees.

Then from the summit there are 360 degree views, just walk around a bit to find the best vantage points. The panorama includes extensive coastal development, especially to the south.

If things had worked out differently, the summit of Mt Coolum itself could have been afflicted in the same way. In 1986 the Maroochy Council wanted to allow a development involving a chair lift up the side of the mountain and restaurant, café, function room and other facilities at the top.

This was desecration in the eyes of local community groups, who nipped the proposal in the bud, then fought for Mt Coolum to be declared National Park, as it eventually was in 1990.

That important peregrine falcon habitat thus became protected, along with a host of botanical treasures. These include 40 per cent of all species of ferns in the world, as well as some plant species found nowhere else on the planet.

From Mt Coolum’s summit, there is a walking track down the western side, not as well maintained, but offering good views across cane fields to Mt Ninderry.

The western face of Mt Ninderry. Image John Burrows

Ninderry has a wilder character, and is more difficult to access. For the non-motoring minority, public transport can get you to Yandina, it’s then about an hour’s brisk walk to the trailhead.

From just east of where the Yandina-Coolum Road crosses the Maroochy River, turn up Collins Road to reach Ninderry Road, turn right and proceed for 2.2 kilometres until you reach Eucalyptus Crescent. There’s an unmarked concrete driveway on the right, which looks private, but leads up to a small car park and picnic shelter which is the start of the trail to Ninderry’s summit.

Now largely protected from development with Conservation Park status, the mountain is 304 metres heigh.  It’s not an arduous walk to the top, although rocky and steepish in places, it should take about half an hour.

You’ll walk through attractive eucalyptus woodland, but views are limited until reaching the summit. As with Mt Coolum, there are wonderful panoramas, but you’ll need to scout around to find viewpoints. Spectacular cliffs are on the southern and western sides of the mountain.  Be very careful if approaching the edges.

To the south there’s a great outlook over the Maroochy River snaking towards the ocean, and immense expanses of land once used for growing sugarcane, now mostly unused since the local sugar mill closed down. Mt Coolum dominates the eastern landscape, with the Pacific Ocean providing a fine back drop.

It’s good if you can climb both Mt Coolum and Mt Ninderry in quick succession, to better appreciate how each stands in relationship to the other.

Enjoy both – but keep in mind the fragility of our natural wonders, and be a minimal impact visitor.

Koala habitat just disappears off the map.

When CEO of the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) Deborah Tabart began her job in 1988, she never thought she would be engaging in the world of global warming. But new data is showing that the role of koalas in the climate change debate could be much more relevant than anyone had previously thought.

Recent findings by the Australian National University show that the Eucalypt forests of Australia are some of the richest carbon sinks in the world. The greater the size and density of these koala food trees and the forests they are found in, the greater the carbon sink and the more carbon dioxide that is absorbed.

In other words, saving koala habitat potentially means slowing global warming.

“Under the Kyoto Protocol, existing forests have no worth despite the fact that they are the most valuable carbon sinks in the world,” said Ms Tabart.

“Carbon trading basically means funds only flow to reforestation or afforestation, meanwhile in Australia, the most valuable trees are getting chopped down faster than ever. No wonder so many countries signed up to the Kyoto Protocol – they can continue to log their own forests with impunity.”

“Enormous amounts of carbon on the east coast of Australia should be protected to restore the natural balance of the planet, protecting koala habitat means saving the world’s biodiversity and slowing climate change,” said Ms Tabart.

The AKF’s world-renowned Koala Habitat Atlas identifies, maps and ranks koala habitat in order to inform and guide decision makers and planners about habitat conservation and sensitive land management.

This mapping system is used by both the New South Wales and Victorian governments as an accurate representation of koala habitat. The Queensland government however is yet to adopt the Koala Habitat Atlas, preferring to spend money on developing another mapping methodology.

The Queensland government’s methodology records koala sightings rather than habitat to create a dataset. AKF scientist Dr Douglas Kerlin sees this as an inaccurate formula that disguises the location of healthy habitats.

“Koalas are tree dwelling and occur over low densities, they are extremely difficult to observe,” Dr Kerlin said.

“Koala habitat just disappears off the map.”

Sunshine Coast Environment Council manager Narelle McCarthy has had reports of koala habitat simply disappearing off Government maps, even those identified using the new methodology, in Caloundra regions earmarked for development.

“Accurate mapping is not reflected in the Southeast Queensland Regional Plan which means it won’t trigger legislative protection when development moves into these vital koala areas,” Ms McCarthy said.

Ms Tabart is also concerned about the implications of assuming areas of habitat are devoid of koalas using the koala sightings methodology.

“When you declare koala habitat to be empty, you open the door for land clearing and development. For instance on the Sunshine Coast, good koala habitat that is now empty has no chance of protection under this mapping methodology. It is ridiculous,” Ms Tabart said.

“We have to ask: Why is the Queensland government creating a new methodology when a sophisticated, well-tested and far more accurate methodology is already on hand?”

“The Koala Habitat Atlas maps all biodiversity irrespective of land tenure. I think this scares the Queensland government and explains why they manipulate and create new methodologies intended to confuse and sanitise the land.”

The Sunshine Coast’s koalas are just the beginning of Ms Tabart’s concerns. If the new Queensland mapping methodology goes on to be adopted as the national mapping standard for the National Koala Conservation Strategy, she fears koala protection will be impossible.

“Habitats falsely deemed ‘empty’ and areas capable of recovery, will be ignored.”

The AKF is now calling on the Federal government to assign the Southeast Queensland Koala Coast koala population with ‘Critically Endangered’ status.

To join the Australian Koala Foundation’s new group, Koala Campaigners, and let your voice be heard on the issue of koala conservation, visit their website. Australian Koala Foundation.

If a clock can't keep accurate time, it is pointless describing how its cog wheels mesh together

As the Australia Institute rightly points out: “ If a clock can’t keep accurate time, it is pointless describing how its cog wheels mesh together”.

That’s their way of describing the complex structure created around the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) and its inability to measure the amount of renewable energy being produced around the country.

The former Howard government introduced the MRET, which requires electricity retailers to “ source a growing quantity of their electricity from renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and biomass”.

Under Rudd, the target for this ‘growing quantity’ is the nice round number of 20 per cent, by 2020. So, like any well-thought-out scheme, with a nice round-number target, you would think there is an even nicer system to measure just how much green power is being produced. Think again.

Enter Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). These tradable, almost imaginary permits, where one megawatt of power generated by a renewable source is worth one REC, form the basis of the MRET.

And, as the independent public policy research centre, The Australia Institute point out, RECs are administered through another body, called the Office of the Renewable Regulator (ORER), and based upon a wordy 137 pages of specific legislation with a further 56 pages dedicated to regulations. Yet the ORER website surprisingly fails to clearly show any increase in renewable energy generation.

“The ORER provides abundant data but there is no information on the actual electricity output from new renewables.”

The report also states: “ [The] MRET has been heralded as a success, yet data to evaluate that claim accurately do not exist. The ORER provides a mass of administrative data but it is not enough to learn that all the boxes are being ticked and all the regulatory requirements are being met.”

And it goes on to declare: “We need to know how much renewable energy is being produced….The implications for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), which will be an order of magnitude more complex than the MRET, are obvious.”

‘Obvious’, is an understatement. As the list of acronyms grow let’s just hope the government can get its complex clock to actually show the ‘time’. For it’s time we are running short on.

Our shared vision: To be Australia's most sustainable region - vibrant, green, diverse. Image:greghardwick.com.au

Major amendments to the Integrated Planning Act 1997, carrying implications for local planning powers and the critical assessment of applications, have become yet another hallmark of the Bligh Government’s mantra of growth at all costs.

Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchliffe said the Sustainable Planning Bill 2009, approved by Cabinet on June 9, will result in the biggest reform to planning approvals in over a decade.

“It will mean massive reductions in red tape and unnecessary delays which anyone in the building industry will tell you can result in significant extra costs,” Mr Hinchliffe said.

“At the end of the day, this is about creating more efficient processes for construction sites and as a result keeping Queenslanders in jobs.”

Mr Hinchliffe, who was previously research and policy manager with the state branch of the Property Council said developers accessing the more efficient and accountable system would also be able take advantage of the new legislation which will allow certain applications to be deemed to be approved if they are not decided within specified timeframes.

“Deemed approvals are a significant reform,” he said.

While detail of a proposed Bill is ordinarily confidential prior to going to cabinet, the Property Council of Australia was in a position to issue a media release giving unequivocal and glowing support within hours of Cabinet approval.

Brian Raison, the president of the Coolum district community group, Development Watch, expressed concern regarding the tenor of the media release.

“It appears to advantage the developer while making it more difficult for the community to have input into planning decisions”

Property Council Queensland Executive Director, Steve Greenwood was quick to identify the benefits for the vested interests of the industry and the economically unsustainable narrow focus.

“I can’t stress enough just how important the reform of Queensland’s planning and development assessment system is to jobs, the property industry and to the Queensland economy,” said Mr Greenwood.

“The big win for Queensland jobs and industry is the introduction of deemed approvals for development applications that fall victim to unnecessary red tape and delays.

“Deemed approvals will go a long way to ensure that valuable jobs and dollars are not lost whilst applications are ‘lost in transition’ behind agencies’ back counters,” he said.

This dangerous reversal from what was previously a ‘deemed refusal’ heralds the opportunity for sound determination of applications to be overridden by fast tracked timeframes offering inadequate information and planning detail.

While the development industry has long manifested its skewed criticism of local council planning assessment, it has failed to acknowledge that it is often the guilty party.  Major development applications have knowingly been lodged with skeletal information triggering the need for Council Development Assessment officers to issue an Information Request within just 10 days of the application being lodged. Under IPA, the applicant then had 12 months grace to supply the requested information and would often apply to have this period extended. Multiply this scenario by the innumerable applications being lodged in a given region, particularly the Sunshine Coast, and it becomes evident that IPA has biased  the developer in many instances.

These new amendments indicate that the necessary evaluation of applications that give rise to detailed ecological assessments, sustainability principles and subsequent recommendations, for example, may be circumvented altogether.

Developer advantage is therefore further bolstered with their desired outcome potentially overriding that of the community and what is reflected in the local planning scheme. In an effort to close this avenue, amendments in the new bill call for an overhaul of planning schemes to become a template scheme that facilitates these developer-favoured features.

Can the Minister guarantee that community rights and local government planning powers will not be further eroded under the dubiously named Sustainable Planning Bill 2009? Probably not. And the community will be rightly outraged.

There is a strong mandate by the community now reflected in the recently adopted Sunshine Coast Regional Council Corporate Plan.  The corporate plan is the core strategic document of the Council and identifies the priorities for the next five years and beyond. It guides Council’s decision-making, budget operations and resource allocations to achieve the vision: to be Australia’s most sustainable region – vibrant, green, diverse.

However, as the Sunshine Coast Regional Council endeavours to formulate its first planning scheme, these sweeping legislative reforms are set to seriously challenge and undermine the collective efforts of the local community and council.

Narelle McCarthy is the Manager of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council

Life on this planet has run from solar energy for eons

Even though we live in the ‘sunshine state’ and those of us in south-east Queensland have recently witnessed the impacts of leaking oil tankers, there are some that still doubt the ability of the big ball in the sky to supply clean, efficient and cheap energy. Even though those doubts make as much sense as the tightly spun marketing term, ‘clean coal’.

Below is an excerpt from Ken Hickson’s popular ABC Carbon Express (Issue 62:13 – 19 June 2009).

He interviews Ausra’s founder and chief scientific officer David Mills. Ausra designs, manufactures, installs, and operates solar thermal energy systems for customers around the world.

When people ask David Mills why he got into the solar field, he puts it this way:

“Energy is a huge problem for humankind, with an obvious solution that beams down on us every day.

The obviousness is so complete that it can be shared by many different personalities:

1. For the fastidious, solar is perfectly clean. No radiation waste dumps, oil tankers to pollute our coastlines, smog, or buried carbon dioxide ready to bubble up in an earthquake.
2. For the economists, if they can be persuaded to add total benefits properly, solar is cheaper.
3. For geeks, solar is high tech. The sun is an advanced fusion power system with the reactor at a safe distance. Think 10 square kilometre steam boilers, super sophisticated thin film PV, advanced computer control, high temperature materials science, and solar sailing space ships.
4. For power engineers, solar power with 15 hours of storage is a much better match to human activity than their beloved ‘base load’. A square less than 100 km on a side would power the US electricity sector and a future electrified vehicle sector with greater than a 95 per cent correlation between supply and demand. Ditto China and India, and of course Australia.
5. For ‘big number’ fetishists, solar is really huge. Caltech estimates that humans will only pull up a total — including all past mining — of 662 billion tons of coal out of the Earth. The thermal value of solar energy reaching the earth’s surface each year is 230 times larger than that. The sun also generates a smaller but still very large wind power resource.
6. For the insecure, solar makes us safer. No nuclear technology to divert to bombs. No energy wars over oil. No struggles for water rights (via access to solar desalination). No additions to climate change. Just make sure you wear a hat at the beach.
7. For the historians, life on this planet has run from solar energy for eons, and for futurists, solar is the key to ensuring that we and our biosphere have a satisfactory future relationship.”

Read more at the ABC Carbon website.